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THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 From the Library 
 of the 
 
 Diocese of Springfield 
 Protestant Episcopal 
 Church 
 
 Presented 1917 
 
 Smv3J 
 
The person charging this material is re¬ 
 sponsible for its return to the library from 
 which it was withdrawn on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books 
 are reasons for disciplinary action and may 
 result in dismissal from the University. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
 OCT 6 
 
 1975 
 
 
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Lately published, in demy 8vo, price 10s. Gd., 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT 
 
 AS TAUGHT BY CHRIST HIMSELF; 
 
 OR, THE SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT EXEGETICALLY 
 
 EXPOUNDED AND CLASSIFIED. 
 
 By Bey. GEOBGE SMEATON, D.D, 
 
 Professor of Exegetical Theology, New College, Edinburgh. 
 
 ‘ We attach very great value to this seasonable and scholarly production. The idea of 
 the "work is most happy, and the execution of it worthy of the idea. On a scheme of 
 truly Baconian exegetical induction, he presents us with a complete view of the various 
 positions or propositions which a full and sound doctrine of the Atonement embraces.’— 
 British and Foreign Evangelical Review. 
 
 ‘ We welcome this work as an effort in a department of theology which is hardly yet 
 distinctly recognised in this country, though it has been for some time cultivated with 
 
 much vigour and success in the continental schools.The author’s undertaking is 
 
 a very lofty and bold one, and, looking at the work as a whole, it appears to us on many 
 accounts seasonable and fitted to do good. A work in defence of the Atonement was 
 surely needed, as nothing of the sort has appeared in this country for a considerable time, 
 during which much has been published on the opposite side. It is not the less suitable, 
 too, that the work should not be directly polemical but expository in its plan, being 
 more likely thus to commend itself to candid doubters or opponents, and giving a prac¬ 
 tical proof that the evangelical doctrine need not shrink from an appeal to the naked 
 word of God, on the strictest principles of interpretation.’— The Presbyterian. 
 
 ‘ We recommend it as forming a most useful introduction to the study of a deep and 
 mysterious doctrine, and likely to be profitable to the thoughtful and judicious reader. 
 Its matter is carefully digested, and its argument is well thought and clearly reasoned.’ 
 — Churchman. 
 
 ‘ Professor Smeaton shows himself master of his whole subject.We venture to 
 
 predict for this volume a lasting place among our standard works on theology.’— W eekly 
 Review. 
 
 ‘We heartily recommend this great and useful work to our readers. The arguments 
 are well sustained with great originality and force of logic, and the whole tone of the 
 work is that of the gospel.’— Rock. 
 
 ‘Professor Smeaton is singularly well qualified for the work he has chosen. He is 
 one of the few men we have in Scotland who have thoroughly availed themselves of the 
 
 results of recent research, and of the theological movements of modern times.It 
 
 is the work not only of a ripe, well-finished theologian, but of one who handles his sub¬ 
 ject with the skilful ease which nothing but long familiarity with his subject gives. He 
 passes from chapter to chapter with a certainty which tells of accurate knowledge and 
 wide information. .... We hail this volume, therefore, as a really valuable contribution 
 to theological literature.’— Daily Review. 
 
 ‘ The plan of the book is admirable. A monograph and exegesis of our Lord’s own 
 sayings on this greatest of subjects concerning Himself, must needs be valuable to all 
 theologians. And the execution is thorough and painstaking—exhaustive, as far as the 
 completeness of range over these sayings is concerned.’— Contemporary Review. 
 
 ‘ We have read this volume with absolute delight, because we have discovered every¬ 
 where the finest exegetical tact, combined with the truest theological instinct; a most 
 careful and enlarged acquaintance with the endless shades of sentiment regarding the 
 Atonement; a most precise and reliable statement of principles and facts connected with 
 the doctrine; and the most masterly and thorough refutation of erroneous theories.’— 
 Evangelical Witness. 
 
 ‘We place this excellent work in the first rank of recent contributions to Biblical 
 Exegesis.’— Christian Examiner. 
 
 ‘ In this large volume, Professor Smeaton has produced one of the most valuable works 
 that has come from the Scottish press in recent years. It is a commentary upon our 
 Lord’s teaching regarding the Atonement, and is remarkable for its deep spiritual insight 
 into the meaning of Scripture, for its fresh and independent thinking, as well as for its 
 
 vast and varied learning.We cordially recommend it as a contribution to the 
 
 exposition of Scripture, that the Christian student will prize in a very high degree.’— 
 Reformed Presbyterian Magazine. 
 
THE 
 
 • ' 
 
 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT, 
 
 TAUGHT BY THE APOSTLES: 
 
 OB, THE 
 
 SAYINGS OF THE APOSTLES EXEGETICALLY EXPOUNDED. 
 
 WITH HISTORICAL APPENDIX. 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. GEORGE SMEATON, D.D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY, NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET. 
 
 MDCCCLXX. 
 
“A keligion witli a sacrifice, and a religion without a sacrifice, differ in the 
 whole kind. The first respects the atonement of our past sins, and our daily 
 infirmities: it respects God as the judge and avenger of wickedness, as well 
 as the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. The other is a kind of 
 philosophical institution to train men up in the practice of piety and virtue. 
 A religion without a sacrifice is at most hut half as much as a religion with a 
 sacrifice ; and that half wherein they agree of a quite different nature from each 
 other. The practical part of religion is vastly altered by the belief or denial of 
 the sacrifice and expiation of Christ’s death. ”— /Sherlock’’s Vindication. 
 
 - “ si l’on ote de la religion Chretienne la croix de Jesus Christ, c’est a 
 
 dire la satisfaction pour nos peches par sa mort, l’assemblage de tous ses autres 
 enseignemens se dissout ; il n’y reste plus ni certitude de verite ni solidite de 
 consolation, de sorte que la propitiation de Jesus et l’expiation de nos offenses 
 par son sang sont comme la clef de la voute, sur laquelle toutes les autres pieces 
 s’ajustent et reposent.”— Amyeaut, Troisikme Sermon. 
 

 j Swi *5 JL 
 
 <r- 
 
 I ' IP 
 
 J 
 
 4 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 T HIS volume, delayed by other engagements much beyond 
 my anticipations, is the sequel of the volume which 
 appeared in 1868 on the sayings of Jesus in reference to the 
 atonement, and completes my undertaking ; the object of which 
 was to exhibit the entire New Testament teaching on the 
 nature and fruits of Christ’s death. I started with the con¬ 
 viction that we cannot attain a full view of the New Testament 
 doctrine on the subject, except in a biblico-historical way; and 
 have abstained from the artificial construction to which syste¬ 
 matic theology has recourse, as well as from merely subjective 
 combinations. The work is rather biblical than formally dog¬ 
 matic or polemical, and intended to embody positive truth 
 according to the setting in which the doctrine is placed in the 
 apostolic documents. 
 
 The doctrine of the atonement being a matter of pure 
 revelation, all our information as to its nature must be drawn 
 simply from the Scriptures; and the sole inquiry for us is, 
 in what, according to the Lord and His apostles, does the 
 historic fact of the atonement objectively consist, and what are 
 its constituent elements ? The object steadily kept in view 
 has been to determine what saith the Scripture—according to 
 rigid principles of grammatico-historical interpretation—with¬ 
 out dislocating or wresting, so far as I am aware, a single 
 expression from its true significance, and thus to run up 
 the matter to authority. Then only do w~e listen to the 
 word of God, and not to the speculations or wisdom of men. 
 Nor can I allow that, when we expound Scripture by the laws 
 
 601540 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 of language, and think over again apostolic thoughts expressed 
 in intelligible terms, we have, after all, hut our own individual 
 conception of Christianity. That modern evasion throws all 
 loose, and makes everything uncertain. To affirm that, after the 
 most diligent efforts to interpret Scripture, with a psychology 
 resting on Christian experience, we have hut our individual 
 conception of it, is either to call in question that inspired 
 book, or to make its statements, given forth in precise terms 
 according to the laws of language and the laws of thought, an 
 insoluble enigma. On the contrary, I hold that we can think 
 the very thoughts of Christ and His apostles. 
 
 The design of this work is mainly to demonstrate, in the 
 only way in which this is to be done, the pure biblical doctrine 
 of the atonement. But polemical references are by no means 
 withheld; that is, applications, necessarily brief, of ascertained 
 truth to germinant errors, especially to those subtle forms of 
 error which, in an evangelical guise, and not seldom with 
 exegetical appliances, tend wholly to subvert the elements of 
 substitution and penal visitation, which constitute the very 
 essence of the atonement. It is a remarkable fact that since 
 the Beformation no article has been so much impugned in 
 every variety of form. Till recently this was uniformly done 
 by a class of men who had forfeited all claim to be regarded 
 as either evangelical in sentiment or biblical in doctrine. 
 Within recent memory, however, a new phenomenon has pre¬ 
 sented itself to the attention of Christendom—a sort of spiritual 
 religion or mystic piety, whose watchword is, spiritual life, 
 divine love, and moral redemption, by a great teacher and ideal 
 man, and absolute forgiveness, as contrasted with everything 
 forensic. It is a Christianity without an atonement; avoiding, 
 whether consciously or unconsciously, the offence of the cross, 
 and bearing plain marks of the Bationalistic soil from which 
 it sprung; and it has found a wide response in every Protestant 
 land. 
 
 The work here presented to the public was suggested by 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 • • 
 Yll 
 
 % 
 
 this new phenomenon, especially by the somewhat bold attempt 
 which it has made to vindicate its claims by an exegetical 
 appeal to Scripture. I refer to attempts in this direction by 
 Menken, 1 Stier, 2 Klaiber, 3 and above all by Hofmann 4 of 
 Erlangen, who, in the use of a peculiar exegesis, have arrived 
 at results diametrically opposed to the views at which the 
 entire Christian church in the east and west arrived, during 
 eighteen centuries of her history. Schleiermacher, the great 
 champion and bulwark of this tendency, from reasons which 
 may be easily inferred, did not attempt to base these views on 
 exegetical investigation, but on Christian consciousness. This 
 phenomenon of a Christianity without an atonement, professedly 
 based on an exegetical foundation, seemed to call for such a 
 ■work as the present; and in the course of it I have thoroughly 
 investigated the teaching of the Lord and His apostles. Much 
 as I value the creeds of the church, I do not appeal to them ; 
 but to Scripture testimony strictly interpreted. 
 
 How was this object to be best accomplished ? Two modes 
 presented themselves, and between them a choice was to be 
 made—that of taking up in succession the passages as they 
 occur in the apostolic writings, and that of digesting them 
 under a variety of topics—chapters, divisions, and sections. 
 To avoid the repetitions which seemed certain to be entailed 
 upon me by discussing the passages as they lie (in situ ) in the 
 several books, and giving them such an amount of expansion 
 as would be necessary to make the expositions readable by the 
 Christian public as well as by erudite men, the second method 
 seemed absolutely necessary; and in point of fact I started 
 on that principle. But I soon found it necessary to alter my 
 method, for the following reasons. The quotations were neces¬ 
 sarily truncated and fragmentary. Different apostles must 
 contribute a portion of thought out of every variety of connec- 
 
 1 See Menken’s Schriften, 7 vols., 1858. 
 
 2 Stier, Andeut. fur glaubiges Schriftverst. zweite Sammlung, Leipz. 1828. 
 
 3 Klaiber, die N. T. Lelire von der Sunde und Erlosung, Stuttgart 1836. 
 
 4 Hofmann, der Schriftbeweis, second edition. 
 
Vlll 
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 tion, and it was impossible to refer to the occasion in wliicli 
 the words were originally used. The same passage or clause 
 which contributed one quota must be recalled for another ex¬ 
 pression or thought not always well adapted to the artificial 
 division for which it was assigned. Besides, it became all too 
 evident that this must inevitably prove a new form of dogmatic 
 theology; and instead of avoiding repetitions, would, though 
 in another way, make them tenfold greater. The other method, 
 I was satisfied, was the only one to be adopted. Nor was the 
 repetition so great as I anticipated ;* for every text, even when 
 there did arise a certain sameness, had so much peculiar to 
 itself as to give it a freshness of its own. 
 
 I have appended in the notes a few references to the 
 numerous works which I have perused on this great theme, 
 and a historical outline at the end. No one has hitherto 
 traversed the whole field in this way, though numerous speci¬ 
 men-texts are discussed in dogmatic compends, polemical 
 treatises, biblical dogmatics, outlines of Pauline, Petrine, and 
 Johannine theology, not to mention commentaries; and in all 
 these not much of value has escaped my notice. 
 
 I have only to add, that personally it has been to me the 
 source of the greatest pleasure to pursue these investigations, 
 the result of which is now given to others. To Him whose 
 atoning death I have laboured to expound from His unerring 
 word, I commit the work now finished. May He be pleased 
 to accept the offering, and use it for the glory of His name. 
 
 GEOEGE SMEATON. 
 
 Edinburgh, Oct. 1870. 
 
 1 On this point I may say with Athanasius: iviihv yap -rzp) tvs zvhox'ius too 
 Biov XaXov/azv, 1)1 a tovto rov avTov vovv 'Zia wXuovav Ip/avvzvopuv, pt-v apa n TapaXipinavuv 
 ^o^upuv, xa) tyxXvpta, ytvvreci us ivZzus zlpvxotri. Kal yccp (ZsXtiov TuvToXoy'tas pdpc,-^/iv 
 uTotrrvtrai, v <prapaXi7^ai n ruv ixpuXovTuv ypaQvvat. (Atliail. dc Inccimcitione , C. 
 20 .) 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 -♦- 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Preparation of the Apostles, and the Circle of their 
 
 Testimony, ........ 1 
 
 SECTION i. 
 
 The Apostles’ Teaching on the Atonement based on that of the Lord 
 
 J esns, ........1 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 General View of the Apostles’ Testimony to the Atonement, . . 9 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 The Apostles’ Exposition of the Sacrifices and Temple Services, as Sym¬ 
 bolical and Typical, . . . . . .25 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 The Apostles’ References to Prophecy on the Subject of the Atonement, 53 
 
 section v. 
 
 The Testimony to the Atonement in the Acts of the Apostles, . . 82 
 
 section vi. 
 
 The Apostolic Epistles, ... . . . .100 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Testimony to the Atonement in the Pauline Epistles, . 106 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 
 The Epistles of Paid on the Righteousness of God, 
 
 106 
 
X 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SECTION Till. 
 
 The Reconciliation set forth in the Pauline Epistles, 
 
 SECTION IX. 
 
 The Testimony in the Epistle to the Romans, 
 
 section x. 
 
 The Testimony in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, . 
 
 SECTION XI. 
 
 The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, . 
 
 SECTION XII. 
 
 The Epistle to the Galatians, .... 
 
 ,'section xiii. 
 
 The Epistle to the Ephesians, .... 
 
 SECTION XIY. 
 
 The Epistle to the Philippians, .... 
 
 section xv. 
 
 The Epistle to the Colossians, .... 
 
 section xvi. 
 
 The Epistles to the Thessalonians, 
 
 SECTION XVII. 
 
 The Epistles to Timothy, .... 
 
 SECTION XVIII. 
 
 The Epistle to Titus, ..... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 126 
 
 133 
 
 185 
 
 209 
 
 232 
 
 267 
 
 288 
 
 296 
 
 308 
 
 317 
 
 326 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Testimony to the Atonement contained in the Epistle to 
 
 the Hebrews, ....... 332 
 
 The Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 
 SECTION XIX. 
 
 332 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XI 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Testimony of the Apostle Peter, .... 420 
 
 section xx. 
 
 The Epistles of Peter, . . . . . . .420 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 The Testimony of the Apostle John, . . . . 448 
 
 SECTION XXI. 
 
 The Epistles of John, ....... 448 
 
 SECTION XXII. 
 
 The Testimony of John in the Apocalypse, . . . . 468 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Historical Sketch of the Doctrine of the Atonement, . . 479 
 
 INDICES. 
 
 I. Passages Expounded, . . . . . .545 
 
 II. Subjects, ........ 546 
 
 III. Greek Words specially noticed, ..... 547 
 

APOSTLES’ SAYINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 —♦— 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PREPARATION OF THE APOSTLES, AND THE CIRCLE OF 
 
 THEIR TESTIMONY. 
 
 SEC. I.—THE APOSTLES’ TEACHING ON THE ATONEMENT 
 BASED ON THAT OF THE LORD JESUS. 
 
 I N the previous volume I examined fully the doctrine of 
 the atonement as taught by Christ Himself. I recalled 
 ' the several scenes in which the Christ of God uttered from 
 His own consciousness the absolute truth as to the scope, 
 nature, and fruits of His vicarious death. I traced in what 
 terms, pursuant to the suretyship which He had undertaken, 
 He gave expression in different connections to the dedication 
 and obedience of His life. How ample His teaching is on this 
 particular theme, when it is all collected and classified, we had 
 occasion to survey. We took a list of His sayings in their 
 number, variety, and fulness, and saw that every benefit con¬ 
 nected with His atonement was referred to by the Lord Him¬ 
 self ; nay, certain aspects of the atonement, and especially 
 those which relate to its divine side, or exhibit it as redound¬ 
 ing to the glory of God, are with more simplicity and compre¬ 
 hensiveness portrayed by the Lord Himself than by any other 
 speaker in any other portion of Scripture. 
 
 In the present volume I purpose to exhibit the doctrine of 
 
 the atonement as taught by the apostles. This is necessary, 
 
 A 
 
 \ 
 
2 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 in order to give completeness to the New Testament testimony. 
 The great peculiarity of their teaching, as compared with the 
 other teaching of Scripture, is that they treat it as an accom¬ 
 plished fact; and this single circumstance accounts for all that 
 is distinctive in the statements of the apostles as compared 
 with the sayings of the Lord Jesus. They refer to it as an 
 eternally valid fact, pregnant with consequences that abide 
 for ever. They not only give prominence to all the blessings 
 it procured, but delineate the spiritual sentiments, feelings, 
 and experience which take their rise from it. They show how 
 
 i 
 
 it colours the history and moulds the life of those who receive 
 it, and are saved by it. 
 
 It deserves notice that the views of the apostles, after the 
 atonement had become an accomplished fact, underwent the 
 most memorable change. Long had they repelled the thought 
 of Christ’s death, which they clearly enough perceived must be 
 the death-blow of all their Jewish dreams and theories. But 
 when it actually arrived, and they looked back on the com¬ 
 pleted fact, approved and accepted at His resurrection, they 
 were ushered into a new world of thought and feeling. Theirs 
 was a transition from a Jewish to a Christian experience ; that 
 is, to one where the atonement was a completed transaction 
 with saving efficacy. They passed over from prophecy to ful¬ 
 filment, from promise to fact, from anticipation to reality, from 
 the Old Testament Church into that of the New Testament, 
 from the knowledge of Christ after the flesh to a new mode of 
 knowledge (2 Cor. v. 16). To live over again that revolution 
 of experience, or to transfer ourselves into it even in idea, is 
 impossible ; for none but the immediate followers of the Lord 
 could adequately know it. But one point is clear. Faith now 
 reposed on fact—divine fact—not only as the embodiment of 
 divine thoughts, but as the accomplishment of all the prophetic 
 announcements with which those who waited for the consola¬ 
 tion of Israel were familiar. To use a familiar modern phrase, 
 we have here the Christian consciousness in its purest form 
 
THEIR TEACHING BASED ON THAT OF CHRIST. 
 
 3 
 
 —in its normal condition. 1 If we have in the sayings of Jesus 
 the consciousness of the God-man or of the Christ, we have in 
 the testimony of the apostles what may he called the Chris¬ 
 tian consciousness in its highest perfection. 
 
 But it is in a much higher light than this that the apostles 
 must he regarded. Besides uttering the Christian conscious¬ 
 ness, they are the organs of Christ’s self-revelation to the 
 Church. Their message, intended to he the complement of 
 Christ’s own teaching, is a revelation addressed to all men, and 
 extending to all time. For this function they needed a special 
 preparation of their own minds, which may he described as 
 twofold: first, oral instruction, imparted directly hy Christ’s 
 own lips subsequently to His resurrection; secondly, a mediate 
 and more continuous aid of the Comforter, to enable them to 
 apply to all emergencies the truth given to them hy their Lord. 
 It was this twofold revelation that secured a full coincidence 
 between the Lord’s teaching and theirs. All that they said or 
 wrote for after times was thus divine revelation, not less truly 
 ' than if all had been personally spoken hy their Lord. He 
 undertook, in fact, the responsibility of their official teaching 
 (Matt. x. 40). Their testimony was thus in the last degree 
 important, both as they were eye-witnesses to matters of fact, 
 and as they were organs of a revelation which consisted in the 
 application and further development of Christ’s teaching on all 
 points, as well as on the great doctrine of the atonement. 2 
 
 The memory of Christ’s earthly ministry was vividly re¬ 
 called, and fresh instruction communicated, by Him after His 
 
 1 This phrase Christian consciousness, as at first used by Schleiermacher, 
 presupposed living Christianity ; and its expression was found in all the creeds 
 of Christendom. On these he based his Glaubenslehre, and not immediately 
 on Scripture ; and on these he exercised his constructive talent, sometimes 
 well, oftener waywardly. The Christian consciousness was surely purest in the 
 apostles. 
 
 2 Though we are not defenders of mechanical inspiration, we contend for 
 something more than the modern theory, or the Quaker theory ; that is, we 
 hold that we have in Scripture unerring revelation as well as the Christian 
 consciousness. 
 
4 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 resurrection from the dead ; and to both these points we must 
 refer. 
 
 1. As they had previously occupied a unique relation to 
 the Lord, and had seen Him in every variety of scene till He 
 finished His work, it was one part of their commission to testify 
 orally what they had seen and heard and handled of the Word 
 of life (1 John i. 1-4), and also to embody their recollections in 
 written records. The importance of such records, as we have 
 elsewhere shown, for a just idea of the atonement cannot he 
 over-estimated. While the commission was given to all the 
 apostles to rehearse what they had seen and heard, some were 
 made aware that they had the more special task assigned to 
 them of composing a historical narrative of His life which 
 should be for all time. So essential a part of apostolic tes¬ 
 timony, in fact, did this element of narration constitute, that 
 we cannot conceive of the founding and permanent duration 
 of the Christian church without it; and to aid them, the 
 Comforter, the great Eemembrancer, was promised, to recall 
 to their minds an accurate outline of what the Lord did and 
 taught (John xvi. 13). Acting upon their memory, the Holy 
 Ghost resuscitated His express words and deeds, with all their 
 circumstances and accessories, so far as this was necessary to 
 exhibit His person or to manifest His atoning work. A super¬ 
 natural power, capable of evoking the past from the tablets of 
 memory, rendered all things back in their original vividness, 
 and fixed them in their minds with a clearness with which a 
 stranger could not intermeddle. 
 
 But the fresh’instruction which they received from personal 
 interviews with the Redeemer subsequently to the resurrection 
 must next be noticed. This oral instruction received from the 
 lips of the risen Lord is certain as to the matter of fact, and 
 on many grounds was indispensably necessary. Nor was it 
 limited to the eleven alone. Paul, too, received it at a later 
 day, when he took rank among the apostles as one born out 
 of due time. How far the oral instruction of the risen Re- 
 
THEIR TEACHING BASED ON THAT OF CHRIST. 
 
 5 
 
 deemer extended, it may be difficult for us to say. Whether 
 or not it comprehended all the great articles of divine truth, 
 it certainly extended to the atonement (Luke xxiv. 25). This 
 was to he the substance and foundation of all their preaching, 
 and it was indispensably necessary for them to possess the 
 most accurate knowledge of it. One object, therefore, which 
 the Lord had in view during those forty days’ sojourn with the 
 disciples after His resurrection, was to open their understand¬ 
 ings in the course of these personal interviews, to apprehend 
 with all possible precision the nature of His death—its neces¬ 
 sity, constituent elements, and efficacy; against which, in every 
 form, they had long entertained the most invincible prejudice. 
 He now made all things plain, showing that the Christ must 
 have suffered these things. 
 
 How they were introduced into the theology of the Old 
 Testament is specially worthy of notice. A due consideration 
 of this point serves to bring out one most important fact, viz. 
 that Christ’s oral expositions are to be taken as the middle 
 term, or as the connecting link between the Old Testament 
 records on the one hand, and the apostolic commentary on the 
 other. In a word, He was Himself the interpreter of Scrip¬ 
 ture, and of His own history, in the course of those oral com¬ 
 munications. In the book of Acts, and in the epistles, we 
 find numerous interpretations of the prophecies, as well as of 
 the types and sacrifices which owe their origin to this source. 
 The evangelist Luke relates, that on the first resurrection-day, 
 upon the Emmaus road, in order to instruct the two disciples 
 with whom He entered into conversation, the Lord, beginning 
 at Moses and all the prophets, expounded in all the Scriptures 
 the things concerning Himself (Luke xxiv. 27); that is, He led 
 them to a full survey of the typology and of the prophetical 
 system of the Old Testament Scriptures. The same evening 
 He reviewed the whole subject not less fully in presence of the 
 eleven and other disciples, expounding to them how the Old 
 Testament Scriptures received their fulfilment in Himself, and 
 
6 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 opening all tliat related to His death and resurrection. It is 
 interesting to notice the extent of that never forgotten com¬ 
 mentary, on which the Comforter in all His further revelations 
 ever afterwards proceeded. The evangelist mentions that His 
 exposition extended to the Law of Moses, to the Prophets, 1 and 
 to the Psalms. The allusion to the law of Moses recalls the 
 whole range of typical theology—the sacrifices, the priestly 
 institute, and the temple services. The allusion to the prophets 
 reminds us of the wide field of Messianic prophecy, from the 
 first promise in the garden of Eden to the last of the pro¬ 
 phets. The allusion to the Psalms recalls those utterances 
 which were put beforehand into the mouth of the suffering 
 Messiah in a series of psalms in which the Lord Jesus found 
 Himself. He thus, in all these three divisions of Scripture, 
 supplied them with the key which served to unlock what had 
 never been so fully understood before in reference to His 
 atoning death. 
 
 These invaluable expositions, which may be called in 
 modern phrase the Lord’s own system of hermeneutics, formed 
 the apostles to be interpreters of the Old Testament, directing 
 them where and how to find allusions to the suffering Messiah. 
 Hence the certainty and precision with which they ever after¬ 
 wards proceeded to expound those holy oracles in all their 
 discourses. Although these comments from the lips of the 
 Messiah, who thereby showed how He found Himself in the 
 Old Testament, have not been preserved to us in a separate 
 form, they are doubtless to a large extent wrought into the 
 texture of Scripture; and under the apostles’ allusions to the 
 Old Testament we may read the Lord’s own commentary. 
 These expositions, whereby He opened their understandings to 
 understand the Scriptures, introduced the apostles into the true 
 significance of the Old Testament (Luke xxiv. 44), throwing 
 light on the two economies, and thus bringing in the authority 
 of Christ to direct them in all their future career. His sanc¬ 
 tion is thus given to the apostolic interpretation of the Jewish 
 
THEIR TEACHING BASED ON THAT OF CHRIST. 
 
 7 
 
 rites; and we are warranted to say that we see the Lord’s own 
 commentary underlying that of the apostles, whether we find 
 allusion to the types, or to the prophecies, or to the Psalms, 
 in their sermons and epistles. These expositions made the 
 apostles acquainted with the doctrine of the atonement, in its 
 necessity and scope, in its constituent elements and saving 
 results. The apostles received the fullest instruction from 
 the lips of their risen Lord; and on this theme it appears 
 that the instruction was subject to none of the reserves which 
 checked their curiosity upon another occasion, when they 
 would make inquiries as to points hearing on the future of 
 His kingdom (Acts i. 7). 
 
 2. It must he further noticed that the apostles’ doctrine, as 
 set forth in their sermons and epistles, was but an expansion 
 or further carrying out of the Lord’s own teaching. What the 
 apostles added »was pre-eminently a testimony to the atone¬ 
 ment as an accomplished fact, and to its efficacy in the rela¬ 
 tions of Christian life. They put the doctrine in its due 
 ' position as the central article of Christianity. They assigned 
 it the prominent place which it was henceforth to hold in the 
 life of the Christian church. All this followed, hut could not 
 have preceded, the actual consummation of that redemption- 
 work. Their great business was to represent it as finished for 
 all time, as possessing an everlasting efficacy, and requiring no 
 repetition. They constantly refer to the great truth, that 
 Christ died once, and that there is no more sacrifice for sins. 
 Por the doctrine on the subject of the atonement, however, the 
 Lord Himself gave the keynote of all that the apostles sub¬ 
 sequently added. The sayings of Jesus, in fact, contain the 
 germ of all that they afterwards developed. So far did the 
 Lord supply the outline which the apostles filled up, that I feel 
 warranted to affirm the apostles’ doctrine on this point was 
 always supported by what had been furnished in the Lord’s 
 own teaching, and was constantly supplied from it. Though 
 it may be described as a further development or expansion of 
 
8 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 what was found in germ in the Lord’s words, it was in reality 
 not so much new truth, as the free and varied application of 
 what they had already heard to the several phases of Christian 
 experience, and to the germinant errors that arose in the 
 different churches. 
 
 The apostles’ doctrine on the atonement coincides accord¬ 
 ingly at all points with the teaching of Jesus; and it was 
 unerring revelation. It is the more necessary to advert to this, 
 because many misapprehend the apostles’ relation to the Lord. 
 Thus, some have argued that, to restore Christianity to its 
 original simplicity, nothing is more indispensably necessary 
 than to abide exclusively by the sayings of Jesus. 1 This they 
 advocate, because they assume that the truth has undergone a 
 certain transmutation in the apostles’ hands. Others, again, 
 unduly magnify their mental peculiarities, till they regard them 
 not as announcing the same truth with a peculiar type of 
 mind, but as actually maintaining differences of doctrine. To 
 these opinions, in all their modifications, we must emphatically 
 oppose two considerations: (1) Their conscious relation to the 
 great Teacher, and (2) His superintending care. On the one 
 hand, men imbued as they were with reverence for Jesus, 
 whom they worshipped with divine honours, and whom they 
 were directed to hear (Matt. xvii. 5), were far too humble and 
 self-denied to suppose for a moment that they could add any 
 perfection to His doctrine. Far from thinking that they were 
 wiser than He, or capable of adding one new ray to His self¬ 
 revelation, they kept themselves within the limits of disciples, 
 and merely built on His foundation. On the other hand, as 
 
 1 At the end of last century a school of Rationalism arose, which sought to 
 prove that the apostles accommodated themselves to the prejudices of the age, and 
 deviated from the pure and simple teaching of Jesus. Priestley represented the 
 same tendency in England. Two important works were written in reply to the 
 theory of accommodation by the two Dutch professors Heringa and Lotze. In 
 fact, the same theory has often reappeared. It was the Gnostic theory ; it was 
 the theory of the late Dr. Baur of Tubingen ; and it still exists to a very large 
 extent. On this ground, the attempt was made to explain away the Lord’s 
 atonement and deity as Pauline additions or corruptions. 
 
GENERAL VIEW OF THEIR TESTIMONY. 
 
 9 
 
 they had a continuous revelation by the Spirit, who brought 
 up to them the Lord’s own words, and also the Old Testament 
 record, as was expedient for the necessities of the churches, 
 they were never left without the superintending care and 
 guidance of Christ; and there was no disharmony between 
 Him and them. Hay, it must be further added, that as 
 divinely commissioned men, they had the same authority with 
 their Lord, who fully identified Himself with them. 
 
 SEC. II.—GENERAL VIEW OF THE APOSTLES’ TESTIMONY TO THE 
 
 ATONEMENT. 
 
 The plan to be followed in this volume is furnished to 
 our hand by the several books of the Hew Testament. The 
 previous volume, limited to the sayings of Jesus, which we 
 classified according to the elements and aspects of the truth 
 which they peculiarly unfold, was meant to embrace the testi¬ 
 mony supplied by the evangelists. The present volume, taking 
 up the same theme where the Gospels end, is intended to 
 unfold the apostles’ testimony, and to give a full outline of 
 what is contained upon this subject in their epistles to the 
 churches. The only practicable mode of doing this is to take 
 the several books, and to exhaust in order the testimony they 
 contain. To this we have been led by the necessities of the 
 case; for the attempt to reduce the whole to a few heads, by 
 taking a fragment from one text and another fragment from 
 another, was found to be so dislocating and artificial, as to 
 satisfy us that the apostles’ doctrine could not be displayed, 
 except by taking the several apostles and their several epistles 
 separately. We have thus to notice the testimony of a Peter, 
 of a John, and of a Paul, as they refer to the atonement, in 
 the order of the epistles given in the common editions of the 
 Hew Testament; for the advantages supposed to be gained 
 by following the chronological order of their composition, even 
 
10 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 if this point could be fully ascertained, would not, we think, 
 countervail the inconvenience thereby occasioned to the general 
 reader. We shall therefore follow the order of the epistles in 
 the English Bible. 
 
 As the apostles interweave, however, many allusions to the 
 types of the Mosaic law, and to the Psalms and prophecies of 
 the Old Testament, we deem it necessary, without turning 
 aside from our definite purpose of exhibiting the apostolic 
 testimony, to set forth, at least in outline, the use to which 
 those parts of Scripture are turned in the book of Acts and 
 in the epistles. We shall prefix, therefore, a chapter on the 
 ancient sacrifices, and another on the ancient prophecies, as 
 adduced by the epistles. But before entering upon these, it 
 will be necessary to give a general view of the apostles’ testi¬ 
 mony and preaching. 
 
 1. The apostles insist much on the dignity of the Lord’s 
 person, and on the connection between the Incaknation and 
 Atonement. After Christ’s resurrection, we find in the apostles 
 a surprising increase of light on the subject of Christ’s person, 
 as Thomas’ testimony proves (John xx. 28). They saw in 
 a new manner the effect of the incarnation on His atoning 
 work, and they expressed it with wondering delight, as is 
 apparent whether we look at the book of Acts or at the 
 epistles to the several churches. Thus, they speak of the Jews 
 as killing the Prince of life (Acts iii. 15); of crucifying the 
 Lord of glory (1 Cor. ii. 9); of the Son, the brightness of the 
 Father’s glory, and the express image of His person, and up¬ 
 holding all things by the word of His power, having by Him¬ 
 self purged our sins (Heb. i. 3). 
 
 The apostles, in all those passages where they describe the 
 redemption-work of the Lord, ascribe to the Saviour the pos¬ 
 session of a divine nature, sometimes more directly, at other 
 times more by implication. But it is never difficult to appre¬ 
 hend their deep conviction of the presence of His deity in all 
 His atoning work. They speak of it as a divine work, imme- 
 
GENERAL VIEW OF THEIR TESTIMONY. 
 
 11 
 
 diately accomplished by God Himself. Nor do they represent 
 God as the author of it merely in the sense of originating or 
 concerting the plan which the Mediator was commissioned and 
 empowered to carry into execution: they speak of a divine 
 persop. as the agent by whom the redemption-work was com¬ 
 pleted, and of His work as closely connected with His divine 
 nature,—that is, the work of one who was very God. The 
 apostles, under the guidance of the Spirit, apprehended His 
 work of obedience during the years He had sojourned with 
 them, as infinitely valuable, and His blood as infinitely pre¬ 
 cious, because emanating from the abasement of Him who was 
 God over all; ascribing it not merely to a sinless man, but to 
 the Son of God, and thus, in virtue of the union of the natures, 
 possessing an all-sufficient value and validity. Their doctrine 
 on the subject of Christ’s incarnation was, that it took place in 
 a historic person, and in one only; and that, according to the 
 will of Him that sent Him, He comprehended in Himself a 
 body, or a vast multitude. 1 It is everywhere set forth as their 
 deepest conviction, that instead of being one among His fellows, 
 Jesus was the representative head of a redeemed company, 
 who find their propitiation, righteousness, and redemption in 
 Him. 
 
 The apostles’ doctrine, too, is to the effect that the Son of 
 God in this great transaction was simply acting as the restorer 
 of the lost, for there is no allusion to the incarnation as a natural 
 process. They represent the historical appearance of the Son 
 of God as conditioned solely by sin, and there is no warrant 
 from anything in their language for giving it a double founda¬ 
 tion. 2 The stupendous fact of man’s redemption was an end 
 worthy of such a cost, but the incarnation was not necessary 
 
 1 Most of the errors on the atonement have arisen from the habit of reading 
 the life of Jesus as the biography of an individual, not as that of the Surety for 
 others—the second Adam. See Luther on Gal. iii. 13 in Latin. 
 
 2 The modern theory of an incarnation irrespective of the fall has been 
 already noticed in our former volume, Sayings of Jesus (Appendix, sec. 
 vii.). 
 
12 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 except on the supposition of redemption from sin. The in¬ 
 carnation and the cross are thus viewed as inseparable, but 
 both as means to an end, viz. the vindication of divine justice, 
 the expiation of sin, the meritorious obedience to be rendered 
 to the law. This is the rationale of the infinite condescension 
 displayed in the incarnation and the cross. The apostles make 
 no allusion to any other design. When we put together the 
 apostolic testimony on this point, there are not a few texts 
 which plainly announce that the design of the incarnation was 
 only for the' redemption of the lost, and that the atonement 
 Owes its value to the fact that it was the work of a divine 
 person. Thus, it is said that Christ was made of a woman to 
 redeem men (Gal. iv. 4); that He took part of our flesh and 
 blood to destroy death (Heb. ii. 14); that He was manifested 
 to destroy the works of the devil (1 John iii. 8); that He came 
 into the world to save sinners (1 Tim. i. 15). To assign a 
 different intention to the incarnation, is not only to be wise 
 above what is written, but well-nigh a contradiction to the 
 explicit statement of what is set forth as the only design 
 known to the apostles. 
 
 2. The apostles’ change of mind as to the cross, and their 
 testimony to Christ crucified. Before we enter into the 
 apostolic testimony in detail, two things at the outset demand 
 more particular notice : the entire revolution of the apostles’ 
 own views as to the death of the cross, and their uniform tes¬ 
 timony to it as their confidence and boast. They first of all 
 discerned its significance for themselves; and then, knowing 
 that the atonement is suited to the capacity of every class and 
 every age, they gave the utmost prominence to this great article 
 in all their preaching. As it is not in my plan to offer reflec¬ 
 tions either of a practical or speculative nature, but to pursue 
 an exegetical inquiry in the way that seems to me the best 
 suited to convey strictly biblical views of the atonement, it 
 seems proper here to refer to both these points. The change 
 upon their own minds will lead us to understand the prominent 
 
GENERAL VIEW OF THEIR TESTIMONY. 
 
 13 
 
 place which the apostles gave to this article in all their preach¬ 
 ing. A few remarks illustrative of their state of mind, and of 
 the method they pursued, will suffice. 
 
 They were brought to see a peculiar significance in the 
 mode of Christ’s death, and that something more was to he 
 seen in the cross than if He had undergone any other death. 
 They comprehended the weighty reasons which rendered it 
 expedient and necessary, according to the divine wisdom, that 
 the Surety should die by a death which was accursed by God. 
 They were persuaded that it contained more than any other 
 mode of death; and accordingly we find them repeatedly 
 making mention of the cross, or of the tree, as carrying with it 
 a peculiar emphasis. Thus John, in referring to the Lord’s 
 own words, tells us: “ This He said, signifying what death He 
 should die ” (John xii. 33 ; comp. viii. 28). Peter, again, both 
 in his sermons recorded in the book of Acts and in his epistle, 
 refers to the tree on which He suffered and bore our sins 
 (1 Pet. ii. 24). Paul glories only in the cross of the Lord 
 (Gal. vi. 14). They saw that God’s terrible curse, on account 
 of sin committed in Adam and in their own persons, lay on 
 Jesus, and that He was made a curse, of which the cross was 
 the symbol rather than the cause. 
 
 The apostles were led either by the promised Comforter, 
 the Spirit of truth, or by the Lord’s oral teaching in His resur¬ 
 rection interviews, to the conviction that Jesus died an accursed 
 death, according to prophecy. This comes out in a passage, 
 the point of which it is important to apprehend: “ Christ hath 
 redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse 
 for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on 
 a tree” (Gal. iii. 13). That quotation from Moses contains an 
 intimation of the way in which Messiah was to die. Like the 
 passage adduced by our Lord Himself about the lifting up of 
 the brazen serpent on a pole, it shows that from the first it was 
 intended to be symbolical, prophetical, and typical. We shall 
 not enter into the question whether crucifixion was a Eoman 
 
14 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 punishment, and not at all a Jewish punishment; 1 for the 
 point of the quotation is the suspending of a criminal on a 
 tree, whether by a subsequent judicial act after death, or by 
 the crucifixion while yet alive. That is the point of resem¬ 
 blance between the two cases. By the Mosaic law, that mode 
 of punishment was inflicted upon great criminals, such as 
 blasphemers and idolaters, the rebellious and seditious. When 
 we compare the passage in Deuteronomy with the doctrine 
 which Paul declares in connection with that passage, he plainly 
 intends to prove that Christ was the curse-bearer in our room, 
 and that this great truth was established by the subjoined sign. 
 Christ was made a curse before being suspended on the tree: 
 for God made Him to be sin for us (2 Cor. v. 21); and that 
 hanging on the tree was but the public testimony 2 to the curse 
 endured in our room. The cause of the curse was not the 
 hanging on the tree, but the sin with which He was charged; 
 and that mode of punishment exhibited that He was the object 
 of God’s holy displeasure, not indeed because He was sus¬ 
 pended on the tree, but because He was the sin-bearer; and 
 the punishment of the offences for which that ignominious 
 punishment was allotted was then inflicted. Divine wisdom 
 appointed that He who bore the sin of the world should be 
 exposed as a curse; for the divine displeasure was thus more 
 awfully displayed. 
 
 But why was this peculiar method adopted ? Of all the 
 
 1 Baronius, Lipsius, A. Schultens, and others, warmly and with great learn¬ 
 ing maintained that it is a mere rabbinical shift and evasion to deny that 
 this mode of punishment was ever used in the Hebrew republic. The Jewish 
 commentators allow only four forms of capital punishment, but deny that 
 crucifixion was ever used, or that a living person ever was in any form sus¬ 
 pended on a tree. The opposite view was held by the above-named authorities. 
 The opinion that crucifixion was a Roman punishment was always the common 
 view, and still is. 
 
 2 The shallow comment, that Christ was made a curse merely in the sense 
 that His enemies executed upon Him the cursed death of a malefactor, devised 
 by the Socinians and repeated by the Rationalists, has been recently renewed 
 by Hofmann. But if it was not His enemies, but God, that made Him a curse, 
 there is no room for two opinions on the subject (Gal. iii. 13). 
 
GENERAL VIEW OF THEIR TESTIMONY. 
 
 15 
 
 explanations propounded, the simplest is that given by Witsius 
 and others, that sin came into the world by the wanton viola¬ 
 tion of the divine will in connection with the forbidden fruit. 
 As the fatal sin which diffused the curse over the human race 
 was connected with the forbidden tree, God wisely ordained 
 that the second Adam should expiate sin by being suspended 
 on a tree; and He appointed in the law such a symbol of the 
 curse as reminds all men of the origin of the divine curse on 
 the world. 1 He would not have the curse removed by any 
 other means. This adequately explains the divine wisdom in 
 the giving of such a law. And they who had a true know¬ 
 ledge of the way of atonement might find occasion from that 
 symbol, as in the parallel case of the lifting up of the brazen 
 serpent on the pole, or in the leading up of the sacrifices to the 
 altar, to conclude that Messiah should one day be made a 
 curse, and hang upon a tree ; but that He should not continue 
 long, for He should be taken down on the same day before 
 sunset. Whether many apprehended all this in the prophetic 
 type, or only a very few, is not the question. We who live in 
 the times of accomplishment are taught that such a lesson was 
 conveyed by it to us (1 Pet. i. 11, 12). 
 
 The apostles justly regarded the crucifixion as the deepest 
 possible humiliation. It was the most ignominious of punish¬ 
 ments, inflicted only on slaves and the lowest of the people; and 
 if free men were at any time subjected to crucifixion for great 
 crimes, such as robbery, high treason, or sedition, the sentence 
 could not be executed till they were put into the category of 
 slaves by degradation. Their liberty was taken from them by 
 servile stripes and scourging, as was done to Christ. 2 How¬ 
 ever that crisis in Christ’s history perplexed and saddened the 
 apostles for a time, they no sooner discerned the deep under¬ 
 lying truth of the symbol than they triumphed and gloried in 
 
 1 See Witsius on the Creed, Ex. xvi. 32. 
 
 2 See Turretin. de Satis/, par. ii. 26 ; Witsius ; Binnseus, de Morte J. C. 
 
 lib. iii. 
 
16 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 the deep abasement to which the Lord of glory had descended 
 for them, enduring the cross and despising the shame. Their 
 symbol was the cross; their boast was the cross: they could 
 not live without it; they could not die without it. They set 
 forth, wherever they went, that the types of the law had 
 received their fulfilment in the cross, and that the Messiah had 
 died in such a way that every one must necessarily perceive 
 that the curse of the law was fulfilled upon Him in our room 
 and stead. 
 
 3. The apostles uniformly testify that the cross was their 
 confidence and boast, and lead us to regard the atonement as 
 belonging to the main scope of revelation. Thus, when Paul 
 describes the purport of his apostolic labours, he says, “We 
 preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor. i. 23); and, besides, he calls 
 the gospel the preaching of the cross, or more strictly rendered, 
 “the word of the cross” (1 Cor. i. 18). We cannot allow that 
 this means no more than the preaching of the pure moral 
 code which Jesus taught, with only the accessory notion that 
 it was confirmed by His death. Nor can the language with 
 any greater reason be referred to Christ’s example, as sealed by 
 martyrdom. Such comments as these, which aim at evading 
 the vicarious sacrifice, are a violence to language, and wholly 
 inconsistent with the import of the terms. The substance of 
 Christianity, and the preaching of it, could not be described 
 in such a way, unless the cross of Christ, considered as a 
 vicarious satisfaction, constituted its essential element, nay, its 
 principal design. We have a further evidence of the same 
 thing when the apostle adds, that the cross was a stumbling- 
 block to one, and foolishness to another, of the nationalities 
 among whom he laboured. Had the cross, however, been 
 simply propounded as a confirmation of Christ’s doctrine, it 
 could not have been an offence. It would rather have tended, 
 as in the case of Socrates, to win respect for the teacher and 
 for His doctrine, that He had closed His career in attestation 
 to His teaching by the endurance of a violent death. 
 
GENERAL VIEW OF THEIR TESTIMONY. 
 
 17 
 
 But the doctrine of the cross, as a propitiation and as a 
 way of salvation, was equally in collision with Jewish pride 
 and Gentile wisdom. To the Jew it was a stumbling-block, 
 partly because it took him up on the ground of a sinner, help¬ 
 less and in need of reconciliation, partly because it summoned 
 him to trust in the innocence of a suffering Surety, and not 
 in his own righteousness. His expectation of a Messiah as a 
 temporal prince was in proportion to his pharisaic self-right¬ 
 eousness, and probably an offshoot from it. He was offended 
 at a suffering Messiah, both because it crossed his theory, and 
 because it presupposed a guilt which was to be expiated in 
 no other way. To the Greek, again, the preaching of the cross 
 was foolishness, because it proceeded on the supposition, so 
 repugnant to the mere disciple of human wisdom, the specu¬ 
 lative admirer of notions and theories, that salvation was the 
 principal design of God, and that this was the scope of Chris¬ 
 tianity when it preached a crucified Christ. The preaching of 
 the apostles confronted both these tendencies; and amid all 
 their opposition, far from losing confidence or feeling shame, 
 they retreated to the ground that the preaching of the cross 
 was the power of God and the wisdom of God to them that 
 are called, and that it effected what all the resources of human 
 wisdom could not effect (1 Cor. i. 24; Bom. i. 16). 
 
 4. Paul in a variety of ways declares that the atonement 
 was the principal topic of his preaching. One of these testi¬ 
 monies is to this effect: “ I determined not to know anything 
 among you , save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor. ii. 2). 
 Ho one can doubt what is the import of this statement. When 
 he “ determined to know nothing among them, save Jesus 
 Christ, and Him crucified,” the import clearly is, that he 
 preached, as his grand topic, the atonement of Christ, in all 
 its bearings and fulness of application. The words intimate 
 that he made the doctrine of the cross the principal matter 
 of preaching; the other truths which he taught being either 
 derived from it or connected with it. They were, in a word, 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 either postulates or corollaries; and whatever could not he con¬ 
 nected with it, was made very subordinate or omitted. This 
 had been done on purpose and from forethought. The apostle 
 went to work according to a plan; and to this his fundamental 
 principle he continued faithful in all his subsequent ministry. 
 
 In the same epistle we find another passage where he 
 declares that the gospel which he had preached, which the 
 Corinthians had received, and by which they were saved if 
 they kept it in memory, was “ that Christ died for our sins, 
 according to the Scriptures' (1 Cor. xv. 3). Now, can this mean 
 that Christ’s death was preached as but a dissuasive from sin ? 
 Does the apostle say that the death of Christ was preached 
 merely as a means to free men from the bondage of moral 
 corruption, either by the force of suasion or by the infusion 
 of spiritual life ? By no means. Such a comment not only 
 fails to exhaust the idea, but misses the proper sense of the 
 words, " dying for our sins.” That expression, wherever it 
 occurs, bears reference to the meritorious cause of His 
 death. In no case does it refer to future deliverance, but 
 always to the expiation of past guilt. This is apparent in a 
 passage which combines the two ideas we have now noticed, 
 making the expiation of past guilt a means to a further end,— 
 a means to future deliverance: “ Who gave Himself for our 
 sins, that (oTatg) He might deliver us from this present evil 
 world” (Gal. i. 4). 
 
 In the Epistle to the Galatians we have the most copious 
 evidence of the value which Paul attached to the preaching 
 of the atonement. His great object there is to show, that if 
 the cross is either obscured or superseded, the gospel is no 
 gospel. He pointedly condemns the views of the Judaizing 
 teachers, who enforced on the Galatian churches the observ¬ 
 ance of the Mosaic law as necessary to salvation; showing 
 that, in reality, it is another gospel where the cross is either 
 concealed, or not presented as the sole ground of acceptance. 
 These Judaizing zealots were men who, instead of directing 
 
GENERAL VIEW OF THEIR TESTIMONY. 
 
 19 
 
 their undivided attention to the atonement as the exclusive 
 ground of salvation, and therefore as the great doctrine of the 
 gospel, put circumcision and the rites of the Mosaic law in 
 its place (Gal. v. 1-4); and the apostle asserts that there is 
 no other gospel hut where the cross of Christ occupies the 
 principal place. They to whom he referred perverted the 
 gospel of Christ (Gal. i. 7). Then he declares, in a tone of 
 authority as well as of the deepest solemnity, “ Though we or 
 an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than 
 that which we have preached unto you, let him he accursed” 
 (Gal i. 8); a statement which he repeats, partly to show that 
 it was no utterance of human passion, partly to recall to 
 memory what he seems to have first spoken in the course of 
 his personal ministry. Were the atonement not the principal 
 matter of the gospel, and the highest exhibition of the united 
 wisdom, love, and faithfulness of God,—in a word, the greatest 
 act of God in the universe,—that terrible anathema on its 
 suhverters would seem to us something inexplicable, if not 
 
 % 
 
 intolerable. But the doom is justified by the nature of Christ’s 
 death, and by the great fact of the atonement. 
 
 The apostle, as he proceeds, takes every opportunity from 
 the course of his argument, not only to warn the Galatian 
 churches against the perverters of the gospel, but to show 
 that the cross formed the burden of his own preaching. He 
 observes that the men to whom he wrote the epistle were they 
 “before whose eyes Jesus Christ had been evidently set forth, 
 crucified among them” (Gal. iii. 1); in which expression he 
 gives us a brief outline of his preaching. And he winds up 
 the epistle by the announcement that, in his official capacity, 
 as well as in his individual capacity as a Christian, he would 
 not “glory, save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 
 vi. 14). This one foundation he adduces in opposition to all 
 these false grounds,—the rites, the ceremonies, the legal ob¬ 
 servances, on which the others built their confidence. He 
 would glory in nothing save in the cross; and all legalism 
 
20 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 he denounces as enmity to “the cross of Christ” (Phil. iii. 18). 
 The expression “ the cross of Christ” in the sense in which the 
 apostle uses it, denotes salvation by the propitiation of the 
 cross, or by the dying obedience of a Surety made a curse 
 in our room. And when we minutely examine the various 
 epistles addressed to the churches, whether composed of Jews 
 or Gentiles, we find that the atonement was preached to men 
 in all states of mind, as the great message with which the 
 apostles were charged, and as equally necessary to the estab¬ 
 lished Christian and the anxious inquirer. 
 
 In one memorable passage which I shall subjoin, the 
 Apostle Paul remarks that the preaching of the cross was the 
 main scope of his ministry, and the very end for which he 
 was specially appointed: “ Who gave Himself a ransom for 
 all, to be testified in due time. Whereunto I am ordained a 
 preacher, and an apostle (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie 
 not)” (1 Tim. ii. 6, 7). He there declares, with all the solem¬ 
 nity of an oath, that he not only preached the atonement as 
 a divinely provided ransom for man’s salvation, but that he 
 was specially ordained as an apostle and preacher for this very 
 service. The cross was thus to him and to all his successors 
 the main burden of preaching, without which, indeed, the 
 function of preaching would neither have any deep foundation 
 nor possess any true significance. 
 
 To this great commission the apostles were to continue 
 faithful. We find, accordingly, when we examine the first 
 announcements of the gospel in any place, that they prefixed 
 the narrative of Christ’s humiliation, obedience, and resurrec¬ 
 tion ; that they proclaimed Him as the Christ; and that they 
 coupled with the narrative the message of present forgiveness 
 and reconciliation. In preaching such a doctrine, they exposed 
 themselves to the loss of reputation, to hardships and peril, 
 to persecution and death. But they held on their way, un¬ 
 deterred and undaunted, assured that they were ordained to 
 deliver such a message; and they boldly fulfilled the charge, 
 
GENEEAL VIEW OF THEIE TESTIMONY. 
 
 21 
 
 that the great truth, which was unspeakably dear to their own 
 souls, might be made known to all nations and to all times. 
 
 5. The sacred writers uniformly put the remission of sins 
 in close connection with the death of Christ as its procuring 
 cause. Man’s standing before God, whether viewed in the light 
 of the forgiveness of sins, or in the light of acceptance, is 
 always deduced from the death of Christ as the direct cause. 
 Of this the Lord Himself gave the first example, when He 
 described His blood as shed for many for the remission of sins 
 (Matt. xxvi. 28) ; and He commissioned His disciples to go 
 everywhere preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins in 
 His name,—that is, to make these points the burden of their 
 message, and to put forgiveness through His blood upon the 
 foreground, among the very first things to be proclaimed. It 
 was not in any circumstances to be kept in reserve, as if it 
 could be viewed—as is the tendency in our day to view it— 
 in the mere subordinate light of an adjunct to the possession 
 of the spiritual life. We may warrantably infer that, as they 
 preached this everywhere as their special message in all the 
 world, or to every creature, they were not neglectful to point 
 out, after their Lord’s example, the direct causal connection 
 between the forgiveness which they announced and the atoning 
 blood which had been shed for this end. Wherever the apostles 
 went, we find them faithful to this commission (Acts ii. 38, 
 x. 43, xiii. 38). That the same peculiarity was a feature of 
 their teaching in the several churches, will appear from a few 
 passages in their epistles. 
 
 Eph. i. 7: “ In whom we have redemption through His blood, 
 the forgiveness of sins .”—The apostle in the last clause, which 
 gives additional explanation, more fully defines the nature 
 of redemption as an objective benefit; for the words cannot 
 be interpreted of the uprooting of sin within. They who so 
 explain the two terms are wide of the mark. It is objective 
 benefits to which the apostle refers, and not an inner state of 
 the heart. The forgiveness is the remission of punishment due 
 
22 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 to us for sin, and put in direct connection with the blood of 
 Christ alone as its meritorious cause. 
 
 2 Cor. v. 19 : “ God was in Christ , reconciling the world unto 
 Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them .”—The recon¬ 
 ciliation is connected with the non-imputing of sin, another ex¬ 
 pression for forgiveness or the remission of punishment. The 
 connection between two things here stated is to be carefully 
 noted: God, in the great scheme of reconciliation, is described 
 as not imputing sin; while Christ, in the capacity of surety, is 
 described as made sin, or bearing the imputation of sin (ver. 21). 
 Thus the imputation of sin to Him, and its non-imputation to 
 us, stand in close causal connection. The substitution of the 
 Son of God is thus the ground and the explanation of our for¬ 
 giveness. 
 
 Eom. iii. 25 : “To declare His righteousness for [better, on 
 account of] the remission of sins that are past .”—I adduce this 
 passage as conveying, when rightly understood, a most emphatic 
 illustration of the connection between Christ’s dying obedience 
 and the remission of sins. The righteousness of God there 
 mentioned means, as will be proved below, according to the 
 common Pauline usage, the righteousness divinely provided for 
 the justification of sinners; and the reason assigned for its 
 actual manifestation in the fulness of time is, that sins had, 
 during ages of forbearance prior to the coming of Christ, been 
 remitted on the ground of an atonement yet to come. The 
 atonement, or, as it is there called, the righteousness of God, was 
 ushered in by reason of, or on account of (hid with ac.), the 
 pardon which had been extended to multitudes in the former 
 ages. We thus see the inseparable connection between the 
 atoning obedience of Christ and the remission of sins,—between 
 the actual bringing in of the atonement and the previous forgive¬ 
 ness accorded to Old Testament believers. The clause shows 
 the direct connection between Christ’s work and pardon. This 
 is the only sense that can be grammatically put upon the words, 
 and they show that without atonement there could have been 
 
GENERAL VIEW OF THEIR TESTIMONY. 
 
 23 
 
 no remission of sins. That the saints before the coming of 
 Christ frequently speak of pardon as a present experience, and 
 extol the sweetness of the privilege, no one can doubt (Ps. 
 xxxii. 1; Mic. vii. 18); for the atonement, from its retrospective 
 character as the great fact in the world’s history, was a sufficient 
 ground for dispensing pardon in the proper sense of the word, 
 being already before the divine mind as a reality. Objectively, 
 there was no difference as to the participation of actual pardon 
 before and after the atonement, though in point of inner liberty, 
 or the subjective realization of it, there could not but be a cer¬ 
 tain difference between men eagerly looking forward to the 
 great coming fact, and their laying hold of it as already accom¬ 
 plished. In that respect something was awanting (Heb. xi. 
 40). But the point which this text illustrates, and for which I 
 have adduced it, is the inseparable link between forgiveness 
 and atonement: it is a causal connection—an immediate con¬ 
 nection without any further addition. 
 
 Bom. viii. 34 : “ Who is he that condemneth ? it is Christ that 
 died!’ —The argument there would not hold, unless merited con¬ 
 demnation were directly removed from us by the death of Christ, 
 without another cause in operation. ISTow forgiveness is exemp¬ 
 tion from condemnation, and it is ascribed exclusively to Christ’s 
 death. The death of Christ alone is thus the direct and im¬ 
 mediate cause of pardon. 
 
 This will help us to understand the significance of the 
 biblical terms by which forgiveness is described. They are 
 numerous, whether we look at the Old Testament or at the 
 ISTew; and they presuppose atonement, as a few instances will 
 show. 
 
 Bom. iv. 7: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven , 
 and whose sins are covered .” “ Blessed is the man to whom the Lord 
 will not impute sin ” (Ps. xxxii. 1, 2).—There are two phrases 
 which are here alternated, as interchangeable expressions with 
 the commonly used term “ forgiveness.” The first, that of cover¬ 
 ing sins, intimates that they are covered from the Judge’s eye, 
 
24 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 so that if they are sought for, they are not to be found. This 
 figurative expression is thought to he taken from the hlood- 
 sprinlded mercy-seat or covering of the ark which covered the 
 tables of the law, and therefore the curse due to the people 
 for their sins, though we need not be too curious to settle 
 this point when no materials are at hand. The meaning is, that 
 sins, as covered from the Judge, no more cry for vengeance, 
 and there must be something to cover them; while the second 
 phrase, the non-imputation of sin, denotes that it is not charged 
 to our account,—that is, that our persons are no longer sub¬ 
 jected to merited punishment (2 Sam. xix. 19 ; Lev. vii. 18). 
 
 Heb. x. 17 : “ And their sins and iniquities will I remember 
 no more .”—This expression describes the perfection of the for¬ 
 giveness when Christ’s one' sacrifice was offered. A judge no 
 more remembers sins when he does not remember them judi¬ 
 cially, or when he ceases to act against them; and the language 
 means that, on the ground of Christ’s death, God remembers 
 sin no more. 
 
 Col. ii. 13: “ You, being dead in your sins, hath He quickened 
 with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses .” This passage dis¬ 
 tinctly shows that the idea attached to forgiveness involved 
 deliverance from punishment: for the apostle says first that 
 they were by sin subjected to death and punishment, and that 
 the quickening in which they rejoiced was a consequence of 
 forgiveness; which again was owing to the atonement of the 
 cross, or to the blotting out of the handwriting of ordinances 
 by nailing it to the cross. 
 
 The most frequently used expression in the Old Testament 
 to denote forgiveness, is literally to bear sin 1 (Mic. vii. 18; 
 Ex. xxxiv. 7; Num. xiv. 18; Josh. xxiv. 19). It appears not 
 improbable that this phrase, so frequently used to describe 
 pardon in the Old Testament, was borrowed from the sacrifices, 
 perhaps from the scape-goat, led away by the hand of a fit 
 man, and let go in the wilderness (Lev. xvi. 21). The iniquity 
 1 See our former volume, Sayings of Jesus, sec. xiii. 1. 
 
THEIR EXPOSITION OF THE SACRIFICES. 
 
 25 
 
 of the people was borne by these two goats, used on the day 
 of atonement, being first expiated by the one, and then borne 
 away by the other. And as the two were intended to convey 
 but one idea, and are a mutual complement of each other, they 
 gave a symbolical representation of the mode of taking away 
 sin and merited punishment. 1 The unrighteousness of the 
 covenant people was removed from the eyes of the Judge, and 
 no more suitable expression could be employed to intimate the 
 remission of sin. But however the expression is explained— 
 and various explanations will continue to be given—it cer¬ 
 tainly implies to remit or forgive sin, so that it is no more 
 punishable. 
 
 Thus, according to apostolic teaching, the acceptance of the 
 sinner and the pardon of his sins—that is, the positive and 
 negative side of the new relation into which we are admitted— 
 is immediately connected with the cross. The one is called 
 justification, and the other forgiveness; but they are both 
 forensic terms, having reference to our personal relation to 
 the moral Governor and Judge; and they are immediately 
 connected with the cross, or with the atonement which vindi¬ 
 cates the divine law. This assumes that in other respects no 
 duty is left undone; that there is no sin of omission as well 
 as no sin of commission: for these two sides of the question 
 are the complement of each other—correlative truths; the one 
 presupposing the other. And the person may be described 
 either by the negative or positive side of the sentence. 
 
 SEC. III.—THE APOSTLES’ EXPOSITION OF THE SACRIFICES AND 
 TEMPLE SERVICES, AS SYMBOLICAL AND TYPICAL. 
 
 In this section I purpose to consider the apostles’ elucida¬ 
 tion of the atonement from the ancient sacrifices. The plan 
 we are pursuing leads us into this field under the guidance 
 
 1 See Prof. Lotze’s explanation of the phrase over de Vergeving, p. 20. 
 
26 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 of apostles; and as they lead the way, we do not place our¬ 
 selves, therefore, under any arbitrary human theories. Nor 
 have we any occasion to fall in with the attempt to stand 
 merely on the ground which the reading of the Old Testament 
 supplies to our own minds, apart from the apostolic commen¬ 
 tary; a presumptuous attempt which has invariably failed. 
 We survey the sacrificial economy with the light which the 
 apostles reflect upon it; and where they stop short, there we 
 also stop. 
 
 On the subject of sacrifice, there have been before the church 
 two artificially constructed systems. The typical system, run 
 out into a labyrinth of detail; and the symbolical system, 
 which finds higher truth in all the multiplied ceremonies 
 appointed for the sacrifices. And to neither scheme does it 
 seem safe to surrender ourselves fully, since both err by over¬ 
 doing. It must he allowed that there is an amount of truth 
 in both, and that neither element is to he rejected. But on 
 either scheme, unless we have controlling landmarks, we may 
 soon get beyond divine ideas, and lose ourselves in human 
 fancies and ingenious analogies. 
 
 That which was called the typical theology was much in 
 favour a century ago. It had engaged the ingenuity of 
 Cocceius, Witsius, Yitringa, and Lampe; and in the hands 
 of these eminent men, and of others who followed them, much 
 precious truth was brought forth as the carrying out of apos¬ 
 tolical ideas; hut it was carried to such an extreme, that it 
 sunk in course of time under its own weight. It soon came to 
 he out of keeping with the great purpose of exegesis, the object 
 of which is to exhibit the substance of revelation in its origin, 
 progress, and proper import; and a reaction was the conse¬ 
 quence on the part of all men of spiritual insight and taste. 
 It was overdone, and the mind made the natural and necessary 
 effort to regain its equilibrium. 
 
 The modern school differs from the former, by fixing atten¬ 
 tion rather on the symbolical meaning of the sacrifices. This 
 
THEIR EXPOSITION OF THE SACRIFICES. 
 
 27 
 
 system has for its object to find out the spiritual ideas under¬ 
 lying them. The symbol is with these writers the tangible 
 substratum to exhibit a higher truth, or to illustrate God’s 
 method of dealing witli sin and sinning men. There is im¬ 
 portant truth in this view, especially as it unfolds a useful 
 mode of instruction in reference to God the moral Governor, 
 to the guilt and defilement of sin, and to the method of 
 expiation. But it must be added that many writers in this 
 school go as far in the indulgence of a restless fancy as did 
 the typical school. This may fully be affirmed of the arti¬ 
 ficial system propounded by Bahr in a direction opposed to 
 the vicarious sacrifice. But the opposite system advocated by 
 Kurtz, Hengstenberg, Keil, and Kliefoth, 1 while powerfully 
 maintaining the vicarious character of the sacrifices, and start¬ 
 ing from apostolical expositions, errs in like manner in not a 
 few respects by overdoing. The Mosaic law, with its precepts 
 and prohibitions, threats and penalties, is correctly portrayed 
 as uniting into a system the great ideas of divine holiness, of 
 the evil of sin, and the necessity of expiation, which were all 
 symbolically taught by sacrifice. But it cannot be denied that 
 the minute details are overdone. If it was a labyrinth of type 
 a century ago, it has in more recent times become a labyrinth 
 of symbol; and to neither system in detail can we commit 
 ourselves, more especially when we reflect that the same mode 
 of interpretation, if applied to the parables, a similar method 
 of instruction, would throw obscurity, not light, over those 
 simple ideas which they are intended to elucidate. 
 
 I shall here collect into a few particulars the general doc¬ 
 trine of sacrifice, and keep the whole within due limits. 
 
 1 See Bahr, Symbolik des mos. Cultus ; Kurtz, das mosaische Opfer ; Hengsten- 
 berg, Opfer der H. S. 1858 ; Kliefoth, urspriingliche Gottesdienst. ordnung, 1858 ; 
 Keil, Opfer des A. B. (Zeitschrift fur die gesammte Lutherische Tlieologie, 
 1856-7). Besides these, Philippi’s Kirchliche Glaubenslehre, iv. 1863, and 
 Doedes’ articles (Jaarboeken voor Wetenschapp. Theol. 1846), deserve attention. 
 The reader will find in English an able discussion of the whole subject in Dr. 
 Fairbairn’s Typology, and also in Arch. Magee on the Atonement, and Dr. 
 Pye Smith’s Priesthood and Sacrifice, not to mention many popular expositions. 
 
28 
 
 APOSTLES’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 1. They were a mode of instruction on the way of ap¬ 
 proaching God, and were peculiarly suited to the human 
 mind struggling with a sense of guilt; and they have fur¬ 
 nished to the church of all times a vocabulary or nomen¬ 
 clature, without which men could not with sufficient precision 
 have been able to hold intercourse with each other on the 
 subject of the atonement. It deserves special notice, that 
 prophecy and sacrifices are always found together, and throw 
 light upon each other; and that they run in [parallel lines 
 through the entire Old Testament economy. Hay, the sacri¬ 
 fices may be regarded as a sort of prophecy, or a guarantee 
 to which the veracity of God was pledged; for the shadow 
 must one day become a reality. But it was furthermore 
 necessary that the great fact to which they pointed should 
 be distinctly announced in prophecy, and hence we find both 
 together from the time of the first promise (Gen. iii. 15). If, 
 indeed, the reality had not been appointed to appear, the 
 shadow or rude outline which was presented to the mind by 
 the sacrifices would never have been exhibited. 
 
 To apprehend the sacrifices aright, they must also be con¬ 
 sidered as sacraments. The terms sacrifice and sacrament 
 formally differ indeed in this respect, that sacrifice denotes 
 rather what is given to God, while sacrament points out what 
 God gives to us. But while this is not to be denied, they may 
 meet in one and the same thing; and the sacramental character 
 of sacrifices may be discerned very clearly in the whole ante¬ 
 diluvian and patriarchal periods, when they were signs and 
 seals to believing men, as sacraments are to us now. 1 This, 
 of course, takes for granted the divine origin of sacrifices, of 
 which, it appears to me, there is very little room for doubt. 
 But whatever view may be held on the primeval origin of 
 sacrifices, there cannot be two opinions as to the fact that they 
 had an expressly divine appointment in Israel; for even they 
 who are of opinion that men, in the exercise of their own 
 1 See Witsiusto tliis effect, tie Econom. Feed. lib. iv. c. 7. 7. 
 
THEIR EXPOSITION OF THE SACRIFICES. 
 
 29 
 
 reason, fell upon the device of offering animal sacrifices as a 
 method of acceptable worship, acknowledge that upon the Jews 
 they were divinely enjoined, with many explicit directions in 
 detail. But the evidence for their divine appointment in 
 primeval times seems quite conclusive, as a few words will 
 prove. 
 
 The sacrifice of Abel is so described as to show that it must 
 have been offered in compliance with divine appointment, and 
 that it was not a mere will-worship (Col. ii. 23). It is said to 
 have been acceptable to God—more acceptable than Cain’s 
 (Heb. xi. 4), because it was offered in faith—and to have been 
 received with a divine testimony of approval, which we may 
 suppose was given by the descent of consuming fire from 
 heaven upon the sacrifice, in the same way as was vouchsafed 
 on several later occasions (2 Chron. vii. 2). But that solemn 
 testimony of acceptance would only have terrified the offerer, 
 had he himself invented this mode of worship. The lightning 
 shooting round the altar and consuming the victim, would have 
 conveyed the impression of an angry God; and how could they 
 have apprehended by this means that they were reconciled ? 
 How could they have known without some divine revelation 
 that this consuming fire was a token of divine acceptance ? 
 "When we consider that revelation began at the fall, and that 
 God spoke with man, and conveyed His mind to him in the 
 most condescending and paternal way, as appears from the 
 Mosaic narrative of those times, we cannot suppose that the 
 divine goodness and wisdom abandoned him to the caprice of 
 his own mind in the matter and mode of worship. For this is 
 at the best but will-worship and the commandment of man 
 (Matt. xv. 9). 
 
 But, besides, we do not see that in the ordinary way of 
 acquiring ideas there was anything to lead men to that mode 
 of worship as peculiarly acceptable, or calculated to please God. 
 The first mention of sacrifice does not convey the impression 
 that it was a new invention in the time of Abel, but rather 
 
30 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 that it was a wonted mode of worship; and we may suppose 
 it derived from Adam’s custom. The two brothers were not 
 likely to fall upon the device at one and the same time, or to 
 show more inventiveness than Adam. That Adam, however 
 conscious of a good intention, would be very slow to rely 
 upon his own reason and judgment in the institution of divine 
 worship, may be safely argued from the painful remembrance 
 of what he had brought on himself and the world by the 
 plausibilities of that which had seemed good, and pleasant, and 
 desirable (Gen. iii. 6). But the sacrifice of a slain animal does 
 not, apart from the divine thought deposited in it, seem 
 peculiarly fitted to edify the mind, or to awaken filial trust and 
 boldness. The conjecture that the first garments of Adam and 
 Eve were the skins of animals offered in sacrifice, has not only 
 nothing improbable in it, but everything in its favour. They 
 would not naturally have fallen on the device of themselves. 
 But if the sacrifice was divinely instituted, and if it was the 
 channel of an important prophecy as to man’s acceptance, this 
 was highly natural. I may further add, that the divine origin 
 of sacrifice is not a little confirmed by the fact, that before the 
 flood the distinction between clean and unclean animals was 
 quite familiar: and from this the natural conclusion is, that as 
 the flesh of animals was not the common food of men till after 
 the flood, this distinction is only to be explained by the divine 
 direction as to the sort of animals that were to be used in 
 sacrifice (Gen. viii. 20). 
 
 The doubts which have been expressed on the divine insti¬ 
 tution of sacrifice are various. By some they are urged in the 
 interest of a theory adverse to the vicarious sacrifice of Christ. 
 With others, who are entitled to the utmost respect as evan¬ 
 gelical divines, the doubt arises from a different cause: it is 
 urged that, had they been of divine appointment, Moses would 
 not have omitted a matter of such importance. 1 But it must 
 
 1 As to the origin of sacrifice, the generally received opinion is that of Atha¬ 
 nasius and Eusebius ( Demonst . Evang. lib. i. c. 10), that they were of divine 
 
THEIR EXPOSITION OF THE SACRIFICES. 
 
 31 
 
 be remembered that Moses comprehends the history of about 
 sixteen centuries in six or seven chapters, and seems to record 
 the incident of Cain and Abel, where sacrifice is first brought 
 under our notice, in the bosom of the primeval genealogy. To 
 deduce a doubt from this circumstance is as unwarrantable as 
 to question whether Adam had any daughters, because there is 
 no mention of them in the Mosaic record. 
 
 2. The sacrifices were symbolical. Though this may be 
 affirmed of all the bloody sacrifices from the beginning, it was 
 specially true since the giving of the Mosaic law, when sacri¬ 
 fices were distributed into classes, and combined into a firmly 
 compacted system, to be kept before the eyes of all Israel. 
 The burnt-offering, that belonged to the primeval and patri¬ 
 archal age, was now to be accompanied with many other 
 forms of sacrifice; or, we may say, it branched out in the 
 new arrangement into various classes or divisions. All the 
 bloody sacrifices were atoning. Even those who allege 
 that the first sacrifices were nothing but thankofferings, and 
 ' erroneously maintain that all the sacrifices offered in the patri¬ 
 archal times were of this nature, are obliged to admit that at 
 the national organization of Israel as a covenant people there 
 were sin-offerings destined for the expiation of certain sins. 
 The Mosaic law multiplied the sacrifices, and divided them 
 into different classes, all meant for different purposes. The 
 
 appointment. So Rivetus {Gen. c. 4), Cdoppenburg (tom. i. p. 24, and Select. 
 Disp. xviii.), Owen on Hebrews, Witsins, Heidegger, J. Wessel {de origin. 
 Sacrific.), Stackhouse, Buddeus, Goodwin in his Moses and Aaron, Quensted 
 (Par. iy. 1. 2, Ques. 8). On the other hand, many learned divines have 
 thought that they may he referred to the light of nature, or to the sense of 
 human wants. Of this opinion were Bellarmin, Grotius, Episcopius, Selden. 
 Outram hesitated, and pronounced for neither side in a matter which he 
 thought obscure. Mosheim held the former opinion as by far the most probable. 
 Spencer {de legibus Hebrceor.), w r ho maintained that sacrifice was not derived 
 from divine revelation, but from human reason, and an expression of love to 
 God, is followed by Hengstenberg and very many of the German exegetes. 
 Oehler (Herzog, Real Enyclopadie, article Opfer) tries to find some place for both 
 elements, likening sacrifice to prayer. As to the divine institution of the 
 Mosaic sacrifices there cannot be two opinions, nor does the evidence for the 
 divine origin of primeval sacrifice seem to us doubtful. 
 
32 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 design which the bloody sacrifices were meant to serve from 
 the first, however, and which they never ceased to serve, was 
 to maintain a conviction of man’s guilt, and a dependence on 
 the forgiving grace of God by an atonement. They clearly 
 taught this truth in a symbolic form to the Jewish nation. 
 They showed that reconciliation could be effected in no other 
 way than by a satisfaction to divine justice. They pointed out 
 that the worshippers had in many ways offended God, and 
 were worthy of death; that they were to see in the sacrifices a 
 symbol of the inevitable divine punishment which had been • 
 incurred; and that God made the animal victim serve as a 
 pledge that the punishment was borne by a substitute, and 
 that on this ground the offerer could again be taken into 
 favour. The sacrifices were meant to exhibit the indispensable 
 necessity of an atonement by vicarious expiation. 
 
 Whatever variety of opinion prevails on some of the sym¬ 
 bols, there are three conclusions to which all come with perfect 
 harmony who have in any manner apprehended the significance 
 of the sin-offering. It was, (1) a gracious institution which 
 God had appointed as the means by which the offended moral 
 Governor could be reconciled; (2) it was vicarious in its 
 character; (3) a satisfaction was effected by means of the 
 victim’s death. 
 
 Here, before proceeding further, it is proper to inquire what 
 were the cases for which the Mosaic law appointed sacrifice ? 
 The sacrifices were not for moral offences, such as murder, 
 adultery, or idolatry, but only for trespasses of a merely cere¬ 
 monial nature; for involuntary oversights and sins of igno¬ 
 rance ; and for those states of bodily defilement which had 
 been pronounced trespasses according to the laws which 
 separated Israel from other nations. In a word, they were 
 positive and arbitrary laws, for the violation of which positive 
 and arbitrary atonements could fully suffice : such as the pro¬ 
 hibition to touch a dead body or to touch a grave; mere 
 offences against theocratic purity, as appears from the rites 
 
THEIR EXPOSITION OF THE SACRIFICES. 
 
 33 
 
 appointed for tlie sin-offering (Lev. xii. 7, 8; Hum. vi. 11). 
 The sins for which the sacrifices were available were not, pro¬ 
 perly speaking, moral offences at all; for these the blood of 
 bulls and goats could never take away 1 (Heb. x. 4). They were 
 nothing but theocratic trespasses, which could be cancelled and 
 absolutely remitted by the same positive authority by which 
 the ceremonial rites were instituted. And on the great day of 
 atonement the annual sacrifice was offered for the collective 
 sins of the entire people during the course of the year, thus re¬ 
 adjusting their relation as the theocratic people (Lev. xvi. 15 ; 
 Heb. ix. 13). 
 
 How the design of the Mosaic law was obvious. The sin- 
 offering, whether we look at the more public expiation for the 
 whole nation on the day of atonement, or at the more private 
 expiation for the defilement of the individual, was instituted at 
 the same time with the law, and in order to relieve the wor¬ 
 shipper. The positive law and the positive atonement thus 
 came into existence together. As God wished to develope 
 among the children of Israel the idea of sin, and to make their 
 consciences alive to the fact of sin, it was necessary to impose 
 a long series of positive and arbitrary laws, which, it is said, 
 were given to make the offence abound, or, as it is put in 
 another epistle, added because of transgressions (Eom. v. 20; 
 Gal. iii. 19). These laws, not being based on the moral nature 
 of man, were but external, positive, and transitory. They 
 might have been of another character, and they have now 
 ceased. 
 
 It is not denied that these ceremonial offences miglit be 
 connected in some mysterious way with the effects of sin, or 
 with the roots of sin, in man’s nature; but they were properly 
 
 1 I totally dissent from the notion supported by Kurtz, Hengstenberg, Keil, 
 Doedes, and others, which connects in some sense with these sacrifices the 
 forgiveness of moral offences against God. That is emphatically denied by the 
 apostle, as we shall find in the Epistle to the Hebrews (x. 1-4, ix. 9) ; and 
 Philippi is warranted to repudiate it in the sternest manner as a superstition. 
 The apostle has settled that question for us. 
 
 C 
 
34 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 external and positive. The sin-offering was appointed to re¬ 
 move them; and the Mosaic worship found its centre-point 
 there. While the covenant which God made with Israel was 
 kept unbroken on the part of the worshipper, he could approach 
 by the burnt-offering, which was not meant for special sins so 
 much as for the general sinfulness attaching to every man. If 
 the covenant relation was broken, access was restored and a 
 reunion effected by means of the sin-offering—without which, 
 indeed, there was no remission—and it always carried expia¬ 
 tion in its train. The Israelite was well aware, when he con¬ 
 tracted ceremonial guilt, that he was out of covenant relation 
 to the God of Israel, and sundered from Him who could allow 
 no approach to His presence till the trespass was taken away. 
 The trespass produced separation between God and him, as 
 well as conscious estrangement and fear, and death must neces¬ 
 sarily ensue as the wages of sin. The great thought brought 
 out in this symbolical way was, that God could not sacrifice 
 His holiness to His love. But death having ensued as the 
 
 due punishment for sin in the animal sacrifice, the worshipper 
 had a present restoration into covenant fellowship. Here it 
 might be proper briefly to refer to the symbolical import of the 
 sacrificial actions; but as the same actions are also typical, we 
 may more fitly notice their symbolical and typical elements 
 together than apart. 
 
 Meanwhile we must add, that for the transgression of these 
 ceremonial laws many calamities were threatened, such as the 
 withdrawal of civil and ecclesiastical privileges. The sacrifices 
 were provided not for a wanton disobedience to the law, but 
 for involuntary trespass or unwitting neglect; and the offence 
 committed was cancelled by the mere fact of the sacrifice con¬ 
 sidered simply as an act done {opus operatuin). In reference 
 to the symbolical character of the sacrifices, it may be proper, 
 before proceeding further, to obviate a series of misconceptions. 
 
 a. The sin-offerings were not for mere offences against the 
 state. They were not offered to man, but to God; not meant 
 
THEIR EXPOSITION OF THE SACRIFICES. 
 
 to avert civil pains and penalties, but to expiate offences 
 against the ceremonial law. Though God was the monarch of 
 Israel, or theocratic King, yet a trespass against the sacrificial 
 economy was always more than a misdemeanour against the 
 state. The Most High was to be obeyed even in the enact¬ 
 ment of arbitrary laws, and the punishment was due from the 
 justice and truth of God. And when the worshipper brought 
 the sacrifice of atonement, he was purged from all that defiled 
 him : he had access to God; and the courts of the sanctuary 
 were again thrown open to him. 
 
 b. Nor were the sacrifices a mere expression of penitence. 
 For a defilement having been contracted, it could be removed 
 only by sacrifice, and by the sprinkling which was connected 
 with sacrifice,—a result following according to the connection 
 of cause and effect. Not that repentance was excluded as an 
 accompaniment of every approach to Jehovah in the way of 
 worship; but the sacrifice must neither be resolved into a 
 mere expression of penitence, nor be viewed as effecting its 
 purpose only so far as the penitent, contrite heart went along 
 with it. This accompanying penitence could not fitly be said 
 to apply to the day of atonement, when the collective sins of 
 Israel were annually expiated and fully removed. To prove 
 that the sin-offering atoned for sin, or cancelled it, simply 
 by the deed done (pipere, operato), we have but to remember 
 the mediating priest, and the laying on of the hand of the 
 worshipper upon the victim’s head, as a proof that the guilt 
 was transferred vicariously. The effect of these propitiatory 
 sacrifices was the remission of the threatened penalty, indepen¬ 
 dently of the contrition and penitence which might in many 
 cases, but did not in all cases, and certainly did not on the 
 great day of atonement, uniformly and in every instance go 
 along with them. 
 
 c. Nor were the sacrifices a mere renewal of homage to the 
 theocratic King. Such a notion confounds the things that 
 differ,—confounds the sin-offering with the free-will offer- 
 
36 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 ing. The former had in it nothing of the character of a friendly 
 feast, whether taken in its more public form as offered for the 
 sins of the nation, or in its more private form as offered for 
 the ceremonial trespasses of an individual (Lev. iv. 3-21) ; but 
 was intended to transfer the offerer’s guilt to the animal victim 
 which was put in his place. The great thought contained in 
 all the propitiatory sacrifices was, that the guilt which the 
 worshipper had incurred was transferred to the sacrifice; and 
 that by the death of the victim he was set free from merited 
 punishment, and fully re-admitted into the divine favour. We 
 must dismiss the notion that the sacrifices were but an act of 
 homage to an invisible King, or a mere renewal of allegiance 
 to Him. 
 
 The symbolical meaning of the sacrifices—that is, the 
 higher truth which they conveyed—was precisely what we 
 have mentioned. These offerings did not atone for moral 
 trespass or spiritual guilt; and the Epistle to the Hebrews, in 
 language the most explicit and unambiguous, denies to them 
 any possible efficacy to take away sin, or to purge the con¬ 
 science. They were gifts and sacrifices, says the apostle, 
 which could not make the worshipper perfect as pertaining to 
 the conscience, and were imposed only till the times of refor¬ 
 mation (Heb. ix. 9, 10). 
 
 But to make their symbolical meaning more apparent, it 
 must be added that something was actually done in a lower 
 sphere on the occasion of every sacrifice. They not only 
 taught a truth, but in a certain lower sphere effected actual 
 deliverance, and re-admitted the worshipper to a relation of 
 nearness which, but for the sacrifice, would have been denied. 
 It was a transaction which not only taught a truth, but actu¬ 
 ally showed that in point of fact remission of guilt was effected. 
 With that idea God made His ancient people familiar. And 
 however much it may be decried at present as a gross opinion 
 or as a popular error, it was stamped on the Old Testament 
 church. To make atonement by sacrifice meant, in the lan- 
 
THEIR EXPOSITION OF THE SACRIFICES. 
 
 37 
 
 guage of Scripture, to avert penalty incurred, and to procure 
 remission of sin (Lev. iv. 20). By means of those sacrifices 
 threatened punishments were removed, whether consisting in 
 national calamities, or in the death of the transgressor, or in 
 the withdrawal of civil and ecclesiastical privileges. But the 
 true and proper atonement was not, and could not he, through 
 these elements of the world. The true atonement was not by, 
 with, or under them in any proper sense of the words; for 
 they did not make the worshipper perfect as pertaining to the 
 conscience, or remove from him the sense of sin (Heb. ix. 9). 
 
 Against this view, that the sacrifices had a symbolical im¬ 
 port, and actually effected a certain result in a lower sphere, 
 it is sometimes urged that they are described as referring more 
 to sacred things than to persons, for they are represented as 
 making atonement for the sanctuary (Lev. xvi. 16). But this 
 is easy of explanation. From the fact that, according to divine 
 appointment, the holy place and its furniture were to be 
 sprinkled with blood, we are by no means to conclude that 
 the place demanded the atonement, and not the people. The 
 sanctuary was but an emblem of the way in which God in¬ 
 habits His church, or dwells among His people. This was 
 made very evident in the old economy; and as the sins of the 
 people tended to make the sanctuary unworthy to continue as 
 the dwelling-place of God, the sprinkling of blood applied to 
 it was meant to show that God, notwithstanding recurring 
 transgressions, would continue to reside in it when He beheld 
 the blood of atonement. Thus, it was the people that needed 
 reconciliation, while the reference to the sanctuary conveyed 
 an emphatic lesson as to the continued inhabitation of God 
 among them. That the people needed the reconciliation and 
 not the place, is proved by the fact that the ceremony was 
 demanded for the transgressions of Israel (Lev. xvi. 16), and 
 made atonement for the priests and all the people (ver. 33). 
 
 Thus sacrifices conveyed the most important truth in a 
 symbolical form. But their very frequency and repetition 
 
38 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 argued insufficiency. The daily return of the same round of 
 sacrifice proclaimed, as with a voice, their complete insuffi¬ 
 ciency ; which, indeed, many of the more enlightened in 
 Israel clearly perceived. Hence we find that David (Ps. xl. 6 
 and li. 16), Asaph (Ps. 1. 8), Micali (vi. 6), and Isaiah (i. 11), 
 give a clear and striking testimony to the inadequacy of those 
 sacrifices to effect in any measure a true and everlasting atone¬ 
 ment for sin. 
 
 3. The sacrifices were from the first typical of the great 
 atonement. The relation between the two was the same that 
 obtains between shadow and substance, picture and reality; 
 therefore not an accidental harmony, or comparison based upon 
 ingenious analogies or far-fetched points of resemblance. The 
 connection between the two was in the things themselves, not 
 in the mind of the observer; nay, we may warrantably affirm 
 that the language proper to the real atonement for sin was 
 thrown back upon the type—not conversely. 
 
 The opposite theory of sacrifice which calls in question their 
 typical import, and assigns to them no other function than 
 that of teaching some general truths, may here be noticed 
 before we proceed to the ritual. They who would overthrow 
 the atoning work of Christ in every form, admit that the 
 sacrifices taught religious ideas in a general way, but deny 
 that they foreshadowed the propitiation for sin that was to 
 come, or that they were a prophetic anticipation of it. Here 
 all depends on the question: Was the peculiar similarity or 
 correspondence which undoubtedly may be traced between the 
 ancient sacrifices and the atonement of Christ of divine ap¬ 
 pointment, or was it a merely accidental matter ? Apart from 
 express design on God’s side, we could not adduce a sufficient 
 proof of the typical nature of the sacrifices. That there was 
 such a design, however, and that the one adumbrated and was 
 intended to adumbrate the other, a few words will suffice to 
 show. Here we simply ask, What say the apostles, the great 
 interpreters of the old economy according to the mind of 
 
TIIEIR EXPOSITION OF THE SACRIFICES. 
 
 39 
 
 Clirist ? Do they speak of the sacrifices as typical, and fur¬ 
 nishing a prophetical foreshadowing of the atonement ? The 
 matter might he decided from the Prophets and Psalms; hut 
 the plan we are pursuing leads us to inquire how far the 
 typical character of the sacrifices is affirmed in the sayings 
 and writings of apostles. It is not the question, how many 
 of the Jewish nation rose to such anticipations, nor what ideas 
 were entertained hy the people generally. The question rather 
 is: Did the believing Israelite on good ground come to the 
 typical view of the sacrifices; and especially did the apostles, 
 as men taught hy Christ orally, and filled with the Spirit, lead 
 the Christian church so to view them ? It must he decided 
 hy apostolic testimony whether the typical character of sacrifice 
 is in harmony with the divine appointment and true design of 
 sacrifice. And this is not left doubtful to any attentive reader 
 of the epistles. 
 
 a . One obvious proof that the sacrifices were typical, and 
 meant to he so, may he drawn from the fact that they are 
 expressly called shadows ; a more apt designation than any 
 other that could he chosen to set forth what we understand hy 
 their typical character. The term “ shadow,” intimating as it 
 does a certain resemblance to the thing signified, implies that 
 what is so named has a dependence on that of which it is the 
 rude outline, hut no existence apart from the substance. Thus 
 the various arrangements as to food and festivals are called a 
 “ shadow” of things to come (Col. ii. 17). The priests are de¬ 
 scribed as serving unto the pattern and “ shadow ” of heavenly 
 things (Heh. viii. 5). The law is said to have a “shadow” of 
 good things to come, and not the very image of the things— 
 that is, not the reality or substance (Heh. x. 1). The patterns 
 of the heavenly things purified with blood are contrasted with 
 the heavenly things themselves (Heh. ix. 23). In a word, the 
 shadowy is contrasted with the true in a great variety of points ; 
 and the phraseology employed to express the contrast calls up 
 before us type and antitype (John vi. 32 ; Heh. ix. 24). 
 
40 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 b. Another proof is derived from the fact that the death of 
 Christ is expressly represented as an offering and a sacrifice 
 (Eph. v. 2). He is described as offering Himself (Heb. x. 14). 
 We must admit a coincidence between the sacrifices and the 
 death of Christ of such a nature as exists between the sign and 
 the thing signified, and that this is established by divine design. 
 The apostles found this resemblance in the things themselves. 
 They teach us to regard the sacrifices as a prophetic fore¬ 
 shadowing of what was future, and the Lord’s atoning death as 
 the reality of which the sacrifice was the shadow. No one 
 gazed so much on the coincidence or correspondence between 
 the shadow and the reality as the apostles, intimating that they 
 considered the former dispensation as finding its accomplish¬ 
 ment in Christ’s death. Without this typical reference, the 
 ancient sacrifices would be nothing more than an antiquity. 
 To adduce an example, we find it said, “ Christ our passover 
 is sacrificed for us ” (1 Cor. v. 7). Here the coincidence be¬ 
 tween the two appears in every variety of view, historical as 
 well as doctrinal. Thus Jesus entered Jerusalem on the day 
 when the passover was separated, according to the requirements 
 of the Mosaic law for the sacrifice; and everything proclaims 
 an essential connection between it and Him. The passover, 
 again, was the foundation of the covenant with Israel, and 
 that which separated the church from the world; and the 
 coincidence between the typical and spiritual redemption is 
 apparent at a glance. The same thing was displayed in con¬ 
 nection with the annual sin-offering on the great day of atone¬ 
 ment, when the collective sins of the nation were annually 
 expiated. Christ’s priestly act of sacrifice was the truth or 
 substance of that shadow, and its typical character will not be 
 called in question by any one who compares the antithesis in 
 which the apostle places them (Heb. ix. 7-14). 
 
 c. Another proof of the typical character of the sacrifices is 
 furnished by their transitory nature. They merged in the 
 reality, which could not have been the case had the institution 
 
THEIR EXPOSITION OF THE SACRIFICES. 
 
 41 
 
 been other than typical. Being blit a shadow, they could cease 
 when the reality came. The church can now dispense with the 
 sacrifices, as she has infinitely more in Christ’s atonement than 
 the shadowy economy of Israel could ever bestow. It is re¬ 
 placed by a better, and abrogated as insufficient to meet man’s 
 spiritual wants. The one everlasting sacrifice having been 
 offered, the unprofitable outline of it disappears. But this 
 could only be because the whole was typical. 
 
 The worshippers under the Mosaic law, priests and people, 
 were in constant fear. It was an economy given with terrible 
 accompaniments, and gendered to bondage (Heb. xii. 18). They 
 were subject to numerous rules and duties, the violation of 
 which in the least degree entailed guilt, defilement, and danger. 
 Sometimes a trespass was followed by immediate death at the 
 hand of God ; at other times, if the offence was one to be atoned 
 for, the punishment inflicted was separation from the congrega¬ 
 tion, and from the privilege of approach to God. They were 
 put far off, and could not draw near; and to put away what 
 separated between the worshipper and God, a propitiatory sacri¬ 
 fice, or, to use the special term, a sin-offering, was indispensably 
 necessary; for without the shedding of blood was no remission 
 even for the ceremonial defilement. This mode of governing 
 the Israelitish community was a wise arrangement, and suited 
 to the numerous laws divinely imposed on them. It intimated 
 a method by which the worshipper, estranged from God and 
 out of covenant standing, could be restored, and come before 
 the inflexibly holy and yet merciful God. The penalty as well 
 as the distance could be removed only by sacrifice. 
 
 The great thought, therefore, underlying the whole Mosaic 
 economy was, that transgression violating the order of the uni¬ 
 verse must be visited with punishment. Death must follow, 
 and no regrets could remove the guilt. The offender must die, 
 without the possibility of living in fellowship with God, unless 
 a sin-offering were presented to God to atone for the trespass, 
 and remove it. Necessary punishment must ensue ; and till a 
 
42 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 sacrifice was offered, the worshipper must necessarily be sepa¬ 
 rated from God, and forbidden to approach Him. The idea 
 of substitution prevails in all the sin-offerings. The defiled 
 Israelite who had broken the law, or the offending nation, 
 offering the sin-offering to put them on a right footing with 
 the God of Israel, had a representation or figure of what they 
 must have endured had not sacrifice intervened. The sacrifices 
 proclaimed the absolute necessity of an atonement for sin, and 
 they effected the deliverance by the deed done, not by inward 
 feelings or altered conduct on the part of the worshipper. 
 
 But we shall better apprehend the import of sacrifices, and 
 their united symbolical and typical significance, if we follow 
 step by step the order of the ritual. It must be carefully noted, 
 that in the private sin-offerings of the people the priest was 
 present at the first three acts, but began his proper function 
 only when the blood was to be received for the act of sprink¬ 
 ling. On the great annual day of atonement, however, the 
 high priest, the representative of the nation, performed all the 
 acts of the sacrifice. The ritual advanced according to the 
 following successive steps. 
 
 1. The worshipper who had contracted guilt by any viola¬ 
 tion of the law for which a sin-offering was provided, was 
 enjoined to bring a clean animal, without blemish, to the 
 tabernacle of the congregation. The animal must be alive, as 
 the arrangements involved the taking of its life. The act of 
 presentation, as performed by a willing offerer, implied the 
 voluntary character of the sacrifice. The presentation was to 
 be upon the altar, to wdiich, as erected on an elevation, the 
 victim was to be brought up, just as the great antitype was 
 lifted up upon the cross (1 Pet. ii. 24). To the perfection of 
 the sacrifice, however, it was indispensable that the victim 
 should be without defect or blemish. This is constantly 
 alluded to by the sacred writers (1 Pet. i. 19 ; Heb. ix. 14). 
 Now what did this intimate, in a typical point of view, but 
 the sinlessness of Jesus, who must be righteous to stand for 
 
THEIR EXPOSITION OF THE SACRIFICES. 
 
 43 
 
 tlie unrighteous, innocent to stand for the guilty ? Did this 
 convey anything further than the thought that the spotless 
 holiness of Jesus was necessary as a condition or prerequisite 
 for the oblation itself ? It meant more. The holiness of Jesus 
 was itself an essential element or ingredient in the atonement, 
 considered as a satisfaction to justice, as a fulfilment of the 
 law. One essential part 1 of the sacrifice was the perfect holi¬ 
 ness and sinless purity of the Lord, who through the Eternal 
 Spirit offered Himself without spot to God (Heb. ix. 14). 
 
 2. The next act of the ritual was the laying on of the 
 hand upon the victim’s head. This symbolically intimated 
 the communication of that which was ours, and therefore the 
 transfer of our guilt, to the substitute, and it was accompanied 
 on the day of atonement with the confession of sins (Lev. xvi. 
 21). This conclusively shows what was the meaning of the 
 act, and this is not to be overthrown by fanciful theories. 
 Thus Bahr, opposed in principle to the vicarious sacrifice, will 
 have the action mean no more than this, that the animal 
 belonged to the offerer, or that it was his property. Kurtz, 
 again, will have it mean the devoting of the animal to death, 
 forgetting that there must be a reason why it was visited with 
 death. That reason is the imputation of sin, or the arrange¬ 
 ment by which it was made sin, or made incorporated guilt. 
 The laying on of the hand, at one time for one end and at 
 another time for another, was a common action, meaning 
 generally the communicating of something from one party to 
 another. In the case before us it meant that the offerer put 
 himself in a relation to the victim, or into a peculiar connec¬ 
 tion with it, so as to communicate to it his own guilt, or the 
 nation’s guilt, according to the private or public nature of the 
 sacrifice; and after this ceremony the animal suffered death for 
 the sin. The punishment followed, and this determines its 
 
 1 See an interesting argument from this fact for the whole obedience of 
 Christ, that is, for His active as well as passive obedience in justification, in 
 reply to Sibrandus Lubbertus, who demanded a proof of it from the sacrifices, 
 in Walseus, Opera , tom. ii. p. 420. 
 
44 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 meaning. Though this is the only act of the ritual not 
 expressly named in the New Testament, it comes before us 
 under other turns of phrase. Thus, when Jesus was numbered 
 with transgressors (Mark xv. 26), when He was sent in the 
 likeness of sinful flesh (Eom. viii. 3), and made sin (2 Cor. 
 y. 21), we have that which was denoted by this ritual act. 
 
 3. The next act was the immolation—the animal’s death. 
 The symbolical import of this is, that death is the wages of sin, 
 and that sin and death stand related as cause and consequence. 
 But further, the animal must die by the hand of the wor¬ 
 shipper, and for an obvious reason. His was the sin laid upon 
 the victim—his the death; and hence none but he who laid 
 his hand on the animal’s head was to kill it. In this part of 
 the sacrificial ritual there was, on many grounds, a deep sig¬ 
 nificance ; and not least is the circumstance that there was a 
 marked correspondence between this fact and the mode in 
 which the Saviour died. The Lord was not to meet His death 
 in any other way but by violence. The sinner’s hand was to 
 be the instrument of inflicting the death, even as the sinner’s 
 guilt was the meritorious cause, and the only assignable cause, 
 why death could come to Him at all. Still further, the death 
 was penal. This is to be strictly maintained; as the notion 
 that the death was only in order to obtain the blood, or a mere 
 means to an end, and without further significance, would 
 perplex and unsettle the entire ritual. The death in itself was 
 punitive, or the wages of sin. If not, what could the blood 
 have accomplished ? But on the principle that the imputation 
 of guilt was signified by the laying on of hands, death followed 
 as the necessary effect; for the worshipper owed death, and the 
 infliction of it was penal. 
 
 This excludes the subjective theory, which has been con¬ 
 trived by the opponents of the vicarious satisfaction to explain 
 the death of the victim. Thus Bahr, with those who follow in 
 his tendency, will have it mean that the self-seeking life of 
 man dies, and is replaced by a spiritual life devoted to God. 
 
THEIR EXPOSITION OF THE SACRIFICES. 
 
 45 
 
 According to this notion, the death of the animal, in its sym¬ 
 bolical meaning, teaches the mortification of sin, or that self 
 must be sacrificed. On every ground this exposition is un¬ 
 tenable. Not to mention that it is out of keeping with the 
 ritual, according to which the animal died and continued dead, 
 it takes for granted that a guilty man can, without any repara¬ 
 tion, dedicate himself to God. But that cannot be, as he has 
 no power to dispose of a forfeited life; and without atonement, 
 or covering for his soul, he cannot be dedicated to God. There 
 is no possibility of this without expiation, for death is the 
 wages of sin. 
 
 4. The next act in the sacrificial ritual was the sprinkling 
 of the blood. At this point the priest’s activity commenced. 
 He had been, up to this step in the ritual, present as a spectator, 
 but he now steps in to take part in it. It was he who received 
 the flowing blood of the animal, and who put it on the horns, 
 or highest point, of the altar, and who poured it out at the 
 bottom (Lev. iv. 25-34); an action which intimated that the 
 meeting-place between God and His people was from top to 
 bottom covered with blood, that the sins of the people were 
 covered by an atonement, and that the worshippers were no 
 more exposed to His frown. The blood received by the priest, 
 and made his own, is regarded as the vicariously shed blood of 
 the priest. Thus, in the ritual, we consider not the victim 
 alone, but also the priest, without whom the sacrifice could not 
 be duly offered; and the action of receiving the blood had a 
 peculiar significance. It signified that he made the blood his 
 own. But besides the ablutions, vestments and other typical 
 sanctifications shadowed forth the holiness and righteousness of 
 the Antitype. What was done upon the victim was supposed 
 to have been done upon the priest, who now became a party to 
 the action. He appropriated the blood, which now passed for 
 his own blood: for the priest’s action began here. 
 
 The ritual advanced gradually till it reached this act of 
 sprinkling, where we find sin expiated and divine wrath pro- 
 
46 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 pitiated. But from the necessary imperfection of types, the 
 idea was exhibited broken into parts, and in succession. The 
 blood was brought to God, and made to cover sin. The 
 sprinkling, whether performed at the horns of the altar or in 
 the holy of holies, the meeting-place between God and His 
 people, figured forth that the sin of the individual, or of the 
 nation, though piled up as an heap, was now covered, and all 
 cause of separation removed. Death had intervened ; and the 
 blood that had passed through death was now most holy, and 
 had atoning power wherever it was sprinkled (Heb. xiii. 12). 
 The sacrifice, regarded as a propitiation, culminated in the 
 sprinkling of the blood, which is to he viewed as an element in 
 the objective atonement, and not, as is too much the case, as the 
 application of redemption. This appears on various grounds. 
 Thus the priest’s action began with the receiving of the blood 
 for the act of sprinkling; and the priest’s act, as typical 
 mediator, being essential to propitiatory sacrifices, nothing more 
 conclusively proved that the objective atonement consisted in 
 the sprinkling. This still further appears when we consider 
 the Antitype, and the point of the ritual at which the great 
 High Priest sprinkled the mercy-seat. 
 
 5. The last act of the sacrificial ritual consisted in the 
 burning OF the victim. This is not properly a separate 
 element, hut only another side of the propitiation, though made 
 distinct, owing to the imperfection of the type. We are not, 
 however, to destroy the unity of the idea by sundering it from 
 the other. The two things demanding explanation here are 
 the fire and the sweet-smelling savour (Heh. xiii. 11 ; Eph. 
 v. 2). As to the first, it was the holy fire which fell from 
 heaven on Aaron’s first sacrifice, and was never to he extin¬ 
 guished (Lev. v. 6, 7). Only the sacrifice which was consumed 
 by this fire, and rose to heaven as a sweet-smelling savour, was 
 really acceptable. As a type, this fire has been variously 
 explained. Thus Micliaelis viewed it as typical of eternal 
 punishment after death. Oehler regards it as denoting the 
 
TIIEIR EXPOSITION OF THE SACRIFICES. 
 
 47 
 
 divine holiness. Philippi takes it as the divine love, the 
 unquenchable love of the Son of God. If it were fitting to 
 consider this type as exhibiting any of the divine attributes, 
 it would be necessary to combine the two latter opinions as 
 equally essential to the atonement, and make it an emblem 
 of God in the unity of His perfections. But a different ex¬ 
 planation commends itself to my mind, and the rather because 
 the fire was given to produce a further result (ver. 12), that 
 sweet-smelling savour which is the positive element in the 
 sacrifice. It seems to me rather to denote the Holy Ghost, 
 whose agency and operations are in several passages set forth 
 by this emblem (Matt. iii. 11; Acts ii. 3 ; Luke xii. 49), and 
 through whom we are expressly told the Lord Jesus offered 
 Himself without spot to God (Heb. ix. 14). When we see 
 Him stedfastly setting His face to go to Jerusalem, fully bent 
 on His high work, we see the fire 1 of the sacrifice already 
 kindled, and the Eternal Spirit prompting Him and strengthen¬ 
 ing Him to consummate the work, by imbuing His soul with 
 ' a zeal and ardour, a love and obedience, which never allowed 
 His mind to cool till the sacrifice was consumed. As to the 
 second point, the sweet-smelling savour, this figured forth the 
 acceptable service, the perfect obedience of the Lord in the 
 light of winning the divine favour. As the expiation of wrath 
 was the negative side, so the sinless obedience is the positive. 
 They are two aspects of one great deed, by which sin was 
 expiated and divine favour won; incomplete when separate, 
 all-sufficient when combined. The blood-sprinkling refers to 
 vicarious suffering; the burning, with its sweet - smelling 
 savour, refers to the vicarious fulfilling of the law. 
 
 There are yet two points to which we would briefly refer 
 
 1 This interpretation was given by the Greek exegetes, Chrysostom, CEcu- 
 menius, Theophylact, in commenting on the words, ‘ ‘ who through the Eternal 
 Spirit offered Himself” (Heb. ix. 14). The same explanation is thus given by 
 Witsius, on the Creed, Exercit. xxiii. sec. 22 : “Mysticus ignis qui est Spiritus 
 Sanctus, sanctificans victimam et gratam prsestans Deo. De sacro igne coelitus 
 delapso, vide Lev. ix. 23, 24. ” 
 
48 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 in tlins tracing the correspondence between the type and the 
 Antitype, viz. (1) the action of the high priest in sprinkling 
 the mercy-seat, and (2) the change effected by the typical ritual 
 generally upon the relation of the worshippers to the God of 
 Israel. We do not anticipate the separate texts which will 
 come under our notice in discussing the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 but would lay a foundation for the expositions which will after¬ 
 wards be necessary when we treat of the apostolic testimony, 
 which largely takes a tincture from the ancient worship. 
 
 (1.) In directing attention to the sprinkling of the mercy- 
 seat, it must be noticed that the tabernacle had two divisions, of 
 which the one, termed the holy place, was allotted to the daily 
 ministrations of the priests; while the other, termed the holiest 
 of all, was entered only by the high priest once a year, not 
 without blood (Heb. ix. 6, 7). The arrangement corresponded 
 to the time then present, a period of imperfect atonement. 
 Why the holy of holies continued Shut, and was opened on the 
 day of atonement only, when the high priest entered within 
 the veil, is explained by the inefficacy of those sacrifices, which 
 could not perfectly atone for sin (Heb. ix. 7-9). But what 
 was the typical significance of that entrance, and what was 
 the time when the great Antitype, the truth of that shadow, 
 must be regarded as sprinkling the mercy-seat ? When did 
 the true High Priest enter within the veil? Was it at His 
 death ? or was it, as is commonly thought, when He ascended 
 and sat down on the right hand of God? This is a most 
 important question; and it is the more necessary to settle it, 
 because, as we shall find in the Epistle to the Hebrews, one 
 of the subtlest modes of evading the vicarious satisfaction is 
 to transfer the atoning element to heaven, and to withdraw 
 it from the finished work on the cross: and many, swayed by 
 exegetical reasons, think that countenance is given to that 
 opinion by the allusions in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. 
 ix. 24-26). The prevalent notion, that the entrance of the 
 high priest into the holy of holies found its truth in Christ’s 
 
THEIR EXPOSITION OF THE SACRIFICES. 
 
 49 
 
 triumphal entrance into heaven, may have some show of pro¬ 
 bability, but it is burdened by insuperable difficulties. To 
 suppose, as we must do in that case, that Christ’s priestly 
 action began in heaven,—that is, that He sprinkled the mercy- 
 seat, and completed the atonement only when He entered on 
 the mediatorial exaltation or reward,—seems to confound every¬ 
 thing. It does violence, we think, to all analogy between type 
 and antitype. The resurrection of Jesus coinciding with the 
 return of the high priest from the holiest of all, was designed 
 to be an evidence that divine wrath was removed, and for¬ 
 giveness obtained. The confusion of idea to which I have 
 referred as very prevalent, arises from not sufficiently distin¬ 
 guishing between the high priest, properly so called, and the 
 High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, or the Eoyal 
 Priest on His mediatorial throne. A few words will suffice 
 to prove that He entered within the veil and sprinkled the 
 mercy-seat at the moment when He commended His spirit 
 into His Father’s hand. This is the most natural interpreta- 
 
 ' tion; and this corresponds to the ceremonies on the great day 
 
 * 
 
 of atonement, to which express allusion is made in the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews 1 (Heb. ix. 11-14). 
 
 a. The typical entrance within the veil took place imme¬ 
 diately after the victim’s death; the body being carried without 
 the camp to be burned in a public place, and the blood being 
 carried into the holiest of all to be sprinkled on the covering 
 of the ark, as the propitiatory or mercy-seat. These closely 
 connected acts in the ritual were so related, that the burning 
 followed last in order. And as we know from the apostle 
 that that typical action coincided with Christ’s sacrifice with¬ 
 out the gates of Jerusalem (Heb. xiii. 11), it would reverse 
 
 1 As this will come before ns in the Epistle to the Hebrews, I shall then refer 
 to the literature of the subject, and to the hints and discussions in reference to it 
 by Witsius, Honert, A. Scliultens, and Lotze. They all assert this view in the 
 strongest terms. Its truth seems evident on its own merits, apart from its im¬ 
 portance as an argument against the Socinian denial of Christ’s priesthood and 
 sacrifice on earth. 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 the entire sacrificial system to interpret the sprinkling of the 
 mercy-seat of what was done by Him forty days after His 
 resurrection, when He ascended to heaven. Not only so: the 
 apostle argues, too, in a way that excludes such a comment, 
 saying, “ Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the 
 high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood 
 of others; for then must He often have suffered since the 
 foundation of the world” (Heb. ix. 25, 26). On the supposi¬ 
 tion that Christ went into the holy of holies at the triumphant 
 ascension to heaven, the apostle would not have so reasoned; 
 for the statement is, that if Christ had often entered, He must 
 have often suffered,—a consequence that would not follow on 
 the supposition we impugn. Had He so pleased, there was 
 nothing to prevent Him from repeating His entry, or of renew¬ 
 ing His triumph before the inhabitants of heaven. But it 
 follows on the supposition that our High Priest entered at the 
 moment He poured out His blood upon the cross. The Jewish 
 high priest entered in with the still reeking blood of atone¬ 
 ment, and sprinkled the mercy-seat; and our great High Priest 
 entered when He died, claiming the opening of heaven for 
 Himself and all His seed, for He still acted as the High Priest 
 when soul and body were separated. The resurrection, in the 
 first instance a testimony that all was done that justice re¬ 
 quired, was properly a reward. 
 
 b. The truth of this interpretation appears, too, from the fear 
 and solicitude of the people while the high priest was within 
 the veil. The ceremony of the annual atonement was accom¬ 
 panied with a dread on the part of the congregation, lest the 
 Holy One might not be reconciled, and lest the priest and 
 people should be consumed. While that is out of keeping 
 with the idea that the ascension is meant, it is parallel to the 
 disciples’ state of mind during those heavy hours which inter¬ 
 vened between the Lord’s death and resurrection. They con¬ 
 tinued in suspense and doubt, dejection and dread. 
 
 c. The other ceremonies of the day of atonement all point in 
 
THEIR EXPOSITION OF TIIE SACRIFICES. 
 
 51 
 
 the same direction. Thus, when the high priest entered into 
 the holiest of all, the atonement was not yet completed, for this 
 was procured or won by the sprinkling of blood on the propitia¬ 
 tory or mercy-seat. This far more naturally figures forth Christ’s 
 violent death, or the separation of His soul and body, than His 
 triumphal entry into heaven. The other accessories prove the 
 same thing. Thus, the high priest laid aside his golden orna¬ 
 ments, the stately robes he usually wore, and entered in linen 
 raiment, pure, but devoid of ornament and pomp (Lev. xvi. 4); 
 an attire which was designed to indicate lowly abasement, not 
 triumph or glory. 
 
 d. Another fact not less significant may be noticed: the 
 veil of the temple was, at the moment of Christ’s death, rent 
 from the top to the bottom. That memorable fact in the 
 sphere of the supernatural was intended for a purpose worthy 
 of such an interposition from the hand of God. It was the 
 great typical arrangement in which all the rest culminated, 
 and on which all leant. Jesus had cried, “It is finished;” 
 and this miraculous event put a divine imprimatur on it. It 
 took place in the sphere of fact, and we may warrantably hold 
 that then the true High Priest entered the true holiest of all 
 with His own blood. At that moment the true sprinkling of 
 the mercy-seat took place: the wrath of God was fully propi¬ 
 tiated ; the reality of the shadows had come. I do not refer 
 to the other things adumbrated. I only advert to the circum¬ 
 stance that we have here a most remarkable answer to the 
 question, When did the High Priest sprinkle the mercy-seat ? 
 (compare Heb. x. 20.) 
 
 (2.) We come now to the great change effected by the sacri¬ 
 fices on the worshipper’s relation. The allusions to the Mosaic 
 worship in this respect are numerous and varied, the entire 
 Hew Testament being pervaded by sacrificial phraseology of 
 this nature. 
 
 a. For the clearer exhibition of this, let it be noticed that 
 the expressions “ coming to God ” and “ drawing nigh to God ” 
 
52 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 denote the attitude of these worshippers (Heb. iv. 16, x. I). 1 
 The first result effected by sacrifice on the relation of the wor¬ 
 shipper was the removal of the divine anger incurred by tres¬ 
 pass. When we consult the Mosaic worship, we find that the 
 sin-offering averted a divine penalty. Jehovah sat as Judge to 
 visit the sins of the people : by means of sacrifice He reinstated 
 them in His favour. That was the fundamental thought taught 
 by means of outward ceremonies of positive institutions, and it 
 disciplined and trained the mind for what was spiritual. Laws 
 manifold and burdensome left the transgressor nothing to ex¬ 
 pect but threatened punishment, if sin was not expiated by * 
 sacrifice. Jehovah showed mercy only by maintaining invio¬ 
 late His holiness, rectitude, and authority. The sacrifices were 
 intended to impress this truth on every heart. Thus the idea 
 presented to us by the entire worship of the old economy 
 was, that without shedding of blood is no remission (Heb. 
 ix. 22). 
 
 b. Another class of expressions comprehends typical allusions 
 wdiich represent men’s sins as a defilement, taint, or stain, by 
 means of which the Israelite was excluded from the sanctuary, 
 and from fellowship with those who trode the courts of the 
 Lord : he was obliged to live apart. Only when the defilement 
 was removed by the blood of sacrifice, or by a sprinkling with 
 the water of separation, which presupposed a sacrifice (Hum. 
 xix. 13), could he be re-admitted to the services and fellowship 
 of the people of God. 
 
 Various terms are employed to represent this restoration to 
 privilege, such as these: to sprinkle, to purge or purify, to 
 CLEANSE, to WASH, to sanctify (1 Pet. i. 2 ; Heb. x. 2 ; Tit. ii. 14; 
 
 1 Cor. vi. 11; Heb. ii. 11). If an Israelite became unclean by 
 touching a dead body, he could not approach the sanctuary till 
 sprinkled according to the peculiar ritual divinely appointed 
 
 1 The apostle designates Christian worshippers by a name descriptive of their 
 approach on the ground of sacrifice : rovs ■rpotnpxofx.ivov; (Heb. x. 1), or iyyvs tv 
 rcu ciifx.cc.ri (Eph. ii. 13). 
 
THEIR REFERENCES TO PROPHECY. 
 
 53 
 
 for his case. Then only could he he restored, and partake 
 of privileges. On the day of atonement, the entire nation, on 
 account of sin separating between God and them, stood aloof 
 from the tabernacle of the congregation (Lev. xvi. 17), and were 
 re-admitted only when the blood of atonement had sprinkled 
 the mercy-seat. They obtained anew their forfeited privileges. 
 The whole nation of Israel, purified or sanctified, was then 
 holy. A single worshipper was also holy when the defilement 
 which shut him out from the congregation was removed by 
 sprinkling : he was now recognised as holy. Those two words 
 sanctify and purify involve each other, and intimate not so 
 much inward renovation, as a free approach to God, and an un¬ 
 challenged standing before Him. This phraseology will come 
 before us in the numerous texts which we shall have occasion 
 to examine. 
 
 It only remains to notice one thing further. The apostles 
 put in a strong light the insufficiency and unprofitableness of 
 the Mosaic rites, while they bring out their symbolical and 
 typical meaning. They are described as weak and beggarly 
 elements (Gal. iv. 9); they could not effect the pardon of sin, 
 or perfect the conscience (Heb. x. 1-3) ; and they merged, as 
 only a type could merge, when the truth of all appeared—when 
 the Messiah came. The Jews were then discharged from their 
 burdensome ceremonial. 
 
 SEC. IV.—THE APOSTLES’ REFERENCES TO PROPHECY ON THE 
 SUBJECT OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 As we found it necessary to consider the apostles’ treat¬ 
 ment of the types, it is not less necessary to take up their 
 references to prophecy. And we enter the field of prophecy, as 
 it bears on the sufferings of the Messiah and the effects of His 
 death, in the same way, that is, only so far as the apostles 
 point out the way and determine the reference. 
 
54 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 Many rules might be laid down for deciding on the Mes¬ 
 sianic references ; but these we do not need to consider. Thus, 
 if the substance of a prophecy is of such a nature that it cannot 
 competently be applied to any other illustrious person, but 
 can be fitly applied to the Messiah, we must understand it as 
 referring directly to Him. The descriptions of suffering, for 
 example, which pervade many parts of the ancient prophecies, 
 and of the Psalms, are so peculiar and unique, that while they 
 are proper in Christ’s mouth (Ps. xxii. 1, lxix. 1), as a divine 
 person stooping to vicarious punishment, and are to us in that 
 light awakening and affecting in the utmost degree, they would 
 be simply incongruous and absurd if spoken by any merely 
 human being. Human sympathy would be outraged, and 
 inevitably regard them as utterances which no man ever in¬ 
 dulged in, and which no literature ever attempted in the case 
 of mere men like ourselves. The minute description of any 
 other man’s sorrows, sufferings, and death would be intolerable, 
 and viewed as either misplaced, or as making an exaction on 
 human attention which mankind must resent. But in Christ 
 all this is in keeping, whether we find the description in pro¬ 
 phecy or history, in the Psalms which foretold His experience, 
 or in the history of His utterances unveiled by the Gospels. 
 
 But another rule might be laid down in reference to the 
 prophetic statements which describe the Messiah as divine. 
 Wherever Jehovah, God of Israel, is set forth in the exercise 
 of royal or judicial functions, as the Bridegroom of the church, 
 or the Shepherd of the sheep; wherever theophanies occur, 
 wherever allusions are made to His ransom, or to His power as 
 a conqueror mighty to save (Isa. lxiii. 1); the* allusion in all 
 such cases is to the Messiah : and the apostles, in a natural and 
 unforced way, adduce these passages as Messianic 1 (Heb. i. 8-14). 
 Another fact, deserves notice. The prophets take occasion to 
 speak of the Messiah in connection with events and personages 
 
 1 Delitzscli well illustrates these Messianic allusions, Commentar zum Hebraer- 
 br. 1857, p. 28. 
 
THEIR REFERENCES TO PROPHECY. 
 
 55 
 
 of tlieir times, and especially with the oppressions, captivity, 
 or threatened ruin to which the nation Was often exposed, 
 partly because they lived, as we do, on His incarnation; 
 partly because promises of His coming, of His birth by a 
 virgin (Isa. vii. 14), of His being a great light to a people 
 sitting in darkness, of His birthplace, contained a guarantee 
 that the nation was not to perish, and might comfort herself in 
 these prospects. There was also advancing light. In the first 
 period there was only a promise that humanity should get 
 deliverance from the evil consequences which the tempter had 
 caused (Gen. iii. 15). That was doubtless known to Abraham 
 by tradition, but new light dawned with the promise that in 
 his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed; and 
 thus Christology constantly became amplified. 
 
 As we survey the prophecies of the atonement only with 
 the aid of apostolic allusion and quotation, it is not necessary 
 to discuss the question whether the Messianic element existed 
 in the Old Testament church, and whether men waited for 
 redemption in Israel, as Simeon was found waiting when He 
 came. Paul declared that he preached none other things than 
 those which the prophets and Moses said should come, that 
 Christ should suffer and rise from the dead (Acts xxvi. 22). 
 The apostles put prophecy on an equal footing with their own 
 authority as eye-witnesses, and never ceased to take heed to it. 
 The prophecies on the atonement were so explicit, that they 
 did little more than adduce, expound, and apply them. We 
 limit our inquiry to passages descriptive of the atonement; and 
 even from these, to curtail their number, we select only those 
 which are rather doctrinal than historical in their character. 
 This narrows the range to those more explicit allusions which 
 portray the humiliation of the Messiah in our room. 
 
 Nor shall I discuss the question whether the quotations are 
 correctly applied; for I assume that that point is definitely 
 settled by the authority of inspired men, and that they are not 
 literary accommodations, such as are often made to give point 
 
56 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 to an idea by apt illustrations from poetry. They are direct 
 predictions in every case, giving the scope of the various pro¬ 
 phecies. I have nothing in common with the method of expo¬ 
 sition too common at present, that interprets the Old Testament 
 otherwise than the apostles did, and enters the field without 
 their guidance, and irrespective of their authority. It is one 
 thing when the expositor, confiding in the apostles’ inspiration, 
 reverently selects a view-point in the prophet’s age in order to 
 add to his faith knowledge. That is only exegetical fidelity; 
 for he believes, and wishes to know. But it is another thing, 
 and cannot be sufficiently reprobated, when the interpreter 
 fosters a state of mind that will not be controlled by apostolical 
 authority, and claims to have better hermeneutics, and greater 
 skill in interpretation, than apostles. I will be no party to the 
 presumption which that involves. To one standing within the 
 pale of revelation, and deferring to inspired men, that exposi¬ 
 tion is foreclosed. 
 
 The quotations take for granted, that from Adam downward 
 the person and atonement of Messiah were revealed in new 
 aspects, and with greater definiteness, from age to age. The 
 promise as to the seed of the woman was the all-important point 
 to which the saints, through long intervening periods, looked 
 forward as the hope of humanity; and as the church needed 
 encouragement in dejection, or light in darkness, prophets were 
 from time to time raised up to repeat assurances of His advent 
 (Mic. v. 2; Zech. ix. 9); and many points were foretold con¬ 
 nected with His manifestation, all containing new encourage¬ 
 ment. 
 
 To these prophecies the apostles refer as divine oracles, not 
 as guesses of truth. They do not quote them as if the words 
 contained nothing but dim anticipations of an ideal righteous 
 man, whose appearance might perchance one day prove a reality. 
 To them Messianic revelations were the most certain of verities 
 —divine oracles, thoughts of God conveyed to man, predictions 
 emanating from the Holy Ghost. The hope of the Messiah was 
 
THEIR REFERENCES TO PROPHECY. 
 
 57 
 
 never extinguished; nor, while the order of prophets lasted, was 
 the announcement ever obscure as to His advent as the seed 
 of Abraham (Gen. xxii. 18), the son of David (Ps. cxxxii. 11): 
 for that was the great fact with which all history travailed, 
 and with which all the saints were acquainted—the centre- 
 point of religious life, as it is to us now. In Anna we see the 
 anticipation with which the most simple minds were filled— 
 the sun to which every believing eye was turned. 
 
 Particular prophecies of a later time may he regarded as 
 expanding earlier prophecies. The primeval gospel promised 
 victory over Satan, and the removal of death, the doom brought 
 on the world by yielding to the tempter. Por a time this was 
 sufficient, because it announced redemption from the enemy, 
 and restoration to divine favour. Clearer intimations were next 
 made to the patriarchs, till in David and Isaiah the outline of 
 the atonement and the sufferings of Messiah is so clear that 
 we seem to be reading history. The design and nature of His 
 sufferings were explicitly declared. So necessary was this for 
 the ancient believers, and for the church of after times, that 
 without this outline they who lived before the advent could 
 not have had correct ideas of the atonement, and we who live 
 after it would have wanted the necessary criterion for deciding 
 whether Jesus of Nazareth was He to whom prophecy referred. 
 
 The purpose we have in view in this section will be best 
 served if we limit the inquiry to a few particular predictions 
 which expressly set forth the doctrine of the atonement. We 
 shall therefore first take up the references to those Messianic 
 psalms which describe the atonement in its nature and fruits. 
 I will not discuss the question how far the Messianic ele¬ 
 ment pervades the book of Psalms, nor how far we are to 
 extend this recognition beyond those which Christ and His 
 apostles have indicated; for the plan we are pursuing leads 
 us to accept the latter without question on the authority of 
 apostles. But when parts of a. psalm are quoted by inspired 
 men as Messianic, we see no reason to question the Messianic 
 
58 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 character of the entire psalm, if it betrays no obvious marks of 
 a colloquy or change of speakers. Another thing deserves 
 notice. These psalms enter into details of suffering experi¬ 
 ence, and adduce facts of a historical nature which would be 
 anomalous in any other setting, but are significant in connec¬ 
 tion with that extraordinary Person whose fortunes, even to the 
 minutest details, were worthy of being foretold. Those psalms, 
 read with the apostles’ commentary, are in the last degree 
 important, as placing Christ’s redemption-work in the most 
 striking light, and bringing out its essential elements. 
 
 Of the Messianic psalms adduced by the apostles, some are 
 put in connection with the atonement by the inspired commen¬ 
 tator, though they do not in so many words contain express 
 reference to the Lord’s vicarious death. Thus, in one psalm 
 written to describe the dominion of the second Adam over the 
 works of God, the apostolic commentary bases the mediatorial 
 kingdom on His being made a little lower than the angels, and 
 suffering death (Ps. viii. 5; Heb. ii. 9). In another psalm we 
 are taught that the Messiah would burst the bands of death; 
 and His resurrection is put as a reward, in connection with the 
 obedience and humiliation of the Holy One (Ps. xvi. 8; Acts 
 ii. 25). In another psalm, the throne of the mediatorial King 
 is described as based upon a work of holy obedience during a 
 previous period, when He was approved as one who loved 
 righteousness and hated iniquity (Ps. xlv. 7; Heb. i. 8, 9). 
 Some, indeed, explain these words as referring to the love of 
 righteousness and hatred of iniquity which are now displayed 
 in the administration of His kingdom. But the order of the 
 thought and the logical particle, lead us to refer the terms 
 to the spotless righteousness which the Christ evinced in 
 His life and death, and which was rewarded with the crown 
 of glory and honour. The word which connects the work 
 with the reward—viz. the word therefore 1 — can have no 
 
 1 tovto can only mean because of this. It cannot have the final sense, in 
 eum finem. See Noldius on the Hebrew phrase so used nearly 150 times. 
 
THEIR REFERENCES TO PROPHECY. 
 
 59 
 
 meaning but to announce tliat the exaltation was the reward 
 of the obedience : “ Therefore God hath anointed Thee with the 
 oil of gladness above Thy fellows.” In another psalm, where 
 the Lord’s ascension is described, the words “ Thou hast ascended 
 up on high” are interpreted as presupposing that He descended 
 first into the lower parts of the earth (Ps. lxviii. 18; Eph. iv. 
 8, 9). We see that all these Messianic psalms, according to 
 the commentary of inspired apostles, presuppose and involve 
 the atonement. They take for granted that the cross was the 
 foundation of His mediatorial throne—that the abasement pre¬ 
 ceded the reward. In these psalms we come to the atonement 
 in a less direct way. We shall limit our attention, therefore, 
 to those which directly define the nature of the atonement, 
 and select two for particular consideration. 
 
 1. Among the prophetic psalms which bring out the essen¬ 
 tial elements of the atonement, one of the most important is 
 the fortieth Psalm, as quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews: 
 “ When He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and 
 
 * 
 
 offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared me : 
 in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no plea¬ 
 sure : then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is 
 written of me) to do Thy will, 0 God; yea, Thy law is within 
 my heart ” (Ps. xL 6; Heb. x. 5-7). The question, Who is the 
 speaker ? is not answered by saying that David, the writer, 
 speaks in the first person as an individual. This is settled by 
 the authority of the apostle, who introduces Christ as uttering 
 the words when He came into the world; and no difficulties of 
 interpretation, no critical reasons, can be suffered to unsettle 
 this decision. But that leaves room for another inquiry : May 
 not David have uttered these words in some lower sense, in the 
 typical character which he bore ? How it may be conceded, 
 that without sufficient reasons we are not to deny all allusion 
 to himself on the part of the writer. But when the words are 
 not only put into the lips of the Messiah by an inspired 
 apostle, but are palpably out of keeping with anything that 
 
60 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 David did, or ever could do, we are amply warranted to ascribe 
 tliem to another speaker; and the fact that David was a 
 prophet, and a type of the Messiah, enables us to apprehend 
 that he might consciously merge the type in the antitype in 
 certain portions of a psalm, or through an entire psalm. As 
 there was nothing in David’s history to which this language 
 could possibly refer, we may apply the principle which Peter 
 adduced in the book of Acts to determine the Messianic 
 reference of another psalm (Acts ii. 29, 30) as follows:—To 
 nothing in David’s life could these words have applied: he 
 must therefore have spoken them as a prophet, seeing himself 
 in his greater offspring, or, more correctly still, have spoken 
 them as from the lips of Him that was to come. Dropping the 
 type in the antitype, David was in all such cases, from the 
 beginning to the end of the psalm, little else than the medium 
 of communication, or the amanuensis, though he does not for¬ 
 mally announce in whose name he is speaking, or whose words 
 they are. There is no trace whatever of any change of speaker, 
 and therefore the whole must be taken as the connected dis¬ 
 course of the same person throughout the psalm. 
 
 The only thing fitted to raise a doubt is the complaint that 
 his iniquities took hold upon him (ver. 12); but that difficulty 
 entirely vanishes when we consider that the Messiah, as the 
 surety and substitute of His people, could in this way fitly 
 speak of the sins of His people, as they were imputed or 
 charged to His account: He made them His. If God made 
 Him to be sin for us, and if He was our sin in God’s judgment 
 and account, while still the beloved Son, He could be all this 
 too in His own judgment as the surety. That was but the sub¬ 
 jective recognition of an objective fact; and in so speaking, the 
 Messiah only describes Himself as the true sin-offering or tres¬ 
 pass-offering, 1 which, as we shall immediately see, is the principal 
 thought of the passage. If we can call. Him our righteousness 
 
 1 See the celebrated Lampe’s Geheimniss des Gnaderibunds, iii. 15. 2, where 
 this is well elucidated. 
 
THEIR REFERENCES TO PROPHECY. 
 
 61 
 
 (Jer. xxiii. 6), why may not He for a similar reason call Him¬ 
 self our sin ? Hence it is not necessary to suppose, as some 
 have done, a change of speakers where this allusion begins (ver. 
 12). Besides, that would he a violent break in the train of 
 thought and in the connection of the two verses, as indicated by 
 the logical particle for linking them together (vers. 11 and 12). 
 
 Plainly, the psalm has two divisions, of which the first 
 describes in vivid language the speaker’s deliverance from a 
 horrible pit and miry clay. Then the effect of this is repre¬ 
 sented as tending to make many fear and trust in Jehovah; 
 that is, to repent and be converted from heathenism, or from 
 false religions to the worship of the true God (vers. 1-5). The 
 second division, which is emphatically marked by the w r ords 
 Then said I (ver. 7), contrasts the absolute weakness and insuffi¬ 
 ciency of the Mosaic sacrifices with the Messiah’s obedience and 
 atoning work. That these words cannot be David’s, appears at 
 first sight from the fact that the speaker adduces His own obe¬ 
 dience or finished work in contrast with the animal sacrifices, 
 which are described as not pleasing to God, and as of no value 
 except as types of what should come. This obedience to the 
 Father’s will and to the divine law on the part of the great 
 speaker was destined to usher in a new economy (Heb. x. 9); 
 and hence the words cannot in any sense, or with any applica¬ 
 tion, be referred to David. 
 
 But let us limit our attention to the words of the quotation. 
 First, there is an enumeration of the several Mosaic sacri¬ 
 fices, which are distributed into the bloody and the unbloody. 
 That classification is indicated in the original by the terms here 
 rendered “ sacrifice and offering.” Then follow the chief bloody 
 sacrifices, which are further classified under these terms:— 
 “ Burnt-offering and sin-offering Thou dost not requireor, as 
 it is rendered by the apostle, “ In burnt-offerings and sacrifices 
 for sin Thou hast had no pleasure.” The meaning unquestion¬ 
 ably is, that in the appointment of those sacrifices a further 
 purpose was to be served, and that they were appointed to 
 
62 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 continue but for a time, and then to take end. Mere pictures 
 of something infinitely more important which was to come— 
 pledges and testimonies to what was yet future—they were 
 destined to cease as things of little value, or as things in which 
 God had no pleasure on their own account. But on David and 
 on Israel they were binding till legitimately displaced by the 
 fulfilment. 
 
 Now, in contrast with the total insufficiency of the Mosaic 
 sacrifices, the speaker in the psalm says, “Mine ears hast 
 Thou opened.” Many commentators explain this phrase by 
 the provision in the law to meet the case of the Hebrew 
 servant choosing to remain in voluntary servitude rather 
 than accept his freedom, as he might do at the seventh 
 year of release; and this comment affords a very competent 
 sense. Others explain it as denoting that the ear was purged 
 by God of all impediment, so as promptly to know and do God’s 
 will. A third class take the expression ears as a synecdoche 
 for the whole body, denoting that the ear was prompt to listen, 
 and the entire body prompt to obey. I see no cause to deviate 
 from the idea of the Hebrew servant (Ex. xxi. 5) ; for one 
 common mode of announcing Christ was to represent Him as 
 the servant of God by way of eminence—the perfect servant, 
 the chosen servant, the righteous servant (Isa. xlii. 1, liii. 11). 
 Thus, in the psalm under our consideration, Messiah describes 
 Himself as coming to serve—coming in the humanity He had 
 assumed, to fulfil the law in the meanest servant-form. It is 
 no objection to the allusion already noticed, that according to 
 the law, only the right ear of the Hebrew servant was pierced, 
 whereas the plural number occurs in the psalm; for this may 
 imply a greater perfection in the antitype than in the type. 
 But in reproducing the phrase for the New Testament church, 
 the apostle abandons the Hebrew allusion, and gives us the 
 same idea under another guise. He translates it, “A body 
 hast Thou prepared me.” Writing with the same authority and 
 the same spirit of inspiration, the sacred writer is content to 
 
THEIR REFERENCES TO PROPHECY. 
 
 G3 
 
 reproduce the thought in a different form, giving us the sense. 
 He intimates that a body was prepared, in which all the prompt 
 obedience and perfect service we have referred to were to be 
 carried out to their utmost perfection. 
 
 The next words put beforehand into the mouth of the 
 Eedeemer as He came into the world were as follows: “ Lo, 
 T am come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do 
 Thy will, O God.” In the psalm there is somewhat greater 
 fulness in the expression : “ I delight to do Thy will, 0 my God: 
 yea, Thy law is within my heart.” The verses, in the connection 
 in which they stand, show the inadequacy of sacrifices to meet 
 the divine claims, and announce that Messiah was to come as 
 the true priest and sacrifice—the substance of all those shadows. 
 His obedience in a true humanity is thus placed in direct con¬ 
 trast with the burnt-offering and sin-offering, intimating that 
 He came as the great personal moral sacrifice to do what they 
 could not do, and to attain the divine design in its utmost per¬ 
 fection and fulness of meaning, such as they never could attain. 
 
 ' Moreover, when He says, “ Lo I come (in the volume of the 
 book it is written of me) to do Thy will,” the allusion is to the 
 Father’s decree, or to that eternal covenant or compact to which 
 the mission of the Son into the world at every moment bore 
 constant reference (John vi. 39). That the words warrant the 
 supposition of an agreement or compact between the Father and 
 the Son before the actual incarnation, can scarcely be doubtful 
 to any one who ponders the wofds. They mean, “ Lo, I come 
 to execute what Thou requirest.” The volume of the book, 
 or the roll, seems to be the Mosaic law containing the refer¬ 
 ences to the shadowy sacrifices, or better, perhaps, the pro¬ 
 mises of Scripture generally, because in all its prophecies as 
 well as types it gave a pledge that He should come ; and the 
 force of this statement is augmented by the apostle’s subsequent 
 interpretation of the words, as denoting that the passage bore 
 reference to the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all 
 (Heb. x. 10). 
 
64 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 But it is added still more definitely, that He came to do 
 God’s will, and to fulfil His law. There is a shade of differ¬ 
 ence between the two words here used— Thy will, or good 
 pleasure, and Thy law —which is by no means to be over¬ 
 looked. The first term, will, or good pleasure, expresses the 
 infinitely loving will of God which led Him to plan our re¬ 
 demption, and it is a comprehensive enough term to embrace 
 whatever belongs to the covenant between the Father and the 
 Son. It means all God’s will in reference to the redemption of 
 the human race. When the Messiah, in coming into the world, 
 announced that He “ delighted ” to do God’s will, the language 
 sets forth the condescending love of Christ, His mingled obe¬ 
 dience and love in our room. As to the term law, it desig¬ 
 nates that which is the transcript of God’s nature, and the 
 rule of human obedience. To have the law in the heart, is to 
 have it written on the heart and engraven on the mind, so as 
 to be ever before the memory and active in the soul (Jer. xxxi. 
 33). It comprehends all that God demands, and all that 
 pleases Him, or the entire service of love which as creatures 
 we owe to God. Nor is it necessary to exclude the law of 
 sacrifices. When we put together the import of the passage, 
 then, it conveys these truths: that God the Father formed the 
 plan of redemption here called His will, 1 or good pleasure, and 
 that the Son came into the world as the party resolved to 
 execute it by His active and passive obedience, and as having 
 the law in His heart (Heb. x. *9, 10). 
 
 But, it is asked, why may not David here speak of himself 
 as a man arriving at the conviction that the sacrifices did not 
 please God ? Does he not, in the passage, seem to contrast 
 moral obedience with ritual observances, so as to disparage the 
 latter ? That comment by no means exhausts the sense, and 
 
 1 C. G. F. Walch, de obedientia activa Christi, p. 9, says: “ Voluntas ilia 
 erat conditio pacti inter patreni filiumque initi.” The apostle uses only one of 
 the terms, viz. to OtXnpu. <rov , unless perhaps he intends to combine both in the 
 one word. 
 
THEIR REFERENCES TO PROPHECY. 
 
 G5 
 
 it is every way unnatural, not to mention that it runs counter 
 to the interpretation given by the inspired apostle. Besides, 
 it is not true that God required no animal sacrifices at the 
 hand of David as an Israelite; for God had imposed them, and 
 He did not leave this matter to the worshipper’s choice. In 
 the absolute sense of the terms, they could not he described as 
 wholly nugatory, or as not pleasing to God. But as they could 
 not usher in any real atonement for sin, they did not correspond, 
 in the proper sense of the term, to the divine good pleasure, 
 or to the law of God, hut only foreshadowed what was to 
 come; and it was in this subordinate sense that they were 
 depreciated, that is, in comparison of Christ’s finished work. 
 The language is not absolute, hut relative. God required a 
 moral obedience and a personal excellence, which were to 
 culminate in offering one great personal and moral sacrifice for 
 sins, which should have no repetition; and the Messiah came 
 to offer that one sacrifice, the true sacrifice, once for all, and by 
 so doing to fulfil the will of God according to the covenant. 
 
 II. The next prophecy to he noticed, and cognate to the 
 former, is contained in the 11 Oth Psalm: The Lord sware , 
 and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order 
 of Melchizedek (Ps. cx. 4; Heb. vii. 21). This is properly a 
 coronation-psalm, composed probably on some of those occa¬ 
 sions when the royal seer beheld in vision Messiah’s ascension 
 to His throne. It is quoted both by our Lord and His apostles 
 as Messianic (Matt. xxii. 44; Acts ii. 32; Heb. i. 13). It cer¬ 
 tainly cannot allude to David; for, as our Lord says, David in 
 spirit calls Him Lord. Besides, it is adduced by the apostles 
 as the Bather’s salutation to Messiah at His ascension to the 
 right hand. He is further described as a priest (Ps. cx. 4) ; 
 for the priesthood was the foundation of the dominion,—the 
 cross was the basis of the throne. The titles Prophet, Priest, 
 and King, indicating distinct functions performed by the 
 Messiah, are never confounded. Hence, when He is repre¬ 
 sented as a sacrificing priest, this language, in David’s mouth, 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 can only mean that He should bring in the great offering or 
 sacrifice which was appointed to be the truth of all the sacri¬ 
 ficial laws. It is sometimes alleged by eminent divines, that 
 Melchizedek was not a priest properly so called, because it is 
 not expressly said that he offered sacrifice, but merely that he 
 blessed Abraham. But the brief notice given of the historical 
 event in Genesis gives no warrant for such a conclusion, and 
 the title Priest expressly ascribed to him, we think, refutes it, 
 for there was no priest without a sacrifice. 
 
 The great proof of Christ’s priesthood is based on this 
 passage. The apostle, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, very 
 copiously expounds and applies it. Thus, it is quoted, in the 
 first place, to show that our Lord did not arrogate to Himself 
 the office of the priesthood without a divine call (Heb. v. 6). 
 It is next adduced and fully expounded to show His great 
 superiority to the Aaronic priesthood (Heb. vii. 1-28). And 
 it deserves notice that the apostle, in following out the line of 
 thought presented to us in the psalm, describes Melchizedek’s 
 personal dignity as a type by language derived from the Anti¬ 
 type, and true only of the Antitype,—a peculiarity, in fact, 
 applicable not to this case alone, but to all the types and 
 shadows. The distinctive qualities of the great Priest and 
 great propitiation are reflected back upon the shadow, not 
 conversely. And as Melchizedek united in his person regal 
 and priestly functions—a combination not permitted to the 
 Levitical economy—he was in this respect a memorable type 
 of Messiah. 
 
 Our object is not to discuss the disputed questions which 
 have been raised in connection with Melchizedek, but to 
 elucidate the prophecy in the light of the apostle’s commentary. 
 We accept the simple and natural exposition which takes the 
 narrative in Genesis as the record of a historical event. But 
 the significance attaching to it consists less in the history than 
 in the typical and prophetical elements belonging to it. These 
 seem exclusively to have been before the Psalmist’s mind, 
 
•- 1sts / 
 
THEIR REFERENCES TO PROPHECY. 
 
 67 
 
 and the apostle’s mind, for the latter only developes what the 
 Psalmist supplied. That which was concealed, as well as that 
 which was expressed, had in an equal degree a typical signifi¬ 
 cance. And this is the singular peculiarity which the Psalmist 
 and apostle alike were taught by the Spirit of inspiration to 
 trace in the narrative. Some have imagined that Melehizedek 
 was a divine person—the Son of God. 1 I take him to have 
 been a historical personage, the prince of Salem, a worshipper 
 of the true God, who united in himself the double function of 
 priest and king. On this supposition the whole significance of 
 the type proceeds. The apostle fixes our attention upon the 
 import of his name and place of residence, translating them for 
 the Christian Hebrews. The fact that he renders them into 
 
 •9 
 
 Greek for readers already familiar with their meaning, leads us 
 to the conclusion that he expressly intended their import to be 
 typical (Heb. vii. 2). The peculiarities mainly insisted upon are 
 these: that his descent was not traced in any family register; 
 that he came upon the scene and passed away as if he had 
 neither father nor mother, and in this respect was like Christ, 
 who in His earthly nature had no earthly father, and in His 
 other nature no mother; that he seemed to have neither 
 beginning of days nor end of life; and that he was made like 
 the Son of God, who was the true antitypical Priest to whom 
 the shadow referred. These peculiarities are read off from the 
 history of Melehizedek in Genesis, which the Spirit of inspira¬ 
 tion directed Moses to compose in such a way as to let all this 
 fully appear, whether Moses was aware of.it or not. The 
 one great peculiarity which that psalm of David taught the 
 Hebrews was, that there was to be another Priest out of the 
 Aaronic line, or the line of any priestly family; and the other 
 point which the psalm emphatically taught them was, that this 
 
 1 In D’Outrein, de Sendbrief van Paidus aan de Hebreen, this is powerfully 
 advocated, and the other opinions are reviewed. See Eiehm’s admirable work, 
 Lehrbegrljf des Hebraerbriefes , 1858, p. 192, where all the points are well dis¬ 
 cussed, and the literature given. 
 
68 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 Priest was to be the first and last of his kind (3-10). But the 
 apostle, in applying the quotation, takes it up in its several 
 parts, and elucidates it as his text. He unfolds at large the 
 divine purpose and the reason for which Messiah was made a 
 priest after the order of Melchizedek. Three points are here 
 mentioned, which we shall briefly state, in order to pave the 
 way for the testimony in which the whole culminates—that 
 there is but one priest, and one oblation. 
 
 1. He proves that the mention of another priest in the 
 psalm involved the abrogation of the Levitical priesthood 
 (11-19). This result is spoken of as necessary: it is regarded 
 as a legitimate deduction, the force of which is not to be 
 questioned. The appointment of another priest argued that 
 the Levitical priesthood had made nothing perfect, and re¬ 
 quired to be replaced by a better. But another consequence 
 was involved: the change of the priesthood carried with it the 
 change or revocation of the Mosaic law (ver. 12). The reason 
 is obvious. The entire ceremonial law presupposed the Aaronic 
 priesthood, to which it was adapted, and to which it had refer¬ 
 ence in every one of its arrangements. The alteration of the 
 priesthood was the subversion of the law; for the foundation 
 of it was removed with the removal of the priesthood. This 
 is the first result that necessarily accompanied the appointment 
 of another priest after the order of Melchizedek. The great 
 thought is, that the first priesthood was essentially defective, 
 and that the entrance of a new priest was coincident with the 
 bringing in of a better hope. 
 
 2. As to the word of the oath, another part of the quotation, 
 it is next commented on by the apostle (ver. 20). The fact of 
 the oath not only points to the immutable decree which God 
 made in regard to this priesthood, but argues a new economy 
 with better provisions. The Aaronic priesthood, mutable, 
 because appointed without an oath, ushered in an imperfect 
 or merely typical covenant. The Melchizedek priesthood of 
 Christ, unchangeable, because it was appointed with the oath of 
 
THEIR REFERENCES TO PROPHECY. 
 
 69 
 
 God, ushered in a better covenant (vers. 20-22). The priest¬ 
 hood was in both cases the foundation of the economy; the 
 Sinaitic covenant standing upon the Aaronic priesthood, the 
 new covenant standing upon the Melchizedek priesthood of 
 Christ. The apostle’s reasoning is peculiarly worthy of notice, 
 because it is an argument from the less to the greater. The 
 logical connection must be apprehended in the following way. 
 The two elements of the comparison are marked by the phrase 
 how much 1 in one verse (ver. 20), and by the corresponding so 
 much of a subsequent verse (yer. 22). The intervening verse is 
 merely parenthetical (ver. 21). The argument stands thus: In 
 as far as He was made a priest by an oath, by so much is He 
 the Mediator of a better covenant. The new covenant, of which 
 Christ is the Priest, Surety, or Mediator—for these are nearly 
 synonymous terms, though used in their peculiar connection 
 with a distinctive shade of meaning—is so much better than 
 the Sinaitic covenant, by how much the great High Priest of 
 our profession was appointed by an oath ; and the new covenant 
 and priesthood are never to be changed, as nothing better can 
 replace them. The law made nothing perfect: this covenant 
 does so, because it is the introduction of the better hope. 
 
 3. The third point of superiority is deduced from the words, 
 a priest for ever (ver. 23). Contrasted with the Aaronic high 
 priests, Christ continues in office for ever. The Aaronic high 
 priests were many, because they were not suffered to continue 
 by reason of death: words which mean that they could not 
 continue to officiate, or continue in office, because they were 
 ever dying. When it is said, “ They truly were many priests,” 
 the words do not mean that they were many simultaneously, 
 but many as holding office successively, because it was ever 
 passing from hand to hand. The contrast is between many 
 priests, as temporary occupants of the office, or invested with 
 it for a time, and the true Priest, invested with the office for 
 
 1 aaff oerov (ver. 20) and Kara, rocrovrov point to two counterparts, as is now 
 admitted by all good exegetes. See Kurtz, Brief an die Hebraer , 1869. 
 
TO 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 ever. And when it is said He has an unchangeable priesthood, 
 the phrase may he interpreted in a twofold way, as descriptive of 
 what is inviolable, or of that which does not descend to another 
 occupant (ver. 24). The apostle deduces a further result from 
 the everlasting priesthood, when he connects it with the per¬ 
 fection of the kingdom of God,. whether we look at the Hew 
 Testament worshippers individually, or at the church collec¬ 
 tively, in its onward progress to the winding up of all things. 
 That eternal priesthood enables Him to save men perfectly, or 
 to save them for ever; that is, to rescue them from sin and all 
 its evils (ver. 25). 
 
 The mention of the eternal priesthood next leads the apostle 
 by a natural train of thought to that abasement by which it 
 was acquired. The power of an endless life, though connected 
 with His divine person, is the purchased reward of His atone¬ 
 ment. And this brings him to view the prophecy as a testi¬ 
 mony to the great sacrifice, or satisfaction to divine justice. 
 The royalty presupposes the humiliation, the expiation of sin. 
 Hence the apostle’s commentary advances to the two facts on 
 which the atonement rests—the great Hew Testament priest¬ 
 hood, and His one ever-valid sacrifice (vers. 26-28). Starting 
 from the idea of the eternal priest, and with man’s necessities 
 full in view, the apostle says, For such an high priest became us 
 (ver. 26). The use of the causal particle for leads our thoughts 
 to the ever-living High Priest, and introduces the further idea 
 of a sacrifice as the foundation of that royal priesthood. He 
 must offer a sacrifice so complete and meritorious, as to require 
 no repetition. The Melchizedek priesthood of Jesus takes for 
 granted one sacrifice for sin never to be repeated, one atone¬ 
 ment of everlasting validity, needing no supplementary addi¬ 
 tion, and equally applicable to all men and to all stages of the 
 history of the kingdom of God. When we inquire more par¬ 
 ticularly on what elements such a sacrifice depends, they are 
 unfolded in the following order:—(1) He was a sinless Priest, 
 who needed not, like the Jewish high priests, to offer first for 
 
THEIR REFERENCES TO PROPHECY. 
 
 71 
 
 His own sins, and then for the people’s; for He had no sins 
 of His own (ver. 27). (2) He offered only once, one ever-valid 
 
 sacrifice. (3) According to the word of the oath after the law, 
 and superseding it, He was not a high priest having infirmity, 
 but the Son of God, a divine person, giving to His one obla¬ 
 tion an infinite value, adequate to all our w r ants and to all 
 the claims of God (ver. 28). There was to be but one sacrifice 
 for sins. This was the presupposition of the everlasting priest¬ 
 hood, and its basis; and our great High Priest continues in 
 office for ever, because of its inexhaustible and eternal validity. 
 That is the apostle’s train of reasoning in his memorable com¬ 
 mentary upon the Melchizedek priesthood of Christ. It is 
 lucidly developed by him from the 11 Otli Psalm, a text which 
 is taken up and expounded part by part. He winds up the 
 whole by saying, that the foundation of the royal priesthood 
 is the one sacrifice of everlasting efficacy. 
 
 III. Of all the prophecies, however, which bring out the 
 essential elements of the atonement, the clearest is the fifty- 
 third chapter of Isaiah, which deserves to be called the classical 
 passage. Prom this chapter we have several quotations. Thus 
 Peter quotes the words, who did no sin, neither was guile found 
 in His mouth (1 Pet. ii. 22); and another passage is imme¬ 
 diately subjoined, by whose stripes ye were healed (ver. 24). 
 Isaiah is called the Old Testament evangelist, from the vivid 
 descriptions of Messiah’s sufferings, atonement, and reward, 
 given especially in this section (Isa. lii. 13-liii. 12). These 
 verses must be read together; for the division of the chapter, 
 as is generally admitted, is unhappy. The passage proves that 
 in the prophet’s days, by means of his own teaching and that 
 of other prophets, there prevailed, at least among the spiritually- 
 minded members of the Israelitish community, a persuasion 
 that Messiah should come as a suffering substitute, and that 
 His obedience and death should constitute the one cause of 
 man’s redemption. Among the Jews in the most ancient 
 times, it was the uniform opinion that the Messiah was the 
 
72 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 subject of this prophecy. Only at a later clay, when embar¬ 
 rassed by the constant appeals of the Christians to this chapter, 
 as the fullest and most connected explanation of the nature of 
 Christ’s death, did they invent the theory of a double Messiah 
 —one coming in abasement, and the other in glory. As that 
 was felt to be a mere artifice or evasion, other commentators 
 referred it to a single person, and especially to Josiali. In 
 these comments several of our laxer exegetes have followed the 
 Jews, proposing to refer the language to Hezekiah or Josiah, 
 to Jeremiah or Ezekiel; while others refer it to the Jewish 
 nation before or after the exile. These are all sorry shifts; 
 theories which go to pieces, or are discovered to be preposterous, 
 the moment they are actually applied to the chapter, and made 
 a key to open it: for was Josiah or Jeremiah bruised for our 
 iniquities ? or, applying it to Israel, was Israel healed by their 
 stripes ? were they exalted and extolled, or made to see their 
 seed after becoming a sacrifice for sin ? Equally preposterous 
 is it to refer the language to the state in the third person, 
 and to the citizens in the first; for then we must take all this 
 language as applicable to the state. The chapter has only to 
 be read in its connection, to see the exclusive reference to the 
 Messiah. The repeated quotations in the New Testament— 
 no fewer than six in number—by the Lord and His apostles, 
 leave not a shadow of doubt that it can refer to no other than 
 to Christ (Mark xv. 28; Matt. viii. 17 ; Acts viii. 32; Eom. 
 xv. 21; 1 Pet. ii. 22, 24). What can be produced to over¬ 
 throw this conclusion ? To maintain that, on this supposi¬ 
 tion, Isaiah must have intimated that he was about to sketch 
 Messiah’s sufferings, argues a misconception of prophecy, and 
 amounts to a demand that he should narrate history. Eead 
 in the light of history, applied as a key to the interpretation 
 of our Lord’s sufferings, the coincidence is marvellous; showing 
 that, seven centuries beforehand, the history of Jesus, with 
 the design of His sufferings, were not only foretold, but fore- 
 appointed in the thoughts of God. Our design is simply to 
 
THEIR REFERENCES TO PROPHECY. 
 
 73 
 
 adduce from prophecy, under the guidance of the apostles, a 
 testimony to the Eedeemer’s satisfaction; and as this chapter 
 contains all the great points connected with the atonement, we 
 shall best attain our object, not by a formal exposition of all 
 the verses, but by collecting the great essential elements of the 
 doctrine as here developed. And in this single chapter we 
 have almost all its essential elements exhibited with precision. 
 
 The chapter occurs in a larger section or division, which 
 contains a constantly recurring allusion to the Messiah as the 
 Servant of the Lord (Isa. xlii. 1-liii. 12). That Messiah is 
 meant by that title, is put beyond question by Matthew’s quo¬ 
 tation (Matt. xii. 18). The title servant brings before us one 
 obedient to God, and supposed to walk by a rule prescribed 
 for his direction; and in this case it points out the servant 
 by way of eminence, who thought it not robbery to be equal 
 to God, yet put on a servant’s form, and was obedient unto 
 death. It is what Christ said : “ As the Father gave me com¬ 
 mandment, so I do” (John xiv. 31). After referring to Him as 
 sprinkling many nations, and receiving the homage of kings, 
 the prophet makes a transition from believing Gentiles to 
 unbelieving Jews. At the commencement of the fifty-third 
 chapter a preacher is introduced, complaining, as we may 
 suppose the apostles did at Pentecost, that so few of Israel 
 believed the report. Then follows the description of Messiah’s 
 sufferings. We shall extract a series of views containing a 
 full outline of the atonement. 
 
 1. We have a divine estimate of the Servant of the Lord. 
 We find, first of all, God’s approval of Him, and infinite com¬ 
 placency in Him, before we come to the description of men’s 
 rejection of Him. What He was in the eye of God, is first 
 stated figuratively (ver. 2); and then in plain words, in a sub¬ 
 sequent verse (ver. 9), He is described as a tender plant or 
 scion from a dry ground, growing up before the face of God: 
 for the expression grow up before Him cannot refer, as some 
 will have it, to an unbeliever discrediting the report of the 
 
74 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 gospel. The words describe the Father’s estimate, representing 
 Christ as growing up from His birth the object of divine com¬ 
 placency, as a fair plant or grateful flower on which God’s eye 
 rested with delight. The dry ground is not to be interpreted 
 of David’s fallen house, 1 —an idea imported without warrant 
 from another passage (Isa. xi. 1), and giving only a reference 
 to the poverty of His condition in the eye of men. The re¬ 
 ference is to humanity in general. On this barren waste, 
 where no rain fell, and no nourishment was supplied by the 
 soil, this tender and beautiful shoot grew up alone amid a 
 desert of scorching sand, and God’s eye rested on Him with 
 approval and delight. A second passage teaches the same 
 truth: He did no violence; or, as Peter renders it, He did no 
 sin , neither was guile found in His mouth (ver. 9 ; 1 Pet. ii. 22). 
 The allusion is to His spotless purity in thought, and word, and 
 action; but may also refer to the false charges of treason and 
 blasphemy on which He was arraigned. 
 
 By way of contrast, the prophet notices the Jewish esti¬ 
 mate of Christ, or the offence at a suffering Messiah (ver. 3). 
 According to their ideas, His sufferings were a punishment 
 inflicted on Him as a pretender; and how was the offence 
 removed ? The answer is supplied by the sequel of the chapter, 
 and pronounces sentence on all erroneous theories of the atone¬ 
 ment. The offence was not removed by the notion that He 
 was a great teacher, a function in which sufferings incur no 
 disgrace. Nor was it removed by regarding Him as the founder 
 of a rational religion taking the place of a ritual one. The 
 connection shows (vers. 4, 5) that it was removed by the dis¬ 
 covery that those sufferings were vicarious in their nature, 
 and effected our redemption. But how does the fact that the 
 sufferings were vicarious remove the offence of a suffering 
 Messiah among Jews or Gentiles ? It takes for granted a 
 
 1 So Bleek and most of the moderns. Nor do the older and profounder 
 commentaries of Cloppenburg, Cocceius, Vitringa, do justice to the meaning 
 here : their expositions of this expression are all too external. 
 
THEIR REFERENCES TO PROPHECY. 
 
 knowledge of sin; and when- a surety is discovered by men 
 in this state of mind, misconceptions are removed, prejudices 
 vanish, the offence ceases, externalism is exploded, and glorying 
 in the cross begins. 
 
 2. The Messiah suffers on account of sin as the meritorious 
 cause (vers. 4, 5). These verses teach us why He suffered. 
 Israel had been taught to regard the corporeal evils or diseases 
 with which they were smitten as the penal effects of sin (Deut. 
 xxviii. 22). The desolations of the land were its sicknesses, 
 while victory was its healing. Matthew refers the words of 
 the prophet to bodily diseases considered as penal consequences 
 of sin (Matt. viii. 17). The commentary of the evangelist so 
 far accurately defines the meaning; for we must understand 
 diseases both of mind and body as penal effects of sin. One 
 corruption was diffused through mind and body; and when 
 the Physician bore our sin. He equally brought help to both. 
 Whether, therefore, we take the words in the more mental 
 reference, or in the sense which Matthew puts upon them, the 
 allusion is to the penal consequences of sin, which Christ bore 
 as a burden. 
 
 The prophet proceeds, in more precise terms, to show that 
 sin was the meritorious cause of all Messiah’s sufferings : “ He 
 was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our 
 iniquities” (ver. 5). Expressions to this effect are so numerous, 
 that no doubt can remain on the mind of an unbiassed reader, 
 that in this description we have an innocent sufferer bearing 
 penal consequences due to the sins of others. Equivalent 
 expressions occur, such as the following :—“ The Lord laid on 
 Him,” or caused to meet on Him, “ the iniquities of us all ” 
 (ver. 6) : “ He shall bear their iniquities ” (ver. 11): “ He bare 
 the sins of many” (ver. 12). The phrase to bear sin, as we suffi¬ 
 ciently proved elsewhere, means to bear sin as a burden, or to 
 bear its punishment. They who will see nothing in this chapter 
 of a satisfaction for sin on the part of the Servant of God, 
 admit only such sufferings as a faithful witness encounters in 
 
76 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 declaring liis testimony amid the enemies of his message (comp. 
 Col. i. 24). According to them, the Servant of the Lord, the 
 Mediator of a revelation in word, was brought to death for His 
 faithfulness, like the Baptist, in the fulfilment of His prophetical 
 career. The latter, though one side of Messiah’s sufferings, is 
 only what He had in common with His servants; but it is a 
 wholly different suffering to which allusion is made in this 
 chapter. The sufferings here described do not belong to the 
 discharge of His prophetical office at all: they belong to His 
 priestly function; and the entire chapter is confined to them. 
 
 Some expositors, 1 who take exception to the view that our 
 sins were the meritorious cause of the Messiah’s sufferings, 
 argue that the words in the fourth verse must bear the ren¬ 
 dering : “ He was wounded by, or through, our transgressions.” 
 On linguistic grounds, apart from the connection and the 
 nearer parallelism, that rendering is admissible. But it is 
 not demanded by the language, as appears from passages 
 where the same phraseology is used: “ Fools, because of their 
 transgressions, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted ” 
 (Ps. cvii. 17); and certainly it is wholly out of harmony with 
 the connection. The decision as to the rendering must be 
 arrived at by referring to the entire verse and context. The 
 next clause confutes that rendering: “ The chastisement of our 
 peace ” (that is, the punishment which procures our peace with 
 God) “ was upon Him.” The words mean, the divine punish¬ 
 ment that we should have borne. Such an interpretation inter¬ 
 feres, too, with the prophet’s scope, and contradicts his words ; 
 and every unprejudiced reader comes to a different conclusion. 
 The rendering, “ He was crucified by our frowardness,” in the 
 sense that the Israelites committed a great sin, is so wide of 
 the mark, and does such violence both to the nearer and 
 remoter parallelism, as well as to the tenor of the prophet’s 
 thoughts, that we can only regard it as suggested by the 
 warping influence of a theological tendency. 
 
 1 So the old Socinians put it, and so do Bleek and others recently. 
 
THEIR REFERENCES TO PROPHECY. 
 
 77 
 
 3. The Messiah is described as the substitute of others. 
 He was not exposed to suffering indirectly or incidentally, but 
 in a direct and immediate way, as our representative. This 
 comes out expressly when it is said: The chastisement of our 
 'peace (that is, the punishment which procured our peace) was 
 upon Him (ver. 5). The language means, according to a familiar 
 mode of speech in the sacred books, that the punishment due 
 to us was reckoned to His account. We shall not draw illus¬ 
 trations of this usage from common discourse between man and 
 man, where it is not uncommon (Gen. xxvii. 13; Judg. xix. 
 20; Matt, xxvii. 25); for, in truth, it is competently used only 
 when men are considered according to a divine constitution 
 which God alone has authority to make. The chapter under 
 consideration is so full of substitution, that this idea colours 
 its whole contents. In human intercourse we see men acting 
 vicariously—that is, taking upon them the obligations of 
 others—and we apprehend the idea. And when the Servant 
 of the Lord, without sin of His own (ver. 9), suffered for 
 His people—when their transgressions were the cause of His 
 punishment—when He put Himself under their collective 
 sins to atone for them—it is evident that in all this He acted 
 vicariously. 
 
 This vicarious position is still more evident from two other 
 expressions, which may be briefly noticed. The first is: The 
 Lord hath laid on Him —that is, caused to meet or converge on 
 Him— the iniquities of us all (ver. 6). This passage intimates 
 that Messiah came under the consequences of those iniquities 
 with which men are chargeable, and bore them in order that 
 the flock for which He suffered might escape unhurt, and 
 be restored to the Shepherd and Bishop of souls. This 
 shows vicarious action. The second expression is even more 
 emphatic: His soul shall be an offering for sin (asham ) (ver. 
 11). The term denotes a trespass-offering, as used of an 
 animal sacrifice (Lev. v. 15; Ezek. xl. 39 ; 1 Sam. vi. 3) ; and 
 the victim was so termed as if it were embodied sin, and must 
 
78 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 die in the room of the offerer, who was deserving of death 
 according to the law. What had for ages been figuratively 
 done in legal ceremonies, was to be carried out on the Messiah, 
 as the great personal and moral trespass-offering of His church. 
 The language signifies that the sins of His people met on Him ; 
 that He was made sin, and subjected to the responsibility 
 which this entailed, not in a metaphorical sense, or after a 
 sort, as the Socinians put it, but really, by proper imputation 
 or transfer. He who was the sinless and righteous Servant 
 of Jehovah (ver. 11), could have no connection with sin but 
 by substitution. If He did not die as a vicarious trespass- 
 offering, or as a voluntary sin-bearer, what possible link could 
 subsist between His death and the sins of the apostolic age, 
 or our sins at this remote distance of time ? The idea of sub¬ 
 stitution is unmistakeable in the entire chapter. 
 
 4. Messiah’s sufferings are announced as coming from 
 God, and inflicted by a divine hand. To this it is the more 
 imperative to advert, because modern thought concedes to 
 the sufferings of Christ only the more indirect and external 
 sorrows encountered in the prosecution of His prophetical 
 office from the ungodly generation to whom He bore the 
 divine message. A perusal of this chapter, however, conveys 
 the impression that He suffered directly at the hand of God, 
 or in the exercise of punitive justice. This is apparent from 
 expressions which need no comment. When it is said, “ The 
 Lord laid on Him the iniquities of us all ” (ver. 6), this does 
 not mean that God permitted indignities to be inflicted on 
 Him by men without any divine action, but that God caused 
 them to descend. This is further taught by the antithesis in 
 which the exaction of justice is connected with the affliction 
 which He bore. “ He was oppressed ”—or, more strictly, He 
 was demanded in the exercise of a divine exaction—“ and 
 He was afflicted ” (ver. 7). We see on the one side the claim 
 of offended justice, and on the other Messiah’s agonies in 
 responding to that demand. We have two parties in their 
 
THEIR REFERENCES TO PROPHECY. 
 
 79 
 
 several actions: tlie Most High demanding punishment, and 
 the Surety hearing it. 
 
 But expressions containing the same idea are multiplied. 
 Thus, when it is said, “ Bor the transgression of my people was 
 He stricken ” (ver. 8), the allusion is to the infliction of punish¬ 
 ment at the hand of God in satisfying the demands of justice. 
 Hot only so : it is added, It pleased the Lord to bruise Him 
 (ver. 10). These memorable words intimate that the Lord not 
 only permitted this at the hand of man, but had pleasure or 
 delight in it, as it bore on His declarative glory and man’s 
 salvation. These sufferings, not in themselves, but in their 
 scope and consequences, gave satisfaction to the Most High, 
 who could not otherwise have had delight in it; and the 
 supreme Author of all these sufferings was Jehovah, by whom 
 we must here understand God the Judge of all. 
 
 This declaration enables us to meet all the statements of 
 a general kind opposed to the infliction of punitive justice or 
 wrath in any form. The objection is thus put: The sufferings 
 of an innocent person could be of no avail, and could not be 
 pleasing to God, or angels, or men. The text obviates this 
 objection in proper form, asserting directly the reverse; and 
 we do not require to adduce other recondite grounds to show 
 that Jehovah delighted in the atonement of Messiah. It is 
 here announced that the Messiah was to bear the punishment 
 of sin, as inflicted by the hand of God. With this it is im¬ 
 possible to harmonize the views of the recent theology opposed 
 to the vicarious sacrifice, when it allows no suffering but such 
 as came from the hand of man in His office as the great 
 Teacher. The prophet, as we here perceive, long before His 
 coming, foretold the opposite. As to the objection urged by 
 the Socinians, that nothing can be more unjust than to punish 
 the innocent, a far more difficult problem is, How could the 
 Son of God suffer what He did, if He is not allowed to be 
 a surety ? With *a full exemption from punishment, on the 
 double ground that He was sinless man and Son of God, how 
 
80 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 could the moral government of God allow any infliction in the 
 mere course of things ? On the supposition of suretyship, all is 
 easy ; on the other supposition, all is inexplicable,—nay, such 
 an anomaly and incongruity in the moral government of God, 
 that we can more easily suppose the annihilation of all things 
 than its occurrence. 
 
 5. The fruits or consequences of Messiah’s death are next 
 mentioned. These are twofold. One class of these has more 
 special reference to the mediatorial reward to he conferred on 
 Him, viz. the promises that He should see His seed, and 
 prolong His days, and divide the spoil with the strong,— 
 all included in His reward (vers. 10-12). The other class of 
 consequences have special reference to the redemption of His 
 people, and to these I limit attention. Isaiah announces the 
 work of the Lord Jesus as a priest giving His life a trespass¬ 
 offering for His people, and as the righteous servant justifying 
 many; and to both these effects of His abasement we shall 
 briefly refer, by illustrating the two clauses where these allu¬ 
 sions occur. 
 
 The first of these affirms that we have peace by His 
 chastisement, and healing by His stripes (ver. 5; 1 Pet. ii. 
 24). The commentary of Peter, who quotes these last terms, 
 leaves no room to doubt that the prophet’s words, rightly 
 understood, mean that the punishment, which brings peace 
 or procures reconciliation with God, was upon Him. This 
 proof would fall to the ground, were we obliged to render, 
 as some propose, “ The instruction of our peace was upon 
 Him.” But there is no warrant for putting on the words 
 this meaning (compare Deut. xi. 2; Job v. 17; Jer. xxx. 
 14; Prov. xiii. 24). The word means chastisement,—a signi¬ 
 fication confirmed by the parallelism of the next clause, 
 according to the well-known rule of the Hebrews, to repeat 
 the thought with a peculiar modification. According to this 
 parallelism, the word chastisement in the one clause is re¬ 
 echoed by the word stripes in the other; and the allusion 
 
THEIR REFERENCES TO PROPHECY. 
 
 81 
 
 in tlie context is not to instruction, but to vicarious suffer¬ 
 ing and wounds. The thought, as Peter quotes the words, 
 is, that the punishment of the Surety was the healing of His 
 people. 
 
 If language is left to express thought, these words beyond 
 doubt connect reconciliation and healing with the sufferings 
 of Messiah. As to this peace, it is reconciliation with God, 
 the effect of Messiah’s suffering. That cannot be explained 
 away by those who regard reconciliation as the result of abso¬ 
 lute love, apart from any intervention or atonement. The term 
 “ healing ” designates deliverance from sin, including pardon, 
 and every part of spiritual recovery. The stripes by which 
 that healing is effected, refer to the scourging inflicted by man’s 
 hand, and to the far worse stripes inflicted by the hand of God, 
 of which the former were but the outward emblem; for we 
 must include, by what is called synecdoche, the entire suffer¬ 
 ings as well as entire obedience of the Lord. The language 
 ( at first sight is paradoxical, and meant to evoke the reflection, 
 How can wounds or maladies be healed by stripes ? How 
 can stripes inflicted on one be the healing of another ? The 
 phraseology was intended to show that this could not be by 
 mere natural effect, or in the ordinary course of things, or by 
 mere moral motives. But the moment we recall the idea of 
 substitution or exchange of places, all is plain; for the wounds 
 of the vicarious Sufferer bring in their train, by the connection 
 of cause and effect, a true healing for every disease. 
 
 The next fruit to which I referred is : “ By His knowledge 
 
 shall my righteous Servant justify many” (ver. 11). It is the 
 
 Father who speaks. How Messiah was the righteous servant 
 
 of the Father, will appear when we reflect that His obedience, 
 
 measured by the law, was the bringing in of that everlasting 
 
 righteousness on the ground of which men are pronounced 
 
 righteous at the tribunal of God; for the import of the word 
 
 “justify” intimates here and everywhere a judicial sentence 
 
 of acquittal and acceptance. But how is that effected by His 
 
 F 
 
82 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 knowledge ? The words can only mean the knowledge by 
 which He is known, not the knowledge which He possesses. 
 Tor the chapter refers not to His prophetical, but to His 
 priestly office. Men are justified by the knowledge of Him, 
 which is the same as to be justified by faith. 
 
 SEC. Y.—THE TESTIMONY TO THE ATONEMENT IN THE ACTS OF 
 
 THE APOSTLES. 
 
 The book of Acts gives testimony to the atonement in a 
 peculiar way: it contributes important aid as to the connec¬ 
 tion between the death of Christ and the remission of sins. 
 We see that, in every place to which the apostles brought their 
 message, they inculcated neither conditions nor meritorious 
 preparations, but preached remission of sins, both among Jews 
 and Gentiles, as an immediate gift to all who had susceptible 
 minds. They declared in unambiguous terms that it was pro¬ 
 cured by the humiliation and death of the Son of God, and 
 given by Him without reference to legal works in any form 
 (Acts v. 31). 
 
 Hot only so: the book of Acts displays in a historic form 
 the results of preaching the atonement, or the important con¬ 
 sequences of inculcating the necessity and practical bearings 
 of this great doctrine. Considered in its structure, it seems to 
 have been prepared on the principle of showing with what 
 success the preaching of the cross was accompanied among all 
 classes, whether they were Jews, Samaritans, or Gentiles; for 
 apostolic preaching proclaimed present forgiveness to every 
 inquirer. 
 
 Here it is necessary to anticipate a difficulty. Some allege 
 that the apostles kept silence on the doctrine of the atonement, 
 when they might have been expected to speak of it: others, 
 not duly considering the scope of the book, find comparatively 
 little allusion to the atonement. But two things are forgotten. 
 
THE TESTIMONY IN THE BOOK OF ACTS. 
 
 83 
 
 None of the discourses is reported at large; for the sacred 
 writer is content to record the salient points or heads of dis¬ 
 course. And though several outlines of discourses are inter¬ 
 woven with the narrative, they are not given as full reports; 
 hut as specimens of their testimony, illustrations of the success 
 with which it was crowned, or arguments which Jewish un¬ 
 belief withstood. Moreover, the discourses given in the Acts 
 of the Apostles are missionary or evangelistic addresses to 
 men in no state of preparation or mood of mind to bear a dog¬ 
 matic elucidation or a full exhibition of the doctrine. For 
 the most part, there was not such common ground between the 
 hearers and speakers as must be presupposed for a full expo¬ 
 sition. The apostles addressed impatient or hostile hearers; 
 and from the nature of the case, the doctrine could only to a 
 limited extent be propounded to men so minded. But one 
 thing is clear: remission of sins was presented to the hearers 
 in its causal connection with Christ crucified, and preached 
 . in His name (Acts ii. 38, iii. 18, 19, xiii. 38). From the com¬ 
 plexion of these discourses, the apostles must either have 
 started from the great central idea of the Messiah, or brought 
 their discourses round to this point. The first method may 
 be traced whenever they preached to Jewish audiences (Acts 
 ii. 25, 36). 
 
 Let us glance at the testimony of Peter and Paul, the two 
 prominent persons in the book of Acts. 
 
 I. On the birthday of the Christian church, when the new 
 economy began by a display of supernatural phenomena not 
 less evident than was given at the founding of the Sinaitic 
 covenant, Peter testified that prophecy was fulfilled (Acts ii. 
 36) ; and to the awakened multitude he commended not a 
 mere teacher, nor a bare example, but the Messiah, in whom 
 the remission of sins was to be found. Underlying the entire 
 address, we find the ideas involved in the doctrine of the 
 Messiah. The promise of the woman’s seed, the conqueror 
 over death, the servant of the Lord, the sin-bearing substitute. 
 
84 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 were thoughts present to his own mind, and by allusion re- 
 
 \ 
 
 called to the minds of his hearers. 
 
 This removes a misconception into which many fall. They 
 who argue that the apostles, in speaking of the death of Jesus 
 to the Jews, merely referred to the fulfilment of prophecy with¬ 
 out involving in the allusion any doctrine of atonement at 
 all, omit to notice the title of the Christ used by these first 
 preachers as the official name. This appellation recalled the 
 Old Testament prophecies from the first promise downwards, 
 and the part which the Messiah was to act for man’s salvation. 
 Hence, to awaken conscience, the apostles reiterated in Jewish 
 ears that Jesus was their Messiah; that all which was to be 
 effected by the Messiah—the atonement of sin and the realiza¬ 
 tion of the types—was accomplished; and that forgiveness of 
 sins as won by His death was preached in His name. Some 
 hold that the apostles preached the death of Jesus as a fact, 
 decreed in the divine purpose and announced in ancient pro¬ 
 phecies, merely to take away prejudices against a suffering 
 Messiah. But we have only to examine these discourses to 
 perceive how baseless is this comment. We find the primary 
 elements of the doctrine of the atonement, and must expound 
 the brief allusions in consistency first with the Lord’s sayings, 
 and then with the rounded exhibition of the doctrine in the 
 epistles addressed to the churches. An analysis of any of 
 these discourses proves that the apostles were consistent with 
 themselves, and in harmony with their Lord. 
 
 a. To take Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost by way 
 of illustration, we find the atonement exhibited in those aspects 
 which may be said to form its constituent elements: (1) Sin¬ 
 less perfection ; then (2) sin-bearing on the part of a God- 
 appointed Mediator; followed (3) by the divine acceptance 
 of His work. We may notice these in order, remembering 
 that in Luke’s condensed report we have but the outline of 
 what was said. 
 
 1. The apostle refers to Jesus of Nazareth as a man ap- 
 
THE TESTIMONY IN THE BOOK OF ACTS. 
 
 85 
 
 proved of God, or accredited by miracles and signs and wonders 
 which He did (ver. 22). He represents Him as the seed of 
 David, the fruit of his loins according to the flesh (ver. 30); 
 and then, in the quotation from the sixteenth Psalm, as the 
 Holy One of God by eminence— Thy Holy One. He bore this 
 appellation because the Pather sanctified Him, and because He 
 approved Himself as the holy servant of God. Sinless perfec¬ 
 tion comes to light in another expression found in the Messianic 
 psalm cited by the apostle : “ I have set the Lord always before 
 me” (ver. 25) ; which could not be affirmed by David, nor by 
 any mortal man : for none but the realized ideal of humanity, 
 the perfect Servant of God, could declare that in all positions 
 He had, without interruption, set the Lord always before Him. 
 But it expressly depicts the obedience of the Messiah in action 
 and in suffering—the copy and counterpart of the divine holi¬ 
 ness ; the servant of God breathing loyalty, subjection, and 
 confidence to the utmost extent required of a creature in rela¬ 
 tion to the Creator. 
 
 2. He was delivered to punishment by the determinate 
 counsel and foreknowledge of God (ver. 23). To understand this 
 statement, we must recall the Lord’s own saying, “The Son of 
 man is delivered into the hands of sinners ” (Matt. xxvi. 45), 
 and also the prophetic announcements (Zech. xiii. 7; Isa. liii. 10). 
 Peter intimates that God subjected Him to death, and that He 
 was not properly overcome by His enemies,—that it was the 
 will of God, His determinate counsel or plan, that Messiah 
 should be delivered as a malefactor into the hands of men, and 
 be put to death with the forms of justice. With all the pos¬ 
 sible modes of carrying out this great counsel before the divine 
 mind, this peculiar plan had been selected. He might have 
 been cut off, had God willed it, by holy hands and a holy 
 ministry; but the Judge of all determined that it should be 
 executed by the hands of the wicked and lawless. Or the 
 Messiah might have been made the great moral sin-offering of 
 the world by the immediate hand of God, without the inter- 
 
86 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 vention of any human agency to put Him to death. But the 
 counsel of God with infinite wisdom appointed otherwise, to 
 the church’s unspeakable advantage. Not only was the fact 
 of Christ’s death appointed, but the mode of it. The sinless 
 Surety, taking our guilt, and placing Himself at the divine 
 tribunal, was to be delivered in the guise of a malefactor into 
 the hands of the wicked, and brought forth to be examined, 
 sentenced, and condemned by a judicial tribunal, that it might 
 be evident that He was innocent, and yet accounted guilty,— 
 that is, that the punishment of the guilty passed over to the 
 sinless Substitute. Had the transaction been in secret, we 
 could not so fully have been assured of this exchange of places. 
 
 The statement here made, that God by a judicial act 
 delivered Jesus into the hands of men, gives us a right con¬ 
 ception of His vicarious death. That great transaction was the 
 result of divine appointment, and had its validity on that 
 account. On the one hand, if the ransom was to possess any 
 value, it must be of God, and not against His will; for without 
 divine appointment it could not have served the purpose. The 
 judicial sentence by which He became the object of punish¬ 
 ment, and was delivered into the hands of sinners, was carried 
 into effect solely on the ground that He was already a sin- 
 bearer in our stead by express covenant with the Bather. He 
 had a full exemption from penal infliction on the ground of 
 two absolute securities—His perfect sinlessness, and His re¬ 
 lation as the only begotten Son. He was secured in a perfect 
 immunity from suffering of every kind; and He could be 
 delivered over to penal visitation only with His own consent, 
 and because He could resume His life which He condescended 
 to resign. The delivery presupposes sin-bearing by suretyship 
 or substitution; for how otherwise could He have been the 
 object of punitive justice ? How else could justice have 
 touched Him ? It could not by possibility have reached Him 
 except on the ground that our sin was laid on Him as the 
 Head and Representative of His people. But God delivered 
 
THE TESTIMONY IN THE BOOK OF ACTS. 
 
 87 
 
 Him over, as a judge delivers a malefactor to punishment, 
 because their guilt was made His own. 
 
 This fact serves to obviate a double objection,—one of 
 Jewish origin, another adduced by the modern theology. As 
 to the Jewish objection: they to whom Peter primarily ad¬ 
 dressed the words, regarding Jesus as stricken, smitten of God, 
 and afflicted, put their objection in this form: Had this man 
 been sent of God, according to his own claims, He who com¬ 
 missioned him would have been able to deliver him from 
 men’s hands. But according to Peter’s declaration, based on 
 prophecy and on the divine counsel, all this was done by God’s 
 appointment; and the infliction was necessary for the divine 
 glory and for man’s salvation. A second objection is that of 
 the modern theology, that Jesus endured sufferings only at the 
 hand of man, and not at the hand of God, and that they are 
 to be regarded as sufferings encountered in His prophetical 
 function,—the same with those which good men always en- 
 . counter in this sinful world by the uniform law of evil. They 
 were inflicted by the hand of God, otherwise men could not have 
 put forth their hands to touch Him. The theory we impugn 
 represents the moral government of God as leaving all to random 
 accident, as if the world were under no law nor control, as if 
 everything could have happened to the Son of God which hap¬ 
 pens to sinful men. But the world is not such an unfathered 
 and unregulated province as this theory takes for granted. 
 
 As to the* mode of His death, Christ was to be tried and 
 judged by men. The manner of His death, as well as the 
 atoning death itself, were equally appointed in God’s counsel 
 and outlined in prophecy. Our Surety was accounted guilty, 
 while personally sinless; and however Pilate pronounced Him 
 without fault, and acquitted Him, there was another tribunal 
 wdiose sentence was only registered at that earthly tribunal, 
 and there, though personally innocent, He was in His capacity 
 as Mediator by no means innocent. What He bore was in 
 respect of man most unjust, but perfectly just in respect of 
 
88 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 God. It is urged that He could not he the object of punitive 
 visitation, for it would he unworthy of a sinless being to he 
 treated as a sinner. The answer is obvious: He was not the 
 object of divine punishment on His own account, or considered 
 in His personal relation to His Father. But He sustained the 
 person of sinful men, and bore their sin, as the prophets and 
 apostles again and again repeat. The object of the Father’s 
 delight personally, He was the object of punitive justice as the 
 representative of sinners. The question, therefore, comes to 
 this: Was sin the proper object of punishment ? Is this an 
 innate belief or first principle in natural theology ? The reason 
 why it pleased the Lord to bruise Him was, that sin could not 
 he discharged without punishment, on account of the insult or 
 wrong done to the divine perfections. Thus the infliction was 
 just in respect of God, who visited sin with its due recompense 
 of reward. When He was arraigned at a human tribunal as a 
 rebel and blasphemer, that was hut an emblem of what we had 
 merited at the hand of God, or of what the Surety actually 
 endured in our stead as a satisfaction to divine justice. An 
 invisible hand executed in an infinite measure those punish¬ 
 ments of which we see the outward form in the arrest and 
 bonds, the stripes and scourging, the condemnation and 
 mockery, the shame and casting out of the camp, as well as 
 in the expressions which fell from Him amid His desertion. 
 What came from man, was hut a feeble outline of what came 
 from the hand of God. That outward punishment showed the 
 chastisement and curse which God Himself was inflicting upon 
 the Surety; for behind the visible tribunal and the visible in¬ 
 fliction was hid something infinitely more formidable which 
 He suffered immediately at the hand of God. There were 
 visitations and desertions infinitely more severe than any 
 stripes that were visible, when He was made to feel the turpi¬ 
 tude and guilt of sin, and to realize His obligation to punish¬ 
 ment, temporal and eternal. But it is not possible to conceive 
 what He endured. 
 
THE TESTIMONY IN THE BOOK OF ACTS. 
 
 89 
 
 3. We said the apostle mentions the acceptance of Christ’s 
 work. He says of death, “ It was not possible that He should 
 be liolden of it” (ver. 24) ; and when we consider why this 
 was not possible 3 it is not a full answer to appeal, as is com¬ 
 monly done, to His omnipotence and divine life. The great 
 reason was, that His soul had been made an offering for sin, 
 a sweet-smelling savour, and that He must be discharged in 
 judicial form. Death could reign only where sin was ; it 
 could remain only where it had a certain right. A sinner 
 whose guilt is undischarged may be held under death; but 
 the Holy One of God could not long be held under its power. 
 But to illustrate this loosing of the pains of death, the apostle 
 quotes from a Messianic psalm containing an allusion to the 
 disembodied state and resurrection of the Lord: “ Thou wilt 
 not leave my soul in hell” (that is, in Hades, the invisible 
 world), “ nor suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption ” (Ps. 
 xvi. 10). On comparing the psalm with Peter’s commentary, 
 we find the Messianic reference vindicated on a principle 
 which can be applied to all similar passages (Acts ii. 29). We 
 have an announcement that the human soul of the Messiah 
 • was for a time to be in a disembodied state, but that the body, 
 the other element of His humanity, should see no corruption. 
 The soul of Christ was to be in a state of separation from the 
 body. There may be some difficulty in apprehending the 
 Hebrew conception of the invisible world, and whether it was 
 represented as a locality or a condition; but there is no doubt 
 that Hades was not simply equivalent to the grave: for an 
 allusion is made to the grave in the previous verse, in the 
 words, “My flesh also shall rest in hope” (Ps. xvi. 9). The 
 soul was to be in the invisible world ( sheol , ver. 10). There 
 has been a vast variety of expositions on this passage, throwing 
 a certain obscurity over a text in itself obvious enough. The 
 Bomanists represent the Lord’s descent to hell, or its suburbs, 
 as designed to deliver the spirits of the Old Testament saints. 
 The Lutheran divines for a long time regarded the descent to 
 
90 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 hell as intended to display the Redeemer’s triumph over the 
 devils. 1 To avoid these speculations and human fancies, other 
 interpreters have gone to an opposite extreme, for which there 
 is as little warrant, representing the term soul as if it might 
 denote something else than the human soul of the Messiah. 
 Some take the clause as containing an allusion to His dead 
 body; others expound it of His person; others of His physical 
 life ; while the term Hades is commonly taken for the grave. 
 That is not to interpret words, hut to insert opinions. Ho 
 justice is done to the word soul , unless we view it as the im¬ 
 mortal principle of humanity, distinct from the body, and 
 capable of existing apart. The Messiah in the passage ex¬ 
 presses His confidence that God would not leave His soul in 
 a disembodied state; which is the consequence of carrying out 
 the curse inflicted on sin, and unwelcome to humanity, because 
 not the normal state of man. To this separation of the con¬ 
 stituent elements of man’s nature the Lord submitted as the 
 sin-bearing Surety of His people. And in the psalm He 
 virtually says: Thou wilt permit me to come forth as a con¬ 
 queror from the disembodied state into which I entered, 
 and from the grave into which I descended, because the guilt 
 charged to my account has been deleted, and the necessity of 
 wrath removed, by my vicarious oblation. 2 
 
 The desire here expressed for deliverance from Hades, 
 
 1 To enumerate all the shades of opinion among the Lutherans on this point 
 would he tedious. A not uncommon view is, that our Lord went to preach to 
 the spirits in prison, and they plead the misunderstood text in Peter (1 Pet. 
 iii. 19). Aepinus, a Hamburg theologian of the sixteenth century, put the 
 extravagant construction on it, that Christ not only endured earthly penalties 
 here, but descended into the lower world, there to undergo hell-punishments 
 for men’s sake ; a notion arguing a very material view of the Lord’s substitu¬ 
 tion, and wholly uncountenanced by Scripture. 
 
 2 See a learned note by Beza on this passage, proposing to interpret, Thou 
 wilt not leave my body in the grave, which cannot be received. Nor can we, 
 with Calvin and Cocceius, understand rbv ^u%viv pov of the animal life, giving us 
 the meaning of the state of death. The word must be taken for the soul ; 
 and the sense will be : Thou wilt not leave my soul in the disembodied state 
 which it was necessary for me to endure as the Surety under the curse of the law. 
 Albert Schultens conclusively argues for this sense. 
 
THE TESTIMONY IN THE BOOK OF ACTS. 
 
 91 
 
 coupled with the apostle’s statement that God loosed the pains 
 of death, gives us to understand that, till the moment when 
 divine justice was declared to he fully satisfied, the human 
 soul of the Lord was in an unwelcome condition. And the 
 reason is obvious : though there is no ground for thinking that 
 there was further anguish or agony to be endured after He 
 said, “ It is finished,” and commended His spirit into His 
 Father’s hands, yet, so long as the soul was in a disembodied 
 state, the two elements of man’s nature, separated by death 
 and under the consequences of sin, continued to be shut out 
 from the full participation of premial life. These pains of 
 death were not yet annihilated. But the perfect sacrifice 
 satisfied justice, restored our forfeited right to the inheritance, 
 and loosed the cords of death. 
 
 From this explanation it appears that the human soul of 
 Jesus, though no more under penal suffering, nay, partaking 
 of rest, refreshment, and peace in paradise, was, while disem- 
 , bodied, in an unwelcome position, from which, as the psalm 
 indicates, He longed to be delivered, as the lingering conse¬ 
 quences of sin, to this extent, still attaching to the person of 
 the God-man; and therefore it was not fitting that so august 
 and glorious a person should long be held captive to the do¬ 
 minion of death, when the completed atonement restored our 
 right to life, and put Him, as our representative, in possession 
 of it. There was no path out of death but by a satisfaction to 
 the divine law, and the endurance of that punishment which 
 transgression had incurred. The right to life was first made 
 manifest to angels and men, when the Surety was brought from 
 the grave by the Judge of all the earth; that is, justified as 
 the Surety (1 Tim. iii. 16). All who believe on Him, to the 
 end of time, perceive in this open recognition of His vicarious 
 w r ork the annihilation of their guilt, the putting away of their 
 own sins—a fact presupposed in the transaction. The ground 
 on which Peter puts the resurrection of Christ is very signifi¬ 
 cant : “ God loosed the pains of death, because it was not 
 
92 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 possible tliat He should be holden of it” (Acts ii. 24). When 
 the apostle affirms that He could not possibly be holden of 
 death, the question arises, Why ? Was it simply, as some 
 have put it, because there was an invincible power of the 
 divine life in Him ? or was it, as others put it, because the 
 promise given to David must be fulfilled in his seed—because 
 prophecy must be accomplished ? These reasons presuppose 
 another. The work being finished, the Judge showed that the 
 satisfaction was complete; for the Eedeemer could not abide 
 in death, which reigns only in the sphere of unexpiated sin. 
 Death can come only upon a sinner, or one subject to guilt. 
 The deepest reason why the Lord could not be holden of death, 
 was the complete expiation of sin. 
 
 It is not correct to say, as some have done, that we find no 
 allusion here to the death of Jesus for the remission of sins, 
 or that the doctrine of the Lord’s sacrificial death, afterwards 
 enforced as the apostle’s principal idea, was not yet developed 
 in Peter’s mind. 1 To say that the expressions are indefinite 
 and general, and that nothing is intimated in the general struc¬ 
 ture of these first discourses, or in their single expressions, 
 from which we may infer the connection between the death of 
 Jesus and the sinner’s acceptance, is quite gratuitous. Por 
 though Peter refers to the atonement in a less direct way than 
 in his epistles, it will be found, if we examine their structure, 
 that the Messiahship of Jesus, with the implied fact of sin- 
 bearing, set forth in Isaiah, was always prominent in these 
 addresses. On the foreground we always find the crucified 
 Messiah, and the message of forgiveness in close causal con¬ 
 nection with it. 
 
 i 
 
 1 Lechler, in liis excellent work, das apostolische Zeitalter, 1857, p. 14, 
 thinks that Peter in his discourses nowhere refers to the death of Christ as a 
 saving fact. So, too, Schumann, ii. 460. Lutz and Listen go much further, 
 and say that there is no doctrine here as to the causal connection between 
 Christ’s death and forgiveness. Weiss, der Petrinische Lehrbegriff, p. 258, 
 puts this connection in its true light, and concludes : “ Damit aber ist Wenig- 
 stens indirect angedeutet, dass in dem Tode Christi die objective IJrsache der 
 Siindenvergebung liegt.” 
 
THE TESTIMONY IN THE BOOK OF ACTS. 
 
 93 
 
 b. A similar discourse was afterwards delivered by Peter 
 on the occasion of the miracle performed on the impotent man 
 at the beautiful gate of the temple (Acts iii. 12). The atone¬ 
 ment, though not very directly introduced, is there referred to 
 in its elements. Jesus is (1) nailed the Holy One and the 
 Eighteous (ver. 14); titles which must be understood as de¬ 
 scriptive of the Surety of sinners, considered in His sinless 
 holiness and perfect righteousness before God, and not as a 
 mere declaration of His innocence from the charges on which 
 He was condemned. To these (2) we must add another title, 
 His servant Jesus (vers. 13 and 26): for though the earlier 
 Protestant interpreters were wont to translate these phrases, 
 “ His Son Jesus,” “Thy hold child Jesus” (Acts iv. 27), as if 
 they referred to His divine Sonship, recent interpreters more 
 correctly regard it as the translation of the prophet’s appella¬ 
 tion, “The Servant of the Lord” 1 (Isa. xlii. 1, lii. 13). That 
 this is the true rendering there is no room to doubt, because 
 we find it applied in a much inferior sense to David and to the 
 people of Israel (Acts iv. 25 ; Luke i. 54). As applied to the 
 Lord, it meant that He was the servant of God by way of 
 eminence, or in a unique sense, so called because He came 
 down from heaven not to do His own will, but the will of Him 
 that sent Him, and complied with all the duties and obliga¬ 
 tions which the Father imposed on Him as the surety of 
 sinners. The conditions which the Father prescribed were 
 promptly fulfilled, in all the various relations which man occu¬ 
 pies to the moral Governor as a creature and as a sinner, to 
 the utmost extent a sinless nature could render them, when 
 He submitted to vicarious suffering for men’s redemption. On 
 the Father’s side it was a true command, and on the part of the 
 Eighteous Servant it was a true obedience in the room of others. 
 
 1 Nitzsch, Olshausen, and most recent interpreters, following them, so inter¬ 
 pret rov <xouba. avrou (ver. 13), and rov ctyiov <7rcu'bd. trov (iv. 27). This will be evi¬ 
 dent to every one on comparing Matthew’s rendering of Isa. xlii. 1 by o wa7t 
 (aov ov wpirura (Matt. xii. 18). 
 
94 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 His whole life was spent in the service of God for sinners. 
 He was the servant of God, not simply in the execution of His 
 commission as a prophet, hut especially in His fulfilment of 
 the office of a surety in our room. How all this succinctly 
 describes the very essence of Christ’s atoning work, and we 
 cannot allow that Peter in this address says nothing on the 
 doctrine of the atonement. When put on his defence before 
 the council, the apostle declared that there was salvation in no 
 other (iv. 10-12); that this is the one name, to the exclusion 
 of every other; and that redemption stands connected with 
 the name of Christ, considered as the Messiah, the abased, the 
 crucified, and exalted. 
 
 c. I shall briefly refer to the mode in which the first dis¬ 
 ciples preached Christ. An examination of passages satisfies 
 us that by this phrase we are to understand the preaching of 
 Christ crucified, with the saving efficacy of His death. One 
 interesting passage in confirmation of this view is the descrip¬ 
 tion of Philip’s preaching to the eunuch, as given in the book 
 of Acts (viii. 29). Commissioned by the Spirit to instruct the 
 Abyssinian inquirer, he preached to him Jesus, in connection 
 with Isaiah’s description of the suffering Surety: he took for 
 his text the passage which he found the inquirer wistfully 
 perusing, but unable to comprehend (ver. 12),—the account of 
 the sufferings of Messiah portrayed by the prophet (Isa. liii. 
 7, 8). Plainly a higher hand was guiding both, the one to 
 peruse that prediction of the suffering Messiah, the other to 
 base his instructions on the passage. Beginning at the same 
 scripture, he preached to him Jesus; in other words, preached 
 the vicarious sufferer and the atonement. We may say that 
 the one grand topic of Christian instruction during their brief 
 interview, when mysteriously brought together and as mys¬ 
 teriously separated, was the cross. Had the atonement not 
 formed the theme of that first missionary address which led the 
 inquirer to salvation, there was no meaning in referring to the 
 passage of Isaiah, no link of connection between the two things. 
 
THE TESTIMONY IN THE BOOK OF ACTS. 
 
 95 
 
 II. The second principal person in the hook of Acts is the 
 Apostle Paul. His testimony to the atonement is so full and 
 explicit in his various epistles, that it may seem superfluous to 
 adduce a proof of it from his briefly reported sermons in the 
 book of Acts. We see, however, that he held one uniform 
 doctrine wherever he went; determined not to know anything 
 among the Corinthians but Jesus Christ and Him crucified 
 (1 Cor. ii. 2), repudiating with strong feelings of aversion among 
 the Galatians the least degree of glorying save in the cross 
 (Gal. vi. 14), and always consistent with himself in every place. 
 We have a record in the book of Acts of two addresses of a 
 missionary character by Paul,—one delivered in the Jewish 
 synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia (Acts xiii. 15-41), a second 
 delivered to the heathen philosophers of Athens (Acts xvii. 
 22-31),—not to mention others spoken before the Jewish autho¬ 
 rities in his own defence. These discourses bring the hearers 
 to the cross as the centre-point of his preaching, but by 
 different paths. Besides these, we have an address of a different 
 nature to the Ephesians assembled at Miletus. 
 
 a. The address to the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia was in its 
 form and texture very similar to Peter’s sermon on the day of 
 Pentecost, for they were both addressed to Jews. The apostle 
 describes Jesus as the seed of David and the Son of God 
 (ver. 33), and makes an appeal to the fulfilment of prophecy to 
 prove that Jesus the Christ died, was buried, and rose again 
 from the dead, according to the Scriptures (vers. 30-38). He 
 establishes the sinlessness of Jesus, when he shows that they 
 found no cause of death in Him (ver. 28). He describes Him 
 as raised up to Israel as a Saviour (ver. 23), and then sets forth 
 that FORGIVENESS OF SINS WAS PREACHED IN HlS NAME (ver. 38). 
 This language deserves attention, as it intimates that forgive¬ 
 ness was preached, not sold nor bartered; in other words, that 
 pardon was proclaimed without conditions or terms, simply on 
 the ground of the humiliation to which Jesus submitted on 
 earth. He next announces that on the same foundation who- 
 
96 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 ever believes is justified from all tilings from which he could 
 not have been absolved by the law of Moses. We may say 
 that the apostle there preaches the righteousness of faith, not 
 the righteousness of the law, in the same way as in his various 
 epistles, He affirms, in the same manner as in his Epistle to 
 the Romans, that what the law could not do, because it was 
 weak through the flesh, was attained through faith in Christ 
 (Rom. viii. 3). 
 
 b. In the other missionary discourse delivered to the Gentile 
 philosophers of Athens, the apostle proceeded in a different 
 way (Acts xviii. 22). He in the first instance went back to 
 the principles of natural religion, because in every discussion 
 the first requirement is to have some common ground; and 
 the principles of natural theology were the only data, the 
 only platform, where they could find common ground. He 
 first preaches God as Creator, Upholder, Disposer, and Judge, 
 though He was unknown as yet to them—the unknown God. 
 He next advanced to the resurrection of Jesus, in connection 
 with the announcement of the judgment; the fact of a judg¬ 
 ment being stated as appointed for a given day, and to be 
 carried out by Jesus Christ (Acts xvii. 31). This brought 
 the apostle to the cross, or would have brought him, had 
 the mockery with which he was assailed not interrupted the 
 continuity of the discourse. 
 
 c. Besides these discourses of Paul, which from the occa¬ 
 sion and the hearers were of a missionary character, there 
 is a memorable pastoral address to the elders of Ephesus 
 assembled at Miletus. Among other topics, the apostle ad¬ 
 verts to the death of Christ as the great ransom-price by 
 which He purchased the church, and the foundation of all 
 His right of property in the church. Speaking to elders 
 long established in the faith, he urges them to diligence by 
 the consideration that the church was dear to them as the 
 purchased property of Christ—as bought at an infinite cost. 
 He speaks of the church as purchased by the Lord with 
 
TIIE TESTIMONY IN THE BOOK OF ACTS. 
 
 97 
 
 His own blood, and won by Him to be His property, thus: 
 “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock 
 over which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers, to feed 
 the church of God, which He has purchased with His own 
 blood ” (Acts xx. 28). Here several points connected with 
 the atonement call for exposition. Though there is a variety 
 of reading, 1 the whole clause shows that special emphasis is 
 laid on the dignity of the person, and on the preciousness of 
 the ransom, by which the church was bought. 
 
 1. The church is described as blood-bought property. That 
 price is said to have made the church God’s church, or Christ’s 
 church, in consequence of which the people of God stand in 
 the closest and most tender relation to the Lord. They are 
 His by right of purchase, analogous to what in ancient times 
 was customary when slavery prevailed. The church is called 
 God’s, or the Lord’s, whether we look at the several members 
 or at the collective body, not simply because He rules it—for 
 ( in that sense the entire creation might be so called—but by 
 reason of purchase, and of the close relation in which He 
 stands to it. This comes out in numerous passages, which 
 explicitly declare that the redeemed are the Lord’s, and not 
 their own, by right of purchase (1 Cor. vi. 20; Tit. ii. 14; 
 Eev. v. 9 ; Bom. xiv. 8, 9). By that thought the apostle 
 stimulated the elders of Ephesus to fidelity, vigilance, and 
 care in feeding the members of the church. They had been 
 purchased with blood; and since God had bought them with 
 the most astonishing price, that consideration was to animate 
 
 1 The reading rvv IxxXntr'ictv roZ K vptov is supported by A, C 1 , D, E, and pre¬ 
 ferred by Griesb., Lach., Tisch. The common reading is supported by B, x, 
 and favourably regarded by Scholtz and Alford. A third variety, or combina¬ 
 tion of the two former, is, K vptov xa.) ©s oZ, found in C 3 , G, H. See a discussion 
 by Doedes (Teyler’s Godgeleerd Genootsch. Deel. xxxiv. p. 434) ; also, Meteler- 
 Kamp’s Dissertatio Theologica de Pauli Oratione Valedictoria, l.c. It seems 
 almost impossible to decide, if the decision is to turn solely on external grounds. 
 Hence Paul’s phraseology elsewhere, the chuech of God, is thought by some to 
 incline the balance in favour of the receptus (see 1 Cor. i. 2, x. 32, xi. 16 and 
 22, xv. 9 ; 2 Cor. i. 1 ; Gal. i. 13; 1 Thess. ii. 14 ; 2 Thess. i. 4 ; 1 Tim. iii. 5 
 and 15). 
 
98 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 the elders and overseers of the church to take the most tender 
 interest in every member, and to evince the most vigilant care. 
 
 2. The price or ransom was His own blood. Whichever 
 noun is the antecedent to which the pronoun refers, the 
 allusion is plainly to the personal dignity of Him by whom 
 the price was paid. Text critics are more favourably inclined 
 than they have been for a century to the common reading, 
 “ The church of God, which He has purchased with His own 
 blood,” which, of course, would give an express and formal 
 testimony to the value of the atonement, considered in the 
 light of Christ’s deity. But the other reading, if due weight 
 is given to the words, proves the influence of the person upon 
 the work of expiation; and we are plainly taught that we 
 cannot make Christ mediator in one nature to the exclusion 
 of the other, nor ignore the action and influence of the divine 
 nature in His work of atonement. We see that Christ, in His 
 redeeming work, was not regarded as mere man, but as God- 
 man ; for the blood here mentioned is called God's own, or the 
 Lord's own, showing that the humanity to which the blood 
 belonged was personally united to Deity—not mere humanity, 
 but God assuming humanity; that is, a God-man paid the 
 necessary price, and bought us to be His. So great a work 
 could have been accomplished only in the flesh of Him in 
 whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and He 
 so possessed humanity, that He could give it for others. In 
 every mediatorial act, accordingly, we trace the concurrent 
 action of two natures in one person; and hence it is the 
 act of the God-man. This is easily perceived in the phrase, 
 His own blood. 
 
 3. Next let us consider who owns the church. Only a 
 divine person can be her proprietor or possessor. This may 
 be said to incline the balance still further in favour of the 
 reading, “the church of God.” Whoever redeems another 
 from eternal death, naturally becomes the owner or pro¬ 
 prietor of the party so redeemed. But none can properly 
 
THE TESTIMONY IN THE BOOK OF ACTS. 
 
 99 
 
 be possessor of another, his owner or his lord, but one who 
 superadds to the payment of a price the further dignity of 
 a nature essentially divine. Eedemption, indeed, is a divine 
 act as much as is creation. He who claims us as His property 
 must necessarily be divine. 
 
 Thus we find the apostles, in the book of Acts, constantly 
 referring in the first instance to the Lord’s humiliation as 
 the servant of the Father in the execution of a commis¬ 
 sion given Him to do. We find, too, in connection with this 
 —we may say, in causal connection with this—the proclama¬ 
 tion of a present forgiveness of sins, without qualification or 
 preparation in any form. The evasion to which some have 
 recourse, that in all this the apostles meant to obviate the 
 Jewish objection to a suffering Messiah, is often repeated, 
 but without warrant. The atonement was not omitted in 
 these missionary discourses, as is evident from the references 
 to prophecy, and the identification of Jesus with the Messiah, 
 « which at once recalled the element of sin-bearing (Isa. liii. 5). 
 This must be conceded, unless we proceed, on the principle of 
 evacuation, to reduce the meaning of terms to a minimum,—a 
 mode of interpretation wholly to be repudiated. Neither the 
 death of Christ nor the resurrection were preached as bare 
 historic facts, but in their meaning and significance. We 
 cannot reduce the uniform testimony of the apostles to the 
 announcement of mere historic facts, apart from the reason of 
 Messiah’s sufferings and death, or dissociate the significance 
 attaching to the connection of the two. 
 
 We are warranted to conclude, when we take to our aid the 
 unambiguous statements of the apostles, that they made the 
 death of Christ, considered as an atonement and an eternally 
 valid fact, the centre-point of their preaching. How far the 
 atonement was expounded in those addresses, in its rationale, 
 constituent elements, and effects, it may be difficult to say; 
 for their communications were proportioned to the hearers’ 
 capacity. Many recondite truths connected with the atone- 
 
100 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 ment, such as the priesthood of Christ, on which the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews dilates, the bearing of the atonement on the 
 divine moral government, the various results in regard to 
 man’s relation to his Maker, the number and extent of the 
 blessings flowing from it, and the like, were doubtless to some 
 extent reserved, till a people were gathered to whom these 
 truths could be intelligible. But the remission of sins, and 
 the free acceptance of sinners through the death of Christ, 
 were unquestionably preached in the very first addresses which 
 the apostles delivered (Acts xiii. 38). 
 
 SEC. VI.—THE APOSTOLIC EPISTLES. 
 
 Next to the sayings of Jesus, the most important source 
 of information as to the atonement are the apostolic epistles 
 addressed to the churches. The apostles kept this truth 
 before the mind of their readers, as they did before the mind 
 of their hearers. As these epistles were not addressed to 
 mankind indiscriminately, but to companies of redeemed men 
 gathered together in several places, and are to be read as 
 primarily addressed to believers, the numerous explanations 
 they contain as to the Lord’s atoning death, suffice to prove 
 that there is not a spiritual blessing which does not stand in 
 immediate or mediate connection with it, not a duty which 
 is not enforced by it as a motive. How wide the influence 
 of this great article is on doctrine and practice, at once appears 
 from the place which it occupies in the epistles. The entire 
 range of Scripture truth takes a tincture from it, and its influ¬ 
 ence is felt even where it may not be expressly named. 
 
 A study of those apostolic documents to which we now 
 come, will satisfy every reader that the atonement was, in the 
 apostolic scheme of doctrine, viewed as an accomplished fact, 
 eternally valid before God, and requiring no supplementary 
 addition. They describe it as finished once for all, without 
 
THE APOSTOLIC EPISTLES. 
 
 101 
 
 the need of repetition. They refer to the fact, that by this 
 truth the gospel is distinguished and exalted above all human 
 wisdom. With the apostles this is the great fact in the 
 world’s history, the chief topic, the central truth from which 
 they start, and to which they return. All the Pauline epistles, 
 with the single exception of the simple Epistle to Philemon— 
 a letter to a private individual—make express mention of the 
 atonement as the most momentous fact that ever occurred in 
 human history, and fraught with the most blessed results. A 
 few remarks will show this. 
 
 To prove that the epistles represent the atonement as the 
 great fact of revelation, we have only to recall the circumstance 
 that it is called another gospel, if man’s acceptance is made 
 to hinge on anything besides the cross (Gal. i. 7). The apostles 
 preached reconciliation as effected by the cross alone, though 
 their message was in perpetual collision with Jewish legalism 
 and Gentile philosophy (1 Cor. i. 23). That the doctrine of 
 the cross belongs to those articles which are to be compre¬ 
 hended in the perpetual teaching of the church, is evident 
 from the fact that the apostle urged the Corinthians to keep 
 what had been delivered to them on the atonement as the 
 principal topic of Christianity (1 Cor. xv. 1-4). The epistles 
 show what constitutes the perpetual doctrine of the church; 
 and the place which the atonement occupies in them is abun¬ 
 dant evidence that it must ever be kept in the view of the 
 redeemed, if the scope of many exhortations is not to be per¬ 
 verted, and the significance of many motives is not to be mis¬ 
 apprehended. 
 
 The atonement is interwoven into the texture of the epistles 
 to a remarkable degree; but we do not find it equally in all. 
 It must never be forgotten that they are not treatises, but 
 letters written for a definite purpose, and that they do not 
 cease to bear the character and impress of that style of com¬ 
 position. They are not exhaustive discussions: only five of the 
 apostles have left behind them epistolary documents destined 
 
102 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 for the edification of the church, some more full of matter, 
 others more brief, but all in some important respects bearing 
 upon doctrine and practice, according to the special service 
 for which they were destined. The reason of the prominence 
 given at one time to one truth, and at another time to another, 
 can be explained upon the principle that all truth does not 
 equally require to be taught at all times. The different epistles 
 have their particular scope, and hence we find a certain variety; 
 but all concur to one end. We could not expect every article 
 in every epistle. 
 
 To allege, as has been done, from the silence of one or two 
 of the smaller epistles, that their writers must have entertained 
 a different doctrine, or a system of truth exclusive of the 
 vicarious sacrifice of Christ, is a mode of arguing which mis¬ 
 takes their nature. On this principle, it might as well be alleged 
 that the writer of more epistles than one must have changed 
 his views, if he is not equally explicit on every point in every 
 epistle. When the death of Christ has a prominent place in 
 almost every epistle, and is seen from every point of the 
 Christian system and inner life, these facts may prove how 
 fundamental the atonement is. 
 
 An appeal has been made to the fact that there is a silence 
 on the point in James and Jude. It used to be stoutly main¬ 
 tained by the class of writers opposed to the vicarious sacrifice, 
 that such a view perverted the doctrine of Scripture, by ex¬ 
 pounding metaphorical and figurative language in a literal way, 
 and that the atonement was not to be found in the Bible. 
 But an impartial examination of Scripture doctrine silenced 
 that objection. Next it was argued that two apostles are silent 
 on it. The answer is obvious. As to the Epistle of Jude, which 
 has been adduced as containing no allusion to the atonement, 
 it is not correct so to represent it. Though in his brief epistle 
 Jude does not mention in express terms the blood, sufferings, 
 or death of Christ, he mentions the mercy of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ unto eternal life (ver. 21),—language by which we under- 
 
THE APOSTOLIC EPISTLES. 
 
 103 
 
 stand all that the other apostles have directly taught in refer¬ 
 ence to His sacrifice. Besides, he appeals to the words spoken 
 before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ (ver. 17). As to 
 the Epistle of James, its scope and teaching are of such a kind, 
 that we cannot reasonably expect him to dilate upon funda¬ 
 mental doctrine. It is expressly ethical in its whole cast and 
 structure. And it were as much aside from a due conception 
 of its scope to look for a discussion of Christian doctrine, as 
 it would be to require of a Christian divine, in the midst of 
 a moral theme, to turn aside to settle doctrinal questions. The 
 epistle has a special aim, from which the writer does not turn 
 aside to expatiate on doctrinal topics. 
 
 Our task, in conducting a strict investigation into the teach¬ 
 ing of the various epistles on the doctrine of the atonement, 
 is to bring out the apostolic view of the doctrine; and our 
 object is to appeal, on sound principles of interpretation, to the 
 true meaning of the apostles’ words. There is the greater need 
 for this, when we observe that many, under the influence of 
 what is styled modern thought, or growing thought, express 
 decided dislike to juridical ideas, and will have no other re¬ 
 demption than a moral redemption, and no other view of God 
 than that of absolute love. 
 
 After the full classification of the sayings of Jesus in the 
 previous volume, it seems to be superfluous to give a further 
 construction of the doctrine as an organic whole, or a full 
 dogmatic synopsis of the apostolic outline, because this would 
 be but a repetition of the same divisions, or at most a distri¬ 
 bution of different texts under the same heads. We deem it 
 enough to refer to that classification. A distribution of the 
 apostles’ sayings in the briefest possible outline might be 
 given, however, under three divisions as follows: The first 
 would contain the postulates of the doctrine; the second 
 would exhibit its nature and constituent elements; the third 
 would delineate its effects. 
 
 1. Under the postulates would be comprehended the 
 
104 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 necessity of the atonement (Heb. ii. 10); the harmony of 
 justice and love, or the concurrence of wrath against sin, and 
 love to the sinning creature (1 John iv. 10); the influence 
 of Christ’s supreme deity in His work (Rom. viii. 3) ; the 
 appointment of a mediator, surety, or high priest by a divine 
 call (Heb. v. 5),—thus providing for the possibility of sub¬ 
 stitution. 
 
 2. Under the nature or constituent elements, would be 
 classified Christ’s sinlessness and sin-bearing, according to the 
 twofold obligation lying on us (1 Pet. iii. 18; 2 Cor. v. 
 21); in other words, the active and passive obedience of the 
 Lord, in His undeviating performance of the divine will 
 (Heb. x. 9, 10),—thus effecting the one sacrifice for sin (Heb. 
 x. 12). 
 
 3. Under the effects would be classified a great number 
 of distinctly expressed 1 benefits, referring first to our relative 
 
 t 
 
 position of acceptance or reception into favour, where we 
 may enumerate, a. redemption, b. forgiveness, c. reconciliation, 
 d. justification, directly flowing from the atonement: next, the 
 privilege of approach in worship to a holy God in the capacity 
 of a royal priesthood, where we may enumerate the sprinkling 
 or purifying, washing, cleansing, or sanctifying of a holy people 
 relatively: then the renovation of the nature, or the commu¬ 
 nication of spiritual life subjectively : then the new relation to 
 the persons of the Godhead—to Christ, as His blood-bought 
 property (1 Cor. vi. 20); to the Holy Ghost, as His temple 
 (1 Cor. vi. 19); to the Father, as His people and children: 
 then the new relationship to angelic beings, and to men of all 
 nations: then the victory over Satan, the world, and death: 
 then the liberation from an economy of ceremonies (Col. ii. 14): 
 
 1 It is noteworthy that these effects of the atonement are very often 
 mentioned by the apostles in a telic clause introduced by <v«, or more rarely 
 o'-ras, and give us a glimpse into Christ’s design or aim, or His Father’s. 
 They are apostolic delineations of Christ’s intention, or the scope of His 
 work. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC EPISTLES. 
 
 105 
 
 then the elevating motives derived from the cross, with various 
 other points relating to the efficacy of the sacrifice, and the 
 danger of neglecting it. 
 
 But having made as complete a classification as we could 
 of the Lord’s sayings, it is superfluous to do it a second 
 time. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY TO THE ATONEMENT IN THE PAULTNE 
 
 EPISTLES. 
 
 SEC. VII.—THE EPISTLES OF PAUL ON THE EIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. 
 
 A S Peter is called the apostle of hope, and John of love, 
 Paul may he called the apostle of faith, or more strictly, 
 of the righteousness of faith. As a testimony to the atone¬ 
 ment, the epistles of Paul will he found particularly fuU and 
 copious; for there is not a phase of the doctrine which he does 
 not develope and apply. If he did not, like the other apostles, 
 enjoy the personal teaching of Jesus in the days of His flesh, 
 he was hy no means without direct communications from his 
 Lord; for he was taught hy the revelation of Jesus Christ 
 (Gal. i. 12), and even caught up into paradise to hear un¬ 
 speakable words (2 Cor. xii. 4). Apart from this, he was led 
 by the Spirit into the import of the law and the prophets, and 
 there found the truth which his nature needed, and which was 
 all verified in the Lord’s atoning death. He reproduces the 
 doctrine in many new lights, from the objective truth opened 
 up to him in the Old Testament, and from his own deep ex¬ 
 perimental acquaintance with Christ as the end of the law. 
 
 As to the order of conducting the inquiry, we purpose 
 to take the epistles in the order in which they stand in the 
 common editions of the Bible. The advantage obtained by 
 following the chronological order in which the epistles are 
 supposed to have been written—for there is by no means a 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. 
 
 107 
 
 complete uniformity of opinion on their exact order—will not 
 compensate for the inconvenience of departing from the well- 
 known arrangement. And we abide by it the rather because 
 we can discover no trace of any development of Paul’s views 
 from one stage to another: he was like himself from the 
 moment when he died to the law by the reception of Christ 
 (Rom. vii. 4, 9). Not that his epistles are all alike; but they 
 take their colour from the circumstances and prevalent senti¬ 
 ments in the various churches. 
 
 While the apostle makes use of all the terms employed by 
 the other writers, such as redemption, propitiation, peace, and 
 the like, descriptive of Christ’s sacrificial death, there is one 
 peculiar to him, the righteousness of God, which very fre¬ 
 quently occurs. Though announced in the prophets, and in¬ 
 directly alluded to by Peter and John in their use of the 
 designation “ the Righteous One,” it is specially found in 
 Paul, who uses this abstract expression to describe the atone- 
 , ment in relation to divine law. 
 
 I purpose in this section to consider somewhat fully the 
 righteousness of God, and to group together the Pauline doc¬ 
 trine on the subject. Amid the manifold negations of the 
 times, it cannot be without its use to give a new grounding to 
 this important expression. That a great change has entered in 
 the mode of viewing the righteousness of God, compared with 
 the general recognition which it received in all the Protestant 
 churches, cannot be doubtful to any one who has watched the 
 changes of opinion on the subject of the atonement. This was 
 long the descriptive name for the material cause of a sinner’s 
 acceptance with God. The task we impose on ourselves is 
 to ascertain the import of the phrase, “ the righteousness of 
 God,” and to define the place which it occupies in the Pauline 
 epistles; and we aim at an objective statement, embodying the 
 results of exegetical inquiry, more than a formal discussion of 
 the opinions which have appeared on the ecclesiastical field, 
 though we cannot omit all notice of recent views fundamentally 
 
108 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 opposed to the proper meaning of the terms. We wish to go 
 direct to the apostles, except where it is indispensably neces¬ 
 sary to refer to recent obscuring theories. The task of repro¬ 
 ducing apostolic doctrine in its true significance and organic 
 connections, is becoming an urgent duty; and the part assigned 
 to exegetical theology is to recall, as far as may be, not only 
 single phrases, but the general outline of those truths by which 
 the apostles, as the chosen organs of Christ’s revelation, ex¬ 
 hibited in the church the riches of divine grace as seen in the 
 incarnate Word, and unfolded to them after His ascension. 
 
 An occasion for a full inquiry into the righteousness of 
 God will be found also in the fact that a large class of minds 
 betray a hesitancy which contrasts painfully with the liberty 
 and boldness which marked the days of the apostles. This 
 attaches to not a few who are truly occupied with the personal 
 Eedeemer and the contemplation of the divine Life, but stop 
 short of defining the mode in which the righteousness of 
 God stands related to Life in the Pauline scheme of doctrine. 
 They evince little interest indeed as to the relation of these 
 points to each other, seeking the fellowship of life with Christ 
 without distinct ideas as to the indispensable conditions of 
 this communion. Under the influence of what can only be 
 called a mystic element, limiting the regard to Christ in us, 
 and failing to give prominence to Christ for us, they never 
 breathe freely the liberty of the gospel. They have fallen 
 under a scheme of doctrine which makes no distinction between 
 the person and the nature, the standing of the man and the 
 renovation of the heart, the objective and the subjective; and 
 though correctly regarding the person of Christ as the centre- 
 point of Christianity and the fountain of life, they do not know 
 how Life stands related to Eighteousness—a thought pervading 
 the whole Pauline doctrine. 
 
 Our first inquiry must be to ascertain the precise import 
 of the righteousness of God in the Pauline epistles, and the 
 place it holds in them. A comparison of these epistles with 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. 
 
 109 
 
 one another shows that there are two divisions or classes, with 
 their own marked peculiarity, according as the apostle has 
 occasion to counteract a Jewish Legalism, or a tendency to an 
 incipient Gnosticism, invading the Christian churches while 
 he yet lived. To the pharisaic cast of thought, with its attach¬ 
 ment to the y^orks of the law, and the enforcement of legal 
 ceremonies as necessary, allusion is made in the Epistles to 
 the Galatians, Eomans, and Philippians ; and there the right¬ 
 eousness of God is the central thought. To the oriental theo¬ 
 sophy, with its claim to a higher wisdom, which put notions 
 in the place of the personal Redeemer, allusion is made in the 
 Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians (Col. ii. 8). There 
 the personal Christ, and the life found in Him, are the central 
 thoughts. But even there life is viewed as subsequent to, 
 and dependent on, the atonement. To the former class of the 
 Pauline epistles we direct our attention in this section. And 
 our purpose is to notice the place which the righteousness 
 , OF God holds in them; for this phrase, as we shall find, is 
 descriptive of the finished work of Christ, as approved at the 
 divine tribunal, and the meritorious cause of our acceptance. 
 
 Throughout the doctrinal part of the Epistle to the Romans, 
 the righteousness of God, as a descriptive name for the atone¬ 
 ment, is the grand theme. The Epistle to the Galatians, again, 
 is nothing else than an enforcement of the great truth, that 
 to the close of the Christian’s career, the righteousness of faith 
 is the one plea valid before God; and no second recommenda¬ 
 tion or condition, in the form of works, is of any avail (Gal. 
 ii. 21, iii. 21, vi. 5 ). In the Epistles to the Corinthians we 
 find the same theme in the same antithesis, with this difference 
 only, that other points required attention in this church (1 Cor. 
 i. 30; 2 Cor. iii. 9). But when the apostle contrasts the two 
 economies, the law is called the ministry of condemnation, and 
 the gospel the ministry of righteousness. In the Epistle to 
 the Philippians we find Paul, when very near the close of his 
 career, still counting all things but loss for this righteousness, 
 
110 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 and far from having outlived this thought, which coloured his 
 ideas in prospect of approaching martyrdom (Phil. iii. 9). We 
 find allusion to the righteousness of God also in the pastoral 
 epistles (Tit. iii. 5-7). 
 
 Having seen how prevalent is the reference to the right¬ 
 eousness of God in the Pauline epistles, we have, next to con¬ 
 sider in what it consists. And here it will he necessary to 
 obviate some misconceptions. 
 
 1. The phrase cannot be held to refer to the divine attri¬ 
 bute of righteousness. Divine justice, reflected in the law, is 
 indeed the rule or standard on which, in a definite sense, the 
 righteousness of God is measured; but this righteousness is not 
 the divine attribute itself. The expression is uniformly intro¬ 
 duced in Scripture as descriptive of what is due from man, or 
 as the ethical response on man’s side to a divine claim. It is 
 a name for that which Adam should have rendered, and not 
 a divine perfection. Some faint colour seems to be lent to the 
 idea that it may be the divine attribute by the apparent con¬ 
 nection—though it is but apparent—between the two state¬ 
 ments in two successive verses : “ The righteousness of God is 
 revealed in the gospeland, “ The wrath of God is revealed 
 from heaven against all ungodliness” (Eom. i. 17, 18). But 
 the two statements, though placed in close juxtaposition, and 
 apparently connected by a causal particle (yap), belong to 
 two wholly different economies, and have nothing in common. 
 The tacit thought is : All alike need the provision of the gospel, 
 and must repair to it; for they have nothing to expect but a 
 revelation of wrath on their own account. The mode of ex¬ 
 pounding this phrase by allusion to the divine attribute was 
 in reality overcome at the Reformation. Luther tells us that, 
 having long had a desire to understand the Epistle to the 
 Romans, he was always stopped by the expression “ the right¬ 
 eousness of God,” which he understood as the divine attribute; 
 but after long meditations, and spending days and nights in 
 these thoughts, the nature of that righteousness which justifies 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. 
 
 Ill 
 
 us was discovered to him; upon which he felt himself horn 
 anew, and the whole Scriptures become quite a different thing. 
 It is evident, indeed, that there can he no allusion to the divine 
 attribute of justice, because this would furnish the idea of an 
 incensed God, which is the purport of the law; whereas the 
 provision is one of grace, displaying a reconciling and justify¬ 
 ing God, which is the essence of the gospel. Besides, such an 
 acceptation as that which we oppose would not adapt itself to 
 the general phraseology of Scripture. Thus, in the memorable 
 passage which represents Christ as made sin that we might he 
 made the righteousness of God, it is evident that in no sense 
 of the terms, and with no propriety of language, could it he 
 said of the Christian that he is made the attribute of right¬ 
 eousness (2 Cor. v. 21). The fact, too, that it is commonly put 
 in antithesis to our own righteousness (Phil. iii. 9), determines 
 the significance of the expression to he something different 
 from the divine attribute. The only part which the divine 
 , justice acts in this matter is, that it furnishes the rule or 
 standard by which it is tried. When this righteousness is 
 called a gift (Bom. v. 17), and said to he of God, or divinely 
 provided, in contrast with that which is of the law and our 
 own (Phil. iii. 9), the idea is, that for those who have no right¬ 
 eousness of their own this is the gracious provision of God. 
 
 Attempts have been made, however, to explain the phrase 
 in a mystic way, by referring it to Christ’s essential righteous¬ 
 ness as a divine person. This notion, propounded by Osiander, 
 and restored by some men of mystic tendencies, separates the 
 one indivisible work of Christ into two parts, allowing pardon 
 to he procured by Christ’s atoning blood, but maintaining that 
 righteousness is the communication of Christ’s essential attri¬ 
 bute. That argues a complete misconception of Christ’s medi¬ 
 atorial work, which was meant to bring in what was due from 
 man as a creature, and has everything in common with what 
 the first man should have produced. The essential righteous¬ 
 ness belongs to God as God, and to the Son of God as a divine 
 
112 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 person. But the righteousness of which the apostle speaks is 
 that which was required from man as man, and which a Me¬ 
 diator, as our substitute, brought in to meet our wants; and 
 though this could he brought in only by a God-man, uniting 
 the two natures in one person, the whole is properly a created, 
 not an uncreated, a human, not a divine righteousness. The 
 supreme Lawgiver did not demand the essential righteousness 
 of God, hut what was proper to a creature made in the likeness 
 and image of God. And it consists in action, not in the mere 
 possession of a perfect nature. Adam had the pure nature, hut 
 failed in rendering the righteousness. But neither is it mere 
 outward action or outward deed, hut a perfect nature acting 
 itself out, or approving itself to the Lawgiver by a compliance 
 with the law in the sphere of tried obedience. 1 
 
 We have only to examine the language of Scripture to see 
 that the righteousness of God of which Paul so often speaks is 
 not His essential righteousness: for God does not demand from 
 man His own essential righteousness, but that which is com¬ 
 petent to a creature; and the righteousness of created beings 
 corresponds to the thought of God and the will of God, from 
 whom they derive their origin. The creature’s destiny is to 
 bear the impress of the divine perfections in its sphere. Such 
 would have been Adam’s righteousness had it been verified 
 (v. 12); that which the creature owes to the Creator, not that 
 which the Creator Himself possesses. This will appear from 
 the general phraseology of Scripture (Rom. x. 3). 
 
 2. Another opinion, much more common than the former, 
 is that the righteousness of God denotes an inward righteous¬ 
 ness, on the ground of which, whether it is already perfect or 
 not, God pronounces men righteous by a judicial sentence. 
 This is the interpretation given by Heander, Olsliausen, and 
 others; and it is still accepted by not a few believing men in 
 various churches, though not to the same extent as formerly. 
 
 1 See Tliomasius’ able discussion on the views of Osiander in liis two Uni¬ 
 versity Lectures, de obedientia Christi activa, Erlangen 1846. 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. 
 
 113 
 
 Lipsius, 1 in his treatise on the Pauline view of justification, 
 contends that the word never refers merely to an objective 
 relation, but always to an inward condition as well, sometimes 
 delineated in its principle, and sometimes in its future perfec¬ 
 tion. We must do these writers the justice to state, that by this 
 they do not mean a justification by works. While they interpret 
 it as the inner righteousness which God works, and represent 
 it as so pleasing to God, that on account of it He pronounces 
 men righteous, though not yet completely perfect, they avoid 
 the abyss of legalism, and lay stress on the faith which unites 
 us to the person of Christ as the Life. This view has every¬ 
 thing in common with the doctrine of Augustine and the 
 Jansenists on the same subject; drawing a distinction between 
 a man’s own righteousness (Phil. iii. 9), as undertaken in the 
 exercise of his unaided powers, and that which is “ of God,” 
 interpreted as meaning produced by divine grace. This, they 
 think, is the import of the expression “the righteousness of 
 ( God.” 
 
 But the antithesis between our own righteousness and that 
 which is called the righteousness of God is different. It is 
 between that which is subjective (our own) and that which is 
 objective (God’s). The opinion we are controverting, though 
 different from legalism, and speaking of salvation by faith, is 
 at variance with the Pauline doctrine, as will appear by two 
 considerations. (1.) The objective relation expressed by the 
 term stands out in bold relief when we consider the peculiar 
 antithesis between Christ made sin for us, and believers made 
 the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. v. 21). These words 
 intimate that, in the same sense in which Christ was made 
 sin—that is, objectively and by imputation—in that sense are 
 His people made the righteousness of God. Nor is the sense 
 different in another passage, where the apostle contrasts the 
 going about to establish a personal righteousness, and sub¬ 
 mitting to the righteousness of God (Eom. x. 3); or when he 
 
 1 Die Paulinische Rechtfertigungslehre, von Dr. Lipsius, Leipzig 1853. 
 
 H 
 
114 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 declares that he wishes to he found in Christ, not having his 
 own righteousness, hut the righteousness which is of God 
 (Phil. iii. 9). It cannot be alleged that the antithesis in the 
 latter passage is between works of nature and works of grace, 
 works of law and works of faith. (2.) It obliterates the dis¬ 
 tinction between the person and the nature and the standing 
 in the first or second Adam, with which the whole Scripture is 
 replete. It confounds righteousness and life, which are ever 
 carefully distinguished, the one being the way to the other. 
 This is conclusive against the interpretation, if we would abide 
 by the apostle’s use of language, and not efface his express 
 distinctions. 
 
 3. Another opinion is, that faith itself is counted as the 
 Eighteousness. There are various modifications of this opinion; 
 but none of them supposes an objective righteousness of God 
 that has been wrought out, and then revealed in the gospel; 
 and in almost every case it throws the mind back on itself in 
 a neonomian tendency. 
 
 a. To begin with that phase of it which is simply Ar- 
 minian, or that has everything in common with Arminianism, 
 the act of faith is made this righteousness. The answer is 
 obvious: Faith, in that case, is transformed into a new law, 
 whereas we are accepted without works of law. Besides, 
 this theory assumes that God accepts an imperfect title for a 
 perfect, by accommodating His right to man’s inability; an 
 interpretation which, if carried out to the full, is derogatory to 
 the divine law, and fitted to explode the whole redemption- 
 work of Christ. If the divine law can be relaxed by God’s 
 receding from His rights, why may He not recede to a yet 
 larger degree, and wholly supersede the necessity of the incar¬ 
 nation and atonement ? The inflexible strictness and immut¬ 
 able claims of the divine law are taken for granted by the 
 atonement. This view was advocated by Tittmann , 1 who 
 
 1 See liis treatise, de obedientia Christi ex apostoli Pauli sententia, appended 
 to liis Synonyms (p. 311). Nitzscli, in his protestantische Beantwortung der 
 
TIIE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. 
 
 115 
 
 remarks that Scripture does not teach that the righteousness 
 of Christ is imputed to men, hut that faith is counted for 
 righteousness. Though this has some colour from the ex¬ 
 pression, “ Faith is counted for righteousness,” it loses this 
 when the phrase is properly rendered. It should be rendered, 
 “Faith is counted unto righteousness,” expressing the result, 
 and lends no countenance to the notion that a substitute is 
 accepted for a perfect righteousness. The righteousness of 
 God is made ours through faith as the means of reception 
 (Eom. iii. 22). But, on the other theory, how can the sen¬ 
 tence of the Judge have a sufficient ground ? A method of 
 acceptance, without a real righteousness which can be measured 
 on the divine claims, neither meets the requirements of God’s 
 justice nor satisfies an awakened conscience. 
 
 b. A modification of the same view, decidedly in a nec- 
 nomian tendency, though of a subtle nature, is proposed by an 
 ingenious opponent of the vicarious sacrifice. It is alleged 
 , that Christianity makes known the absolute forgiveness of sin 
 without atonement as its procuring cause, and that the belief 
 of this offer is considered as righteousness. Faith is thus 
 supposed to be God-pleasing conduct, and accepted as right¬ 
 eousness. When a man renders this obedience, his conduct 
 is pleasing in God’s sight, and reckoned for righteousness. 1 
 Apart from other considerations, this theory supposes not a 
 real, but a merely putative righteousness; and thus the foun¬ 
 dation of acceptance is completely undermined. 
 
 4. Another opinion prevalent, is to the effect that the 
 righteousness of God denotes the state of being justified. Hot 
 to mention names in the last age, this view was held by Stuart 
 of Andover, and Wieseler 2 on Galatians. The latter makes it 
 
 Symbolik Dr. Mohler , p. 139, adopts the same conclusion, and commends Titt- 
 mann’s Essay. 
 
 1 See Hofmann’s Schriftbeweis, i. p. 649. This perverts the idea of faith. 
 Instead of making faith simply receptive, he makes it conduct, or verhalten, 
 getting a reward ! 
 
 2 Commentar iiber den Brief an die Galater, von Dr. Karl Wieseler, 1859. He 
 
116 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 tlie state into which the justified are brought, or the condition 
 of possessing justification. This view, though certainly nearer 
 the truth than the others already mentioned, is faulty: first, 
 because it is not the precise interpretation of the term right¬ 
 eousness ; and next, because it transposes the order of biblical 
 doctrines. Eighteousness is represented in the Pauline scheme 
 of doctrine as the basis, or material cause, of the sentence 
 of justification, not conversely. So far, indeed, is this view 
 correct, that it makes allusion to our relation Godward, not 
 to moral conduct; but it fails to bring out the substantive 
 character of the righteousness, as consisting in tried obedience. 
 The term righteousness, as we shall see, does not in any passage 
 mean the state of justification. If the state of justification does 
 not proceed on an underlying righteousness as its basis, we are 
 lost in the mists of uncertainty. The divine rectitude insists, 
 and cannot but insist, on a true fulfilment of the divine law, 
 and acquits on no other ground than on the presentation of an 
 actual obedience. But, on this theory, what is assumed as the 
 material cause of justification ? ISTo one can be justified, in the 
 government of a righteous God, by a connivance at defects, or 
 by being accounted what he is not by a mere make-believe. 
 Scripture everywhere shows that God demands a real, substan¬ 
 tive righteousness. 
 
 These are all baseless theories, and lead to the notion of an 
 acceptilation, that is, to the reputing of one to be what he is 
 not. A complete righteousness, objectively brought in, on these 
 theories, exists no longer. If so, faith wants its security, and 
 rests on no corresponding reality. We must now ascertain 
 the precise meaning of the phrase against these modern com¬ 
 ments, which to a large extent declare that faith is taken 
 for the righteousness, without any underlying reality. They 
 
 says, p. 177 : “The act by which God lnta.to~ the sinner Paul calls $izxiatri$ 
 (Pom. iv. 25, v. 18), and the state of possessing this of God he calls 
 
 'bmu.Lo<Tmn &iou, which therefore, like the ^ix.a.ioZ<rda.i, comes from faith (Pom. i. 
 17),” etc. This is a complete confusion of ideas. 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. 
 
 117 
 
 may be in keeping with modern notions as to Christ’s atone¬ 
 ment ; but our aim is to investigate the biblical import of 
 the expression. Having canvassed the subject negatively, it 
 remains that we investigate it positively from the apostle’s 
 words. 
 
 1. An analysis of the apostle’s language suffices to show 
 that this righteousness is an actually accomplished fact; not 
 less a historical reality than sin, and as productive of results, 
 but in an opposite direction. These two terms throw light on 
 each other. That this righteousness is the finished work of 
 Christ, considered from the view-point of the divine approval, 
 may be proved from the fact that it is presented to us as the 
 great subject-matter of the gospel. It is said to be revealed 
 (Eom. i. 17), and the righteousness must exist if it-is revealed. 
 The same thing may be argued from the title given to the 
 gospel as the ministry of righteousness (2 Cor. iii. 19) : for 
 how could an economy be instituted to proclaim what did not 
 exist ? When it is called the gift of righteousness (Eom. v. 17), 
 and described as a provision unto all and upon all them that 
 believe (Eom. iii. .22), we must conclude that it exists. 
 
 That the righteousness of God is an actual reality, is proved 
 by the twofold parallel which the apostle draws between sin 
 and righteousness, and between the death which is the result 
 of the one, and the life which is the equally certain result of 
 the other (Eom. i. 18—iii. 18, and Eom. v. 12-18). If we con¬ 
 sider these counterparts, we shall find that the apostle places 
 sin and righteousness in marked antithesis. In entering on 
 the description of the prevalence of sin, he not only displays 
 the wants of mankind, but exhibits the two great counterparts 
 of sin and righteousness as equal realities,—the one as the 
 world’s ruin, the other as its restoration. The one is a com¬ 
 pleted fact as well as the other. They are the only two great 
 events or facts in the world’s history, and they confront each 
 other. 
 
 At this point we may consider the peculiar shade of mean- 
 
118 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 ing which the phrase acquires when put in connection with 
 God. Why is it designated God’s righteousness, or the 
 righteousness of God ? Modern interpreters generally under¬ 
 stand that it is so called because God was its author, as Christ 
 is also called the Lamb of God because God was the provider 
 of the Lamb. We regard it as only a briefer expression of what 
 is more fully described as the righteousness which is of God 
 (Phil. iii. 9). The fact that the phrase is contrasted with our 
 own righteousness leads us to conclude that it means the 
 righteousness of which God is the author. The interpretation 
 long given by the Lutheran divines, that it denotes a righteous¬ 
 ness valid before God, is more a paraphrase 1 than a translation, 
 though a legitimate inference: for the righteousness will be 
 valid at God’s tribunal, if He was its author. But that is 
 rather a secondary idea involved in the other. 
 
 2. The manifestation of this righteousness as a historic 
 fact is next noticed: “ How the righteousness of God without 
 the law is manifested” (Bom. iii. 21). This refers to its mani¬ 
 festation as a historic fact in the incarnation and finished work 
 of Christ. The allusion is not so much to its revelation in the 
 gospel, as to the bringing in of the righteousness once for all 
 by Christ’s manifestation in the flesh. The language used by 
 the apostle shows that it is coincident with the person of 
 Christ, and found in Him. It is one of those terms—and they 
 are various—descriptive of the obedience of Christ in the mani¬ 
 foldness of its aspects and effects. The personal Bedeemer 
 crucified is Himself the manifestation of the righteousness of 
 God; and though it was completed with His finished work 
 when He expired, and is not capable of addition, it is not to 
 
 1 Luther’s rendering of 'hucxiotrvvn %iov is, Gerechtigkeit die vor Gott gilt, or in 
 the Latin form, justitia quce valet apud Deum; and Calvin goes in the same 
 direction, though admitting the force of the rendering, justitia quce a Deo nobis 
 donatur. Recent expositors pretty unanimously concur in viewing the phrase 
 as an instance of the genitivus auctoris, and regard this as the strict gram¬ 
 matical construction. Fritzsche, in his exact philological commentary, tries to 
 vindicate Luther’s rendering, hut without success. The appeal to Jas. i. 20 is 
 not in point. 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. 
 
 119 
 
 be denied that His living through death was necessary to the 
 perpetuity of this righteousness of God. It was valid at death, 
 but it is found in the person of the Lord (1 John ii. 2). It is 
 no transitory, past, or putative righteousness, but one actually 
 in the world, and the only great reality in it; a righteousness 
 for man, because the Lord Jesus, as very man, brought it into 
 Humanity. And when the Judge beholds His Son clothed 
 with our humanity, and presenting the righteousness of God, 
 then follows the re-adjustment of man’s relation to his Maker, 
 the reunion of God and man. 
 
 But the apostle is careful to notice that this righteousness 
 was witnessed by the law and the prophets (Rom. iii. 21). 
 First, as to the law, the sacrifices had special reference to it; 
 and whether we look at the temple or at its services, at its 
 priesthood, or the sacrificial blood that flowed in streams from 
 age to age, we find a testimony to this righteousness. The 
 law, too, in its moral aspect held up a lofty standard, which 
 found no corresponding reality in any human heart, but 
 pointed forward to Him who should one day come, saying, 
 “ Thy law is within my heart” (Ps. xl.). It testified in both its 
 elements adumbrating good things to come, and pointing out, 
 at least when Israel was in their normal condition, the re¬ 
 adjusted relation of man to his Maker. As to the prophets, 
 moreover, their expressions as to this righteousness are often as 
 precise as Paul’s own words (Isa. xlv. 24, liv. 17, xlvi. 13). The 
 apostle alludes to the testimony of the law and the prophets, 
 to make it evident that this righteousness of God was no new, 
 unheard-of doctrine, with which the church had no acquaint¬ 
 ance in past ages; and in receiving it, men did not depart from 
 Moses and the prophets, but embraced what had before been 
 announced. It was no abrupt phenomenon, for which there 
 had not been a preparation; for the Old Testament, in all its 
 parts, bore testimony to the righteousness of God. 
 
 3. The standard of this righteousness is divine justice and 
 the law of God. Righteousness in a creature is measured by 
 
120 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 the standard of justice. There is a manifestation of justice in 
 demanding the satisfaction, and then in preparing and accept¬ 
 ing this righteousness of God: “ That He might be just, and the 
 justifier” (Rom. iii. 26). 
 
 But specially, the law is the standard of the righteousness; 
 that is, the law considered as a definite expression of the 
 justice of God. The idea of righteousness in a creature im¬ 
 plies conformity to law: law is the sphere of righteousness, the 
 element in which it moves. These two terms, law and right¬ 
 eousness, are correlatives, and suppose each other. To unfold 
 the principle of law to which this righteousness of God goes 
 back, we find the apostle delineating both sides,—the law con¬ 
 sidered in its violation, and then in its positive demand with 
 its promise of life. The transgressor of the law was under its 
 curse, and the Surety came under it (Gal. iii. 10). Again, it 
 enforced its unalterable claim to do and live (Rom. x. 5), and 
 Christ was made under it (Gal. iv. 4), and so became its end 
 (Rom. x. 4). Thus He obtained its reward of debt, not only 
 for Himself, but for all whom He represented. A comparison 
 of numerous passages where the work of Christ is mentioned, 
 leads us to the conclusion that the phrase “ righteousness of 
 God,” wherever it occurs, involves a subjection to law as the 
 rule of ethical rectitude. The law, as the transcript of God’s 
 nature, and the mould in which man’s nature was formed, is 
 immutable; and far from losing its authority by human in¬ 
 ability, it ceased not to claim all that it ever claimed. The 
 law to which the Lord subjected Himself, moreover, was the 
 law AS violated. The two aspects in which the apostle 
 presents the law, not only to the Jews, who were dispensation- 
 ally under it, but to the Gentiles, who were not, are these: (1) 
 That it urges its inflexible claims to sinless obedience as the 
 only way to life (Gal. iii. 12); and (2) that it comes armed 
 with the curse incurred by its violation (Gal. iii. 10-13). That 
 is the twofold demand of the law made upon every man. That 
 is apostolic doctrine, however much at variance with modern 
 
THE EIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. 
 
 121 
 
 theories, which all too superficially limit it to Israel; as if the 
 law, in its true character, were not a republication of the 
 primeval and eternal law, binding on man as man. The Lord 
 was made under it in both respects for the production of this 
 everlasting righteousness; and accordingly the work of Christ 
 is described in its relation to the law. Thus, it is said that 
 He was made under the law, and that the righteousness of the 
 law is fulfilled in us (Rom. viii. 4); that Christ is the end of 
 the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth (Rom. 
 x. 4),—an expression presupposing the fulfilment which the 
 law demanded, and could not but demand, till its end was 
 reached. The additional words, “ the end of the law unto 
 righteousness” leave us in no doubt that the realization of the 
 law and its end are found in Christ. 
 
 4. As another constituent element of this righteousness, it 
 must be added that it owed its origin to a God-man. It was 
 a work to the production of which the twofold nature of the 
 Redeemer was necessary. We have to trace the influence of 
 Christ’s deity in the bringing in of the everlasting righteous¬ 
 ness (Dan. ix. 24). Though purely human in its essential 
 character, it is the result of the concurrent action of both 
 natures, and therefore of infinite value and eternal validity; 
 and as He was under no obligation on His own account to 
 obey, or to be under the law, or to be incarnate, His obedience 
 is capable of being given away. Hence the constant reference 
 to the divine Sonship when the fulfilment of the law is de¬ 
 scribed (Gal. iv. 4 ; Rom. viii. 3). Without personal obligation 
 of any kind, the Son of God, in assuming humanity, entered 
 into all those duties which man was bound to discharge,— 
 into the burdensome duties of an Israelite, and into manifold 
 temptations and trials which His position as the sin-bearing 
 substitute entailed. In short, He united a sinless humanity 
 to Himself, that, by entering into every part of our obligation 
 as creatures and sinners, He might bring in an everlasting 
 righteousness. Till the law received its satisfaction in the 
 
122 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 twofold respect already mentioned—that is, by obedience to 
 precept and penalty—the Supreme Judge could take none 
 into favour. 
 
 But this obedience of the God-man was one and indivisible. 
 Though possessing a twofold aspect, it was one finished work. 
 As man is under precept and penalty because he is the creature 
 of God under the eternal law of obedience, and a sinner under 
 condemnation, the surety obedience of the Lord must satisfy 
 the law in both respects. Many expositors incorrectly sunder 
 the two, or fix attention on the one to the exclusion of the 
 other. Others acknowledge both, but unhappily make the two 
 elements separately meritorious, losing sight of the link that 
 binds Christ’s deeds and sufferings together as one vicarious 
 obedience. The latter class of divines ascribe forgiveness to 
 the sufferings, and the right to everlasting life to the active 
 obedience,—an unhappy separation, though countenanced by 
 eminent names, and by no means to be vindicated. As it 
 is the work of one Christ, it is one atoning obedience; and 
 though we may, and must, distinguish the elements of which 
 it consists, we may not disjoin them, for the two elements 
 concur to form one obedience. That they cannot be separated 
 appears from many considerations, and especially from this, 
 that in every action there was a humiliation, and in every 
 suffering an exercise of obedience. They both pervade every 
 event in that w T ondrous life. They were not in exercise at 
 different times, in different actions, and in successive hours: 
 they meet in the same action and at the same time, over the 
 entire life of Jesus, from the first moment of His humiliation 
 to the last. 
 
 This atoning obedience extended over the entire life of the 
 Lord, and was not limited to the few hours on the cross. It 
 was but the verification of His sinless nature in various scenes 
 of action and agony allotted to Him, but formed one obedience 
 from first to last. That the element of obedience pervaded 
 His entire life, and went into all His sufferings, sufficiently 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. 
 
 123 
 
 appears from numerous texts, which I shall not expound in 
 this place (Kom. v. 19; Phil. ii. 8; Heb. v. 8). If we call up 
 before our minds the usual division of human duty, according 
 to the different relations which man occupies to God, him¬ 
 self, and his fellows, He learned obedience in them all; and 
 with the augmented trials, as they thickened and deepened, 
 His obedience was also augmented,—that is, was capable of 
 increase, though always perfect. The spontaneous surrender 
 of His life in such a substitution as that which He consented 
 to occupy, called for an obedience that bore Him up amid in¬ 
 conceivable difficulties ; and from the greatness of His person, 
 it had a dignity and value which entitle it to be called infinite. 
 The humanity He wore was made by Him an instrument which 
 He used for the great purpose of bringing in the righteousness 
 of God; or, to put the matter in a personal, concrete form, 
 Christ Himself is the righteousness of God. The Son of God 
 made flesh, and obedient in life and death, is our righteous¬ 
 ness before God. Scripture knows of only one righteousness 
 uniting God and men, and the world has never seen another. 
 
 5. It remains to be added, that the righteousness of God 
 was IN OUR stead as well as for our benefit. It is the more 
 necessary to establish the vicarious nature of this righteousness, 
 because not a few in every community are ready to admit the 
 vicarious suffering who are not willing to allow the vicarious 
 obedience in the whole extent of human obligation; that is, 
 they divide the two parts of the law, the penalty and precept, 
 into two portions, regarding the vicarious suffering as alone 
 capable of imputation. But the vicarious character attaching 
 to the one obedience of the Lord is as plainly taught as the 
 fact that it is a substantive reality; and when the apostle says, 
 “ We are made the righteousness of God in Him ” (2 Cor. v. 
 21), he intimates that believers in Christ come to a realization 
 of the fact that it was rendered in their room, and that they 
 are one with Him in the whole transaction. The obedience 
 of Christ realizes the lofty ideal or goal set before the human 
 
124 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 race; and on this account it is the greatest event in the 
 world’s history. He was acting for His people, and they 
 were representatively in Him. The entrance of Christ’s sin¬ 
 less humanity, with the law in His heart, became the central 
 point of all time, to which previous ages looked forward, and 
 after ages look back. He was the living law, the personal 
 law,—an event with a far more important bearing than any 
 other that ever occurred. It was the world’s new creation. It 
 is made ours not less truly than if we ourselves had rendered 
 it, IN CONSEQUENCE OF THE LEGAL ONENESS FORMED BETWEEN 
 us and Him. Hot that in the Lord’s experience the personal 
 was merged in the official, for He had not, and could not 
 have, any of those feelings which stand connected with per¬ 
 sonal guilt. He was always fully conscious of inward sin¬ 
 lessness when the sin-bearer and curse-bearer in our stead; 
 and in like manner the redeemed, amid all the security of 
 imputed righteousness, never cease to cherish personally the 
 feelings of conscious unworthiness and deep abasement. That 
 the vicarious character of the whole may appear, it is only 
 necessary to recall the words, “ By the obedience of one shall 
 many be made righteous ” (Bom. v. 19). 
 
 As an objection to this mode of interpreting the righteous¬ 
 ness of faith, it is commonly urged that the apostle nowhere 
 uses the theological expression “ the righteousness of Christ.” 
 But when we examine the terms in which it is expressed, the 
 vicarious character of the righteousness is made the more evi¬ 
 dent. Christ Himself is our righteousness. The incarnate 
 Son, dying in our room, the realized ideal of what man was 
 made to be, is made of God unto us righteousness (1 Cor. i. 
 30), in such a sense that we are said to be made the righteous¬ 
 ness of God in Him. This is more remarkable: we are made 
 all that Christ was ; He is the Lord our righteousness (Jer. 
 xxiii. 6), and we are made the righteousness of God in Him 
 (2 Cor. v. 21). 
 
 Having noticed what are the elements of this righteousness, 
 
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. 
 
 125 
 
 and proved that it is but another name for the Lord’s atoning 
 obedience, it remains for us to add, with all brevity, the way 
 by which it is appropriated, and its immediate as well as 
 ulterior consequences. 
 
 6. The relation of faith to the righteousness of God is, that 
 faith is the hand by which it is received. The righteousness 
 is in another person, in such a sense that it is merely received 
 as a gift, irrespective of moral worth on the part of the receiver. 
 Why is such a gift given to faith, and to no other mental act ? 
 Partly because faith is the only way by which the soul goes 
 out to rely on an object beyond itself, partly because faith is 
 the most self-emptying act of the mind. By its very nature, 
 it negatives everything but that righteousness which it receives. 
 Faith is the receptive organ by which we lay hold of the right¬ 
 eousness ; while the gospel, or word of God, is the medium of 
 revealing it (Rom. i. 17). It is unto all and upon all them 
 that believe (Rom. iii. 22). 
 
 7. The immediate effect of receiving the righteousness of 
 God is the sentence of absolution, called the justification of our 
 persons ; for it must be kept in mind that the man is justified, 
 and not his works,—the person, not the nature. This sen¬ 
 tence is complete at once, and capable of no addition; and it 
 has a twofold side,—the absolving of the man from any charge 
 of guilt, and the pronouncing of him absolutely righteous, 
 because in the possession of this righteousness of God. 
 
 8. A further point demanding notice, is the relation in 
 which the righteousness of God stands to life. This all-im¬ 
 portant point is very much the theological question of the age; 
 for the relation between these two things is much misappre¬ 
 hended. The relation of this righteousness to the divine life 
 which Christ came down from heaven to restore in a dead 
 world, is the leading thought with all the apostles, as well as 
 with the Lord Himself, and it is brought out with great pro¬ 
 minence in the Pauline epistles (Gal. ii. 20; Rom. viii. 10). • 
 The relation between the two is simply this : righteousness 
 
126 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 is the price, and life is the reward. It is a relation inti¬ 
 mated in the law, which was ordained to life, hut was found 
 to he unto death (Rom. vii. 10). The man who should do what 
 it enjoined was to receive life in return (Rom. x. 5). Modern 
 theology, at least of the German type, and as far as it is modi¬ 
 fied from that quarter, evinces little interest about the relation 
 in which the two points, righteousness and life, stand to each 
 other. But a misapprehension here disorganizes the whole 
 gospel. And the mystic theology which merely seeks com¬ 
 munion with God, and life in Him, through the incarnation, 
 has no adequate idea of the conditions on which life is con¬ 
 ferred. They seek to delineate the life as an absolute donation 
 apart from righteousness, or an atoning sacrifice as its ground. 
 They speak of Christ in us, not of Christ for us. There is 
 no life, however, hut through a vicarious death. The important 
 question of the age, and of all ages, is, How does life reach 
 us ? and the answer is, By a vicarious fulfilment of the law in 
 precept and penalty; in other words, by an atonement. 
 
 SEC. VIII.—THE RECONCILIATION SET FORTH IN THE PAULINE 
 
 EPISTLES. 
 
 I deem it necessary to notice this aspect of the atonement 
 separately, though it comes before us in various texts. If the 
 righteousness of God is the positive side of the Pauline doc¬ 
 trine of the atonement, reconciliation by the death of Christ is 
 its negative side. This term is not, like many others bearing 
 on the atonement, borrowed from the sacrificial ritual; for no 
 connection can be traced between the two. It does not, as a 
 term, recall either the priesthood or the sacrifices. Rather, we 
 may say, the expression is taken from common life, and refers 
 to a state of things where two parties, disunited by a quarrel 
 or some cause of offence, are made friends by the adequate 
 removal of the estrangement. This phase of the doctrine is 
 
RECONCILIATION IN THE PAULINE EPISTLES. 
 
 127 
 
 peculiarly Pauline; and after the consideration given to the 
 righteousness of God, it is the more needful to bring it out, 
 because reconciliation proceeds on the fact of sin, and presup¬ 
 poses the displeasure and moral aversion of God to the sinner. 
 
 1. Keconciliation, denoting a new relation toward God, 
 presupposes a state of alienation between God and man; that 
 is, an alienation which was mutual. It was not exclusively 
 on man’s side, nor was it brought to a termination by a change 
 of moral disposition on the part of man. It was mutual 
 estrangement: on man’s side by sin and enmity (Eom. viii. 7); 
 on God’s side by the wide gulf of separation which sin inevi¬ 
 tably makes (Isa. lix. 2), and by the wrath which cometh upon 
 the children of disobedience (Eph. v. 6). There was mutual 
 hostility, in the proper sense of the word, between God and 
 man: we, on the one side, were alienated and enemies in our 
 minds by wicked works (Col. i. 21); and God, on the other side, 
 was provoked to anger, and under the necessity of visiting man 
 as the object of His wrath (Eom. v. 9). 
 
 2. The change of relation implied in the term reconcilia¬ 
 tion was effected by the atonement, the great fact intervening 
 between divine wrath and the objects over whom the w r rath 
 impended. This is the objective ground of reconciliation, as 
 the special word rendered atonement in one passage properly 
 means (Eom. v. 11); it is the divinely provided fact which is 
 received from God, and the ground of the new relation or 
 favourable disposition of God toward us. It must be observed 
 that w r e are said to be reconciled to God by the death of His 
 Son as a divine person (Eom. v. 10), or reconciled in the body 
 of His flesh through death (Col. i. 22). And the apostle’s 
 words, which further announce that we are saved from wrath 
 through Christ, plainly intimate that reconciliation, in the 
 proper sense, is by the w T ork of Christ, not by our change of 
 disposition (Eom. v. 9). The favour of God is won for us by 
 the blood of Christ, otherwise w r e should have been given up 
 to condemnation. 
 
128 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 3. The apostle represents the reconciliation as opjginating 
 with God, who took the first step to bring it about. And this 
 leads me to notice a marked difference between the two words 
 
 i 
 
 propitiation and reconciliation. The former is applied to 
 Christ as the great sacrifice, and the priest of His own sacrifice; 
 the latter is applied to God as the originator of the recon¬ 
 ciliation. 1 The Father is the Reconciler in the proper sense, 
 for the benefit emanates from His love; and the mode by 
 which it was accomplished w 7 as the non-imputing of onr tres¬ 
 passes on the part of God, who w 7 as not a mere passive 
 spectator, but an active party in all the reconciliation (2 Cor. 
 v. 19). His love reconciled ns, and His anger was pacified. 
 The great fact interposed between His holy anger and our 
 sin was the atoning work of Christ, provided in the exercise 
 of compassion and love. The Lord’s atonement effected the 
 removal of these sins; by which means the anger of God was 
 brought to an end. That is the apostle’s doctrine, as will be 
 evident from several texts which will come before ns. 
 
 On the contrary, it is argued by the interpreters wdio have 
 come under the influence of Socinianizing opinions, that the 
 idea of reconciliation does not involve a new relation toward 
 God, or restoration to divine favour. It is held that recon¬ 
 ciliation does not indicate any change on God’s side, but only 
 a termination of enmity on man’s side; that God is never 
 called man’s enemy; and that the Hew Testament never speaks 
 of the reconciliation of God to man, but from the other side of 
 the relation, of the reconciliation of man to God. The whole 
 opposition to the doctrine is based on this mistaken view of 
 the phraseology. Though Scripture describes reconciliation 
 from our side, this can readily be explained. The reconcilia¬ 
 tion is a divine fact, originating in the love of God; but from 
 its nature it presupposes a displeasure not to be averted but 
 by satisfaction or atonement. The mere fact that reconcilia- 
 
 1 See Moras’ Epitome , p. 163, and Dissertationes, ii. p. 98 ; Storr, Brief an 
 die Hebrder , p. 407. 
 
RECONCILIATION IN THE PAULINE EFISTLES. 
 
 129 
 
 tion is not absolute, but by the death of His Son (Bom. v. 10), 
 proves that love is not the only element in the transaction, 
 but that a new relation must be formed, or a transition effected 
 from wrath to favour. This, too, is the uniform expression in 
 the language of common life, which describes reconciliation 
 from the side of the offending party. Thus, an offending sub¬ 
 ject is said to be reconciled to the prince or superior, whose 
 displeasure had been incurred. That is the uniform phraseo¬ 
 logy. But the nature of the case involves a restoration to 
 divine favour: for what is wanting in the case of those who 
 were without reconciliation, and what is conferred by those 
 who receive it, but the full removal of estrangement caused by 
 some offence ? And what do they possess who are reconciled 
 to God, but the remission of sins, the removal of guilt, the 
 restoration to a new relation, consisting in the participation of 
 divine favour ? There is a new relation on God’s side, that of 
 friendship consequent on forgiveness. 1 
 
 But, it is asked, is not God immutable, the absolute Love ? 
 and how can He at once be regarded as loving and hating, as 
 disposed to visit us with love, and yet estranged by our conduct 
 to such a degree, that He cannot but treat us as under His 
 wrath ? To this the simple answer is : Scripture affirms both, 
 and we must believe both. They well enough consist together, 
 when we recall the twofold relation which man occupies to 
 God, as a creature and as a sinner. God cherishes love to 
 man, whether we think of man merely as he is the creature of 
 God, or still further regard him as in a Surety, or in union with 
 the beloved Son, according to that eternal covenant by which 
 Christ and the redeemed come before God’s eye as one. That 
 man is an object of displeasure, is not less evident to one who 
 knows ought of divine justice; for sins could not but provoke 
 His anger, and bring down punitive visitation in the exercise 
 of His moral government. 
 
 Nor is it strange that anger and love co-exist, when we 
 
 1 See Philippi’s KircKliche Glaubenslehre , iv. p. 272. 1863. 
 
 I 
 
130 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 duly distinguish according to the twofold relation already 
 noticed. We may trace the analogy to a far greater extent 
 than is commonly done between God, and man made in the 
 image of God. Thus, for example, David loved Absalom as 
 his son, and gave strict commands to spare him in the midst 
 of that rebellion which, on the highest moral grounds, must 
 needs be repressed with stern severity. We see the father, 
 and yet the righteous king, subjecting that wayward son to his 
 frown on several occasions, because he hated his wickedness, 
 and was provoked to deep displeasure. He loved him as his 
 son, but as a righteous governor mingled punishment with 
 mercy. In the same way, God loves His creatures; yet He 
 cannot but cherish just anger against sin, and against sinners 
 because of sin, as will be sufficiently evinced by the everlasting 
 punishment striking on all who are out of Christ. And this 
 can more easily be conceived, when we reflect that love and 
 wrath are in God an eternal, constant will, expressive of His 
 nature: love being ever active to do His creatures good, so 
 far as it is not obstructed; wrath being active, to visit sin with 
 punitive justice. The atonement is nothing else than a provi¬ 
 sion to effect the removal of those obstructions or impediments 
 which stood in the way of the full exercise of grace; and it 
 consists in the satisfaction to justice in every respect. 
 
 Thus God represents things and persons as they really are: 
 He does not act in any way at variance with His perfect know¬ 
 ledge of man’s double relation as creatures and as sinners. In 
 so far as they perverted their rational and moral nature, they 
 forfeited His favour, and are guilty before Him; in so far as 
 they are His creatures, they are still the objects of His love. 
 But to put them in a new relation, which was possible only by 
 effecting the remission of sins, He made them by federal union 
 one with His beloved Son, sent into the world to occupy their 
 place, and made sin, as if He had become the very cause of the 
 alienation. When He treated Him as if He were the greatest 
 
 O 
 
 sinner, or as sin accumulated and personified, we see the reality 
 
RECONCILIATION IN THE PAULINE EPISTLES. 
 
 131 
 
 of tlie representative position which He occupied. And having 
 provided the arrangement by which His perfections could be 
 vindicated and His honour established, He puts men into a 
 new relation — one of friendship and favour — the moment 
 they receive the atonement (Rom. v. 11). They are made 
 friends of enemies. The analogy from the mode of governing 
 a human family throws light upon the whole transaction: for 
 though we cannot in all respects compare God to man, we 
 may infer God’s mode of action from the action of man made 
 in His likeness; otherwise we could not in many respects 
 know God at all. Can a disobedient son enjoy the favour of 
 a parent in the same way as a son who is a pattern of filial 
 obedience ? When the displeasure is exchanged for the oppo¬ 
 site by the removal of the offence, then the father restores him 
 to favour. But we must meet the objections to this biblical 
 representation more in detail. 
 
 a. It is alleged that God is never called the enemy of man, 
 or said to be made a friend of an enemy; and consequently 
 that the term reconciliation does not intimate any change on 
 God’s side corresponding to a restoration to favour. The 
 reasons why God is not called in Scripture our enemy are, 
 that God is interested in His creatures on the ground of His 
 relation as their Creator ; that He cherishes mercy in His 
 heart to the prodigal son; and that an eternal purpose was 
 formed to reconcile them. We are to apprehend equally the 
 heart of God and the government of God. Men living in sin 
 cannot share in the divine favour; and reception into favour 
 is undoubtedly involved in the idea of reconciliation. 
 
 b. It is held that we cannot adduce anything from biblical 
 language to prove that reconciliation implies aught on God’s 
 side involving the idea of restoration to His favour. This is 
 of easy answer. The apostle connects reconciliation with an 
 objective fact; and one passage may be adduced here as itself 
 conclusive 1 (Rom. v. 11). Paul teaches that we who were 
 
 1 See Spener’s die Evangelisclie Gl'aubens-Gerechtigkeit, p. 650. 
 
132 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 enemies were reconciled,—a statement which plainly announces 
 two conditions : one a relation of wrath; another a relation of 
 favour, based upon the great historic fact of Christ’s death. 
 Not only so : he adds, we have now received the atonement; 
 that is, as the term signifies, have now received the objective 
 ground of reconciliation; the meaning of which can only be, 
 that we have now received a peculiar relation, or a reception 
 into favour unknown before. He is speaking, not of a change 
 of disposition on man’s side, though that of course immediately 
 ensues, but of a fact provided for us in the love of God. The 
 term reconciliation may be said to comprehend what is mutual, 
 because the alienation was mutual. The passage intimates 
 something on God’s side that carried in its train a restoration 
 to His favour. 
 
 c. It is further pertinaciously argued, that the New Testa¬ 
 ment language contains no such expression as God’s reconcilia¬ 
 tion to man. This, as has been already noticed, is not necessary; 
 and the entire gospel is an indubitable proof of this. It is 
 nowhere said, in any proclamation of the gospel among Jew 
 or Gentile, that they must reconcile God to themselves; for 
 it is God who is always represented, and in the most natural 
 way, as reconciling men to Himself by Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 
 v. 18-21). But how was this done ? Not by granting absolute 
 remission of sins, not by a simple cancelling of the trespasses 
 committed by us ; but solely by putting Christ, as a represen¬ 
 tative, in their place to do what they could not have done, 
 and by inviting men upon the ground of that atonement to be 
 reconciled to Himself in a mediator. The whole transaction 
 shows two things—the love of God’s heart, and the rectitude 
 of His government. All who refuse the atonement are, from 
 the necessity of the case, left standing on their own footing as 
 sinners, and out of divine favour; whereas all who receive the 
 atonement are reconciled, 
 is deceptive, unavailing before God, and incapable of affording 
 any firm consolation, because it would remain always uncertain 
 
 Every other mode of reconciliation 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 133 
 
 whether God could accept the reconciliation. But as it origi¬ 
 nates with God, and as God in Christ is the reconciler (2 Cor. 
 v. 19), in the exercise of His prevenient grace, we have full 
 certainty that it is acceptable. Certainly that which is of God 
 must be acceptable to God. 
 
 Thus on man’s side nothing further is required, than that 
 he should enter into this relation of reconciliation by accepting 
 the atonement as its ground or cause. Nothing was wanting 
 on God’s side of the transaction ; and the whole language 
 bearing on this truth amounts to this, that God turns away 
 His anger from, and shows favour to, all those for whom the 
 atonement was offered. 
 
 We can thus, on biblical grounds, explode the whole Soci- 
 nianizing arguments, which allege that reconciliation consists 
 in a change of our hostile will and disposition toward God, 
 and in that alone. Such an exposition, owing its origin to a 
 foregone conclusion, does not satisfy the texts which put re¬ 
 conciliation in causal connection with the death of Christ 
 (Bom. v. 10); with His blood; with the body of His flesh 
 through death (Col. i. 22). That there is a change on man’s 
 side also is not denied; for the reconciliation is mutual, as the 
 alienation was mutual. But the change on our side is to this 
 extent distinguished from the other, that it emanates from 
 what God has done. 
 
 SEC. IX.—THE TESTIMONY IN THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 The Epistle to the Bomans, written from Corinth before 
 Paul’s journey to Jerusalem, which ended in his imprisonment 
 (Acts xx. 2 ; Bom. xv. 25-xvi. 23), the most connected out¬ 
 line of Christian doctrine given us by the pen of inspiration, 
 was intended to place the Christian’s relation to God, or the 
 article of justification, in its true light. Paul accordingly, in 
 various passages, describes the doctrine of the atonement as 
 the basis of the whole. The theme or proposition laid down 
 
134 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 at the beginning, and illustrated in the course of his reasoning, 
 is contained in the quotation from Habakkuk, “ The just shall 
 live by faith,” or, more accurately rendered, <f The righteous by 
 faith shall live” (Rom. i. 17). The three words contained in 
 this brief sentence, taken up one by one— Righteousness, 
 Eaith, Life— may be viewed as separate headings to three 
 principal sections of the epistle: the first being brought out in 
 contrast with the great fact of universal sinfulness (Rom. i. 17— 
 iii. 27) ; the second extending over the whole fourth chapter 
 (iii. 27—iv. 25); and the third, setting forth premial life, fills 
 the larger portion of the remaining doctrinal contents (v. 12- 
 viii. 39). The apostle is thus led by the scope and structure 
 of the epistle to give a full exposition of the atonement at all 
 points. These passages will be taken up in order, and we shall 
 consider to what they amount. Omitting matter foreign to our 
 purpose, let us concentrate attention on passages and state¬ 
 ments which definitely refer to the atonement. 
 
 I. The first passage to be noticed is the following: Being 
 justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in 
 Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation 
 through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for 
 [better, on account of] the remission of sins that are past, 
 through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time 
 His righteousness; that He might be just, and the justifier of him 
 that believeth in Jesus (Rom. iii. 24-26). We have here a com¬ 
 pendious statement of the elements which constitute the great 
 article of justification: (1.) The grace of God as the source or 
 impelling cause; (2.) The blood of Christ as the meritorious 
 cause or ground on which the sentence proceeds; (3.) Faith 
 as the receptive organ or instrumental cause; (4.) The harmo¬ 
 nious exhibition of justice and grace as the final cause, or the 
 end contemplated by the whole scheme (ver. 26). These different 
 points, when combined, comprehend the entire elements of the 
 doctrine or great privilege of justification. But we shall single 
 out the atonement, as here presented to us, for special consi- 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 135 
 
 deration. The passage is difficult from its condensation, but 
 we hope to make it clear by a few comments. 
 
 (1.) We have first to notice the appellations under which 
 the death of Christ is described in this passage. Three several 
 designations are here applied to it, and it becomes us to dis¬ 
 cover the peculiar shade of meaning attaching to eacli of the 
 terms. One leading thought applicable to them all is, that 
 they describe the one work of Christ in different lights, and 
 from various points of view; for they are not to be treated as 
 if they set forth three several works of Christ, separately 
 meritorious. The redemption-work of Jesus was one, and the 
 obedience one, though carried forward in a twofold sphere. As 
 the work of Christ has manifold applications, according to the 
 relations which man occupies to the captivity in which he is 
 held, to divine wrath due to us for sin, or to the law under 
 which he was made, it may be described under various names. 
 But it is one atoning work, with manifold bearings. 
 
 Of these names the first is, the redemption that is in 
 Christ Jesus. This term, as here used, denotes the objective 
 ground in Christ on account of which divine action takes place. 
 It describes Him as the cause, or author, of the actual deliver¬ 
 ance. Captivity under an enemy’s power is of course presup¬ 
 posed, and also a ransom as the necessary price. Wherever 
 the terms redeem or redemption are found in connection with 
 the death, blood, or sufferings of Christ, the reference is sacri¬ 
 ficial ; and that supplementary expression contains an allusion 
 to the ransom (Gal. iii. 13; 1 Pet. i. 19 ; Eev. v. 9). The close 
 connection between the notion of a ransom and the allied idea 
 of sacrifice is easily understood. But it may further be asked, 
 What are we to understand by the phrase here used, “ The 
 redemption avhich is in Christ Jesus ?” The import is, that 
 the ransom is found in His person, that He is personally the 
 redemption of His people ; for the ransom, or price, of our 
 deliverance is found in Christ Himself. The expression cannot 
 mean “ by whom we have redemption,” as some put it, nor “ in 
 
136 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 fellowship with whom,” as others choose rather to expound it; 
 for the phrase could have the latter sense only if it could fitly 
 stand alone, and give a competent meaning, separated from the 
 verb (see 2 Cor. xii. 3). The expression, as here used, conveys 
 the idea that the ransom, or means of redemption, is objectively* 
 found in Christ’s person—The Crucified, and The Bisen. 1 It 
 does not give the idea that union to His person constitutes 
 redemption, however true it is that we share in redemption only 
 in this way. The passage means, that He is our meritorious re¬ 
 demption, our infinite ransom, in the objective sense, and that 
 He will continue to be so wdiile His living person endures 
 (1 Cor. i. 30; Eph. i. 7). There the Judge beholds the church’s 
 redemption, and every time He looks on the person of Christ 
 He sees our eternal ransom. 
 
 As to the presupposition implied in the word, it always 
 takes for granted a captivity, and involves the payment of a 
 ransom for deliverance. Passages may be adduced where the 
 word seems used to convey the idea of simple deliverance, the 
 accessory notion of a price being less upon the foreground; but 
 it is never wholly awanting. In all cases it will be found that 
 this phraseology is never without the idea of an equivalent, 
 price, or consideration, whether more latent or more open to 
 view, by which a deliverance is gained or a good is won. 
 When the death or blood of the Lord is named in the phrase, 
 there is no room for doubt that that is added as the ransom. 
 The ransom secures deliverance from something, and redeems 
 us to belong to another Master (Bev. v. 9 ; 1 Cor. vi. 20). They 
 who have the redemption obtain liberation from the curse of 
 the law (Gal. iii. 13), from wrath, from death, and him that 
 has the power of death (Heb. ii. 14), and a transition to the 
 proprietary rights of another owner, to whom they henceforward 
 belong. 
 
 The second term here used is, A propitiation in His blood. 
 
 1 See an exposition of the phrase sv Z rb u . vro'kvrpucw in Harless’ Com ¬ 
 
 mentary on Eplies . (i. 7). 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 137 
 
 This expression is variously rendered: by many, as a propi¬ 
 tiatory sacrifice; by an equal number, as the propitiatory or 
 blood-sprinkled mercy-seat. In either way, it brings up the 
 idea of divine anger appeased by the intervention of an 
 economy involving a priesthood and sacrificial blood. Some 
 minds will be swayed in the one direction, and others in the 
 other. But in either case the sense amounts to this, that the 
 blood of Christ pacifies, or propitiates, the justly kindled anger 
 of the Most High; for there is a wrath against sin which finds 
 an outlet in the infliction of punitive justice upon the sinner 
 himself, if he stands on his own footing, or in the infliction of 
 wrath upon the Mediator who comes into our place and under 
 our obligations. The language here used, whatever the shade 
 of meaning attached to it, involves the idea of appeasing God 
 by sacrificial blood. This is self-evident from the whole 
 phraseology of Scripture, and it cannot be explained away. 
 
 For various reasons we prefer the rendering propitiatory, 1 
 or mercy-seat sprinkled with blood. This was the cover of the 
 ark of the covenant, in which the law was deposited, and the 
 annual ceremony of sprinkling it with blood was performed on 
 the day of atonement. But all the ordinary sacrifices bore 
 reference to it, and stood in some relation to it. This was, in 
 a word, the centre-point of the entire Old Testament economy; 
 and the whole argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews may 
 be said to be echoed in this allusion, or summed up in the 
 pregnant clause before us. But, in particular, there is a great 
 similarity between the present passage and the statement that 
 Christ’s death atoned for transgressions under the old covenant 
 (Heb. ix. 15). 
 
 1 This is the meaning of Ixourryiptov in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ix. 5) ; 
 and the Reformers, Luther, Calvin, and their successors, so expounded it. After¬ 
 wards it came to be regarded as the neuter of an adjective, and as denoting 
 a sacrifice, some supplying ivpu, others nothing. See a conclusive note by 
 Philippi, in his Commentary on Romans, in behalf of the first view— propi¬ 
 tiatory. Though opinion is pretty equally divided, the idea of propitiating God 
 comes out in both. 
 
t 
 
 138 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 The idea is, that Christ is “ set forth ” to view, or, as some 
 will have it, “ fore-appointed” 1 from of old to be the reality of 
 that blood-sprinkled mercy-seat; and, to apprehend the force 
 of the allusion, we must go back to the symbolical and typical 
 meaning. The symbolical import was the following:—The 
 ark contained the law, and the ark’s covering or propitiatory 
 covered its curse, whenever it was sprinkled by the atoning 
 blood, as was the case from year to year; for, as the great day 
 of atonement returned, this imposing ceremonial was annually 
 repeated to cover sins from God’s sight. As to the typical 
 signification, it was a prefiguration of Him who was personally 
 to pacify the divine wrath, and therefore of that work of 
 Christ by which at the appointed time He should at once 
 fulfil the law and remove its curse. It deserves to be noticed 
 that the phrase here used by the apostle conveys but one idea; 
 and hence, in the grammatical construing, w r e must read the 
 word propitiatory in immediate connection with the words IN 
 His blood. 2 The idea is one; and, viewed in this way, we 
 must regard the words as meaning, Christ crucified the means 
 of pacifying the wrath of God. On this account the mercy- 
 seat was considered as God’s throne in the midst of His people, 
 where He showed Himself gracious, and communed with His 
 people (Ps. lxxx. 1). Here, too, rested the symbol of the 
 divine presence, the glory of the Lord. We thus reach the 
 conclusion that the central point in the old economy fore¬ 
 shadowed the true propitiatory; and thus, in language borrowed 
 from the ceremonial institutions, the apostle shows us that the 
 way of propitiation was the same from the beginning. Hence, 
 as it is said, “ Christ our passover is sacrificed for us; ” so we 
 can say, “ Christ our propitiatory is erected or set forth for us.” 
 
 The third descriptive name for the atonement is the term 
 
 1 Some make wpoiforo fore-appointed (so Chrysost., Diodati, Willet). 
 
 2 The usual phrase is, or/V-n? tis. We cannot construe vrUrsus iv ru ttluan, 
 for that is abnormal. Some put a comma after <r'i<mus : others read iXxo-Tvpiov 
 iv <rn ctfuri together, giving one thought, viz. blood-sprinkled propitiatory, 
 which is better. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO TIIE ROMANS. 
 
 139 
 
 righteousness —“ to declare His righteousness.” The ques¬ 
 tion to he settled, in the first place, is this: Have we here 
 the well-known Pauline expression which we have considered 
 already—“ the righteousness of God ? ” Or are we under the 
 necessity of regarding it as the divine attribute of righteous¬ 
 ness ? A right view of the connection between the two things 
 here put together—the righteousness of God and the remission 
 of sins—will satisfy us that we have the well-known Pauline 
 phrase. But as many eminent expositors, swayed by the view 
 which they take of the connection of the clauses, hold the 
 expression to be descriptive of the attribute of justice, we must 
 prove that the phrase occurs here in no other sense than in 
 other passages where there is no ambiguity. If the apostle has 
 used the expression “righteousness of God” throughout the 
 context to describe the atoning work of Christ, how can he be 
 supposed to alter the meaning of his own phrase within the 
 compass of a single sentence ? 
 
 Some argue that the expression must refer to the divine 
 attribute of righteousness, as it paves the way, according to 
 them, for the reference to retributive justice in the following 
 verse (ver. 26). But it is not so: that is. a mere semblance of 
 argument. Hay, we should rather say that it wants all pro¬ 
 bability, because it would be a repetition, a tautology. But no 
 reason can be given for departing from the ordinary meaning 
 of the Pauline phrase. We must attach a uniform, consistent 
 meaning to the use of terms, and regard it as designating the 
 atoning work of the Lord. 
 
 But the righteousness is brought out in a new connection, 
 which we must now endeavour to trace. The apostle had 
 proved that between Jew and Gentile there is no difference, 
 either in the ruin or in the remedy, and that the righteousness 
 was for both alike. But now his thoughts revert to the saints 
 of God who lived under the former dispensation, and to the 
 retrospective bearing of the atonement as applicable to them 
 not less than to those whose lot is cast in gospel times. If the 
 
140 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 blood-sprinkled mercy-seat was a prefiguration of the atone¬ 
 ment, the finished work of Christ is considered as the accom¬ 
 plished fact, or actual manifestation of the righteousness which 
 was required. The apostle therefore refers to the bringing in 
 of the righteousness as a historic reality, as he had done in a 
 previous verse (ver. 21). 
 
 This leads us to inquire, What is the connection between 
 the righteousness of God thus understood, and the remission of 
 sins that were past in .the forbearance of God ? A correct ap¬ 
 preciation of this will make the meaning plain. Paul plainly 
 refers to the time that preceded the atonement, and describes it 
 as an economy of forbearance, during which the punishment of 
 sin was deferred, and yet the salvation based on the atonement 
 extended to many. How could there be this remission of sins 
 during that past economy ? The answer is supplied by the 
 apostle: It was on the credit of what was ere long to be 
 accomplished. That is the connection between the righteous¬ 
 ness of God and the remission of sins here mentioned. There 
 were millions who shared in the retrospective character of the 
 atonement before Christ came in the flesh. 
 
 The connection of these two things will appear if we cor¬ 
 rectly translate the word that connects them together. The 
 language will not bear the rendering given in the authorized 
 version —for 1 the remission of sins. The Greek preposition, 
 when so construed, never denotes the final cause, or the inten¬ 
 tion and design, for which a thing is done. Neither can it bear 
 the rendering by, or through, which others assign to it. It 
 uniformly assigns the ground or reason on account of which 
 a thing occurred, or an action was performed, denoting on 
 account OF. In the present case the preposition assigns the 
 reason on account of which the past remission of sins for thou¬ 
 sands of years took place, viz. the future atonement, which 
 
 1 The proper force of with the accusative, propter, must he retained, 
 denoting the ground or reason on account of which the thing, viz. the *upt<ris, 
 had been done. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO TIIE ROMANS. 
 
 141 
 
 in Paul’s time had become a historic fact. The righteousness 
 of God, or the atoning work by which men are saved, has been 
 actually manifested in the fulness of time, because the sins of 
 millions had in previous ages been passed over and remitted. 
 Without the actual bringing in of the everlasting righteousness, 
 and merely on the credit of it as about to be, they had received 
 forgiveness, and been enrolled among the spirits of the just 
 made perfect. But since they had received remission of sins, 
 it was absolutely necessary to bring in the expiation as a 
 historic fact, or to give it a positive accomplishment. The 
 retrospective efficacy of the atonement is made clear. But 
 these were but effects or consequences of a cause which could 
 not be withheld. 
 
 As to the peculiarities of the remission of sins that was 
 proper to the Old Testament, we need not too curiously inquire. 
 Some have indulged their fancy and been misled. A class of 
 divines, headed by Cocceius, preferred to view the remission 
 which belonged to the Old Testament church more as a pass¬ 
 ing over than as a true forgiveness. They asked, How could 
 it be a true forgiveness, when the cause was not yet present ? 
 And they thought such a distinction warranted by the apostle’s 
 expressions. But what difference there was between the 
 saints of God in the Old and Hew Testament, was not in the 
 objective remission, but in the inward consciousness of pardon 
 and liberty. The difference was within. The apostle affirms 
 the remission of sins under the former dispensation. And as 
 that was possible only by the blood of atonement, since there 
 could be no infringement of the divine justice or law, the 
 righteousness of God must be actually brought in. Whether 
 men regard the remission under the old economy in the light 
 of a true forgiveness, .which is the preferable view, or in that 
 of a preterition, there can be no doubt of the retrospective 
 efficacy of the atonement, and of the cancelling of the guilt of 
 sin before Christ came in the flesh by means of the atonement. 
 The relation of the two economies, then, is as follows: The 
 
142 
 
 ATOSTLES SAYINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 bringing in of the righteousness was necessary on account of 
 the previous remission. The apostle shows that there was a 
 causal connection between the righteousness of God and the 
 forgiveness of sins in all ages, that the cross was the great 
 fact of all time, and that God had respect to it from the be¬ 
 ginning. This is the only sense that the words will exegeti- 
 cally bear. Because the forgiveness was already given, there 
 must be an actual satisfaction to divine justice, and an actual 
 righteousness in the fulness of time. 
 
 Hence the three words which we have expounded—re¬ 
 demption, propitiatory, and righteousness—delineate the atone¬ 
 ment in different points of view; the first from the view-point 
 of man’s captivity, the second from the view-point of divine 
 wrath against sin, the third from that of the inalienable claims 
 of the divine law. And this variety of names to describe the 
 same great fact argues that, though the work of the Lord is 
 one, it has manifold bearings—as numerous, indeed, as our 
 necessities. 
 
 (2.) The design or final cause which God had in view in the 
 whole matter of the atonement is next subjoined: that He 
 might be just, and the justijier (ver. 26). The allusion is to the 
 concurrence or harmony of these two perfections of God. 
 The word just, applied to God, means that He asserts just 
 claims and inflicts just punishment. It is a perversion of 
 language to interpret the term as if it could mean anything 
 else than justice in the ordinary acceptation of the word 
 among men made in the image of God. 1 The contrast in 
 which it is placed to divine forbearance, and the allusion to 
 the propitiatory, allow no doubt as to its import. Justice 
 seemed to slumber during that period of forbearance; now it 
 is displayed. 
 
 But this determines the character of the atonement. Such 
 language would be unmeaning, if it were not admitted that 
 the atonement is in the proper sense of the word a satisfaction 
 1 See Section vi. of the former volume, The Sayings of Jesus. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 143 
 
 of divine justice. This single clause, therefore, fully warrants 
 the expression in common use, notwithstanding all the objec¬ 
 tions which have been adduced against it as unfitting or un¬ 
 warrantable. And when the apostle adds, “ that He might be 
 just, and the justified,” lie alludes to the fact that these two 
 apparently conflicting perfections, justice and grace, meet in 
 full harmony on the cross: justice suffers no violence, and 
 grace has full outlet. 
 
 This enables us to form a right judgment as to all those 
 theories which allow only one element in the atonement, and 
 reduce all to love. When modern theology commits itself to 
 this one-sided theory, it is clearly out of harmony with the 
 Pauline theology. As to the attempts which are at present 
 made in many quarters to subsume justice under love, they 
 are all sorry evasions of biblical ideas. Thus, when it is 
 alleged that God must already have been reconciled when He 
 gave His Son, and that there could be no further need of satis¬ 
 faction, this is a mere confusion of ideas,—the confounding 
 of a moving cause and a meritorious cause; the former being 
 love, the latter the work of the sinless Sin-bearer in our stead. 
 Unexpiated sin would for ever have stood in the way of ob¬ 
 taining divine favour, as is sufficiently evinced by hundreds 
 of passages. 
 
 The other arguments drawn from the relation of the Father¬ 
 hood of God—the universal Fatherhood, as it is indiscriminately 
 called—are equally refuted by this passage. It is rather a rela¬ 
 tion which draws down wrath, and calls for a propitiation. Only 
 when sin is expiated can proper Fatherhood begin; and as to the 
 notion which some try to propagate, that sin is rather a disease 
 than a crime, the answer is: FTo man believes, or can believe, 
 that the moral Governor is indifferent to human conduct, to 
 the moral actions of His creatures; for this is contradicted by 
 man’s moral nature as well as by Scripture (Eom. i. 32). 
 
 II. A passage of much weight, as deciding on the nature 
 of the atonement, is as follows : Who was delivered for [better, 
 
144 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 on account of\ our offences, and was raised again for [better, on 
 account of~\ our justification (Bom. iv. 25). The apostle, after 
 discussing the case of Abraham as a ruling instance in proof 
 of justification by faith alone, proceeds at the close of the 
 chapter to describe faith as it is exercised on its proper object. 
 He uses a striking name or title of God when he describes 
 Him as the Christ-raiser, and represents faith as exercised on 
 God in this capacity; that is, on God as the source of the 
 atonement, and the accepter of it at the hands of the Surety. 
 
 The first thing that summons our attention is, that OUR 
 sin is represented as the cause of Christ’s death; and it is 
 the more important to determine with precision in what sense 
 this language must be taken, because the consideration of the 
 cause of Christ’s death is in some quarters much misappre¬ 
 hended, and in other cases much neglected, in the discussion 
 of this question. For the most part, men have stopped short 
 at the inquiry, What was God’s aim and intention in the death 
 of Christ ? But in endeavouring to apprehend the course of 
 God’s procedure, we must distinguish between the divine in¬ 
 tention and the cause in operation; and the present passage 
 throws light on the entire question. A strict interpretation 
 of the terms here used proves that our offences were the proper 
 cause of Christ’s death, and that His delivery to crucifixion 
 is considered as the punishment of sin. It is not possible in 
 words more emphatically to express the idea of a meritorious 
 cause, than by joining together our offences and the Lord’s 
 sufferings by a preposition ('hd with ac.) intimating a connec¬ 
 tion of cause and effect. If we are to expound by language, 
 and not by foregone conclusions, this is the only meaning that 
 the words will bear. As our offences were the meritorious 
 cause of Christ’s death, it follows that by His delivery He 
 paid the penalty. The phrases, to die for sins, to be de¬ 
 livered for sins, denote that sin was the cause of Christ’s 
 death, and that the death was the due punishment. 
 
 The language in these two clauses implies Suretyship; and 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 145 
 
 tliey cannot otherwise he understood. We may enumerate a 
 few expressions where the preposition used to intimate causal 
 connection occurs in the same construction. Thus, when it 
 is said, “ Ye shall he hated of all men for my name's sake" 
 (Matt. x. 22); “ They withered away, because they had no 
 deepness of earth ” (Matt. xiii. 5); “ because they had no root ” 
 (ver. 6); “ when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of 
 the word” (ver. 21) ; u for the oath's sake, and them who sat 
 at meat with him ” (xiv. 9) ; “ when they could not come 
 nigh Him for the press ” (Mark ii. 4); “ Barabbas, who for a 
 certain sedition, and for murder, was cast into prison ” (Luke 
 xxiii. 19); “ Many of the Samaritans believed on Him for the 
 saying of the woman” (John iv. 39); “ for fear of the Jews” 
 (xix. 38); 11 for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on 
 the children of disobedience” (Epli. v. 6);—in these instances, 
 and in others too numerous to name, the import is a causal 
 connection, or a statement of cause and effect. When it is 
 said that Jesus was delivered for our offences, the words bring 
 out the connection between our offences and His sufferings, 
 and prove that it is a causal connection, on the ground of 
 substitution. There must have been a relation formed between 
 Him and us, of such a kind that He and His people were 
 federally one, representatively one, legally one in the eye 
 of God. But for such a covenant relation, our sins could 
 not by possibility have affected Him, nor brought Him to the 
 cross. 
 
 But we have next to consider what is meant by His being 
 
 delivered. This was the effect or consequence, of which our 
 
 offences were the cause. These sins had the effect of handing 
 
 over the Surety to the penal consequences which overtook 
 
 Him from the hand of God and from the hand of man. This 
 
 w r ill be best illustrated from the ordinary style of speech. 
 
 Thus, when a man is said to suffer for his crimes, no one 
 
 doubts what the meaning is; and in like manner, when an 
 
 innocent person suffers for our sins, or is delivered for our 
 
 K 
 
146 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 offences, this means that he hears the punishment, though the 
 sin was not personally his, hut assumed hy a voluntary act. 
 How was Christ delivered ? The word means, that in visiting 
 the Surety with the punishment due to us for sin, the Judge 
 of all saw fit to deliver Him into the hand of sinners. Behind 
 each part of the judicial action, traced in the arrest, trial, and 
 crucifixion of the Lord, we see what was going forward at the 
 divine trihunal. The human har was the exponent, so to speak, 
 or the visible counterpart, of the divine har. The divine ap¬ 
 pointment appears in it all; for nought hut this could make 
 Christ’s death a ransom, or give it efficacy for man’s salvation. 
 Pilate’s har, therefore, was the har of God where Jesus was 
 exculpated and condemned : exculpated on the ground of per¬ 
 sonal innocence, condemned as occupying the position of the 
 sin-hearing Surety. 
 
 He was judicially delivered into the hand of men. It 
 was not in a tumult of the people, nor in a secret corner, that 
 the Lord was to he cut off, hut after an examination and in¬ 
 quiry with all the forms of law. In fulfilment of prophecy 
 (Isa. liii. 8), He was placed before Pilate as our Surety, having 
 no personal guilt, hut condemned for our guilt, that it might 
 not be charged against us. And all that befell Him, however 
 unjust as regards men, was justly inflicted at the hand of God, 
 who, besides what meets our eye, sent invisible strokes and 
 penal inflictions to an inconceivable degree. The whole scene 
 is easy of explanation on the principle of substitution. The 
 Surety, offering to satisfy in our room, was brought before a 
 human har, in which God, as it were, erected His trihunal 
 before Him,—arranging the transaction in such a way that all 
 mankind might, to the end of time, perceive that the Judge 
 found Him innocent, and yet pronounced His condemnation. 
 He on His part promptly and cordially submitted to suffering, 
 in obedience to His Father, who had given that power to Pilate 
 in reference to the Son of God. 
 
 The last clause of the verse brings out that Jesus WAS 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 147 
 
 RAISED AGAIN ON ACCOUNT OF OUR JUSTIFICATION. Tlie preposi¬ 
 tion (hux, with acc.) innst have the same import 1 and he trans¬ 
 lated in the same way in both clauses. Though this is not 
 done by commentators, nothing can justify us in attaching a 
 different sense to the same word in two contrasted clauses: 
 whatever it means in the one, it must mean in the other. It 
 is here taught that the sins of believers caused the death of 
 the Lord, and that the impetration of a righteousness which 
 could be applied as the sole foundation of justification, and 
 was actually accepted on the behalf of all to whom it was to 
 be applied, was the cause of Christ’s resurrection from the 
 dead. Had one jot or tittle been awanting in His surety-work, 
 the resurrection of Jesus could not have taken place. 
 
 But before passing from this text, it is necessary to obviate 
 the misapprehensions 2 of its meaning that have been taken up 
 in various quarters. 
 
 The language cannot mean that Christ was delivered to 
 ' death that He might abolish sins. There are two forms of this 
 mode of exposition : a lower one, to the effect that we might be 
 withdrawn from evil by the argument or motive furnished by 
 the turpitude of sin in condemning so much excellence; and a 
 higher one, to the effect that the Bisen One imparts a new life to 
 abolish inward corruption. But the answer to both comments 
 is, that the language cannot bear that final sense. It always 
 denotes ON account of, intimating the cause or reason on 
 account of which a thing has taken place; and from this mean- 
 
 1 The general consent with which exegetes allow tia to have a final or telic 
 force in this verse and some others ( e.g . John vi. 57 ; Rom. iii. 25 ; Gal. iv. 13) 
 cannot he vindicated. A difficulty is not to he solved by changing the meaning 
 of words. Buurt, beshouwende Godgeleerdheit, § 1100, and Klinkenberg, de 
 Bijbel VerJdaerd, 1791, are the only writers known to me who retain the proper 
 force of W in the second clause. 
 
 2 A stronger word than misapprehensions might be used, for every conjec¬ 
 ture has been tried to evade the simple sense of <Ttx.pxTT&i^a.rx by ex¬ 
 
 positors opposed to substitution. The words will bear no other meaning than 
 this, that our sins were the cause, the meritorious cause, of His death; and we 
 cannot but see suretyship here. 
 
148 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 ing we cannot deviate. To bring out tlie notion of abolishing 
 future sin, other words must have been used, and some addi¬ 
 tional clause to make this sense apparent. The allusion is not 
 to future, but to past and present sin. 
 
 A second mistranslation is, that He was delivered by men’s 
 sins, or by wicked hands. But human malice and crime are 
 never indicated in this way, as will appear by a comparison of 
 other passages (Acts ii. 23). 
 
 A third theory is to the effect that the sufferings of Christ 
 were intended to remove the groundless fear of punishment. 
 But such an exposition has no warrant from the terms here 
 used; for it is not said that Christ was delivered because of our 
 fears, but because of our sins. And as to the notion itself, it is 
 enough to say that redemption can never be a deliverance from 
 baseless fear, and an assurance of divine favour; for how could 
 that harmonize with the stern menaces connected with im¬ 
 penitence and unbelief ? It is a mischievous delusion that God 
 does not punish sin. 
 
 The words mean that Christ sustained our punishment, and 
 was delivered to condemnation, human and divine, in conse¬ 
 quence of our offences, which were charged to Him, and 
 spontaneously borne on the ground of a union between us and 
 Him. But it is proper to add, as showing the foregone con¬ 
 clusions witli which many come to the interpretation of this 
 passage, that even if it were affirmed in the plainest and most 
 unambiguous language that sin was the cause of Christ’s suffer¬ 
 ings, and that His death was the proper punishment inflicted on 
 Him for human sin, the opponents of the vicarious satisfaction, 
 by their own avowal, would turn away the point of the evi¬ 
 dence.. Socinus says expressly: Though the thing were said, 
 not once, but many times, he would not believe it; for the thing 
 cannot be, inasmuch as the doctrine contended for is contrary 
 to reason. Hence their whole aim is to discover any other 
 possible meaning. To meet that rationalistic mode of treat¬ 
 ing Scripture, there is only one way. We must plainly tell 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 149 
 
 such disputants either to stand within the pale of Eevelation, 
 and he bound by its announcements, or stand outside its borders 
 altogether. It will not do to accept a Eevelation, and then 
 reject the doctrines they dislike,-—to take it, and yet refuse it, 
 according to their arbitrary caprice. They cannot be allowed 
 thus to expound the contents of the divine word. They must 
 take it or go without it, for they cannot be allowed to argue on 
 the sceptic’s ground when they please. 
 
 III. Another passage on the atonement follows after a few 
 verses: For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ 
 died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous one will one 
 die; yet per adventure for a good man some would even dare to 
 die. But God commendeth Fits love toward us, in that , while we 
 were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, toeing now 
 justified by Ilis blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 
 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the 
 death of His Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved 
 by His life (Eom. v. 6-10). The apostle, having described the 
 fruits of justification,—peace with God, access, standing in 
 grace, and the hope of glory,—proceeds to show that the 
 Christian’s hope is not disappointed. Two a fortiori arguments 
 are used, both introduced by a much more, and drawn, the one 
 from the two states of the man, and the other from the two 
 states of Christ. From the two states of the man he argues, 
 that if we were justified when sinners, much more shall we be 
 saved from wrath when made friends (ver. 9). From the two 
 states of Christ he argues, that if our reconciliation was effected 
 by the death of God’s Son as a thing vast, arduous, and 
 wonderful, much more, as if no further legal difficulty were to 
 be encountered, shall we be saved by His life (ver. 10). As the 
 force of these arguments can be seen only by comparison with 
 the guilt of our natural condition, he uses four descriptive 
 terms to exhibit this. We were without strength, that is, 
 unable to comply with any duty or command (ver. 6); ungodly, 
 that is, without God, and violating duty at every turn (ver. 8); 
 
150 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 sinners, that is, held tinder the bonds of guilt, and by nature 
 attached to sin; enemies (ver. 10), that is, either passively 
 objects of God’s displeasure, as some take it, or actively ene¬ 
 mies of God in our disposition; which latter is the preferable 
 view. 1 These four designations are mentioned with a view 
 to commend the freeness and greatness of the divine love. 
 
 We limit our attention to the question of the atonement as 
 developed in this passage. When Christ is represented as 
 dying for the ungodly (ver. 6), the question is, Are we to 
 regard 2 this as a transaction in our stead, or merely for our 
 benefit ? Undoubtedly the former. And, to impress the idea 
 of Christ’s vicarious position, the apostle borrows an illustra¬ 
 tion from common life. Thus: Scarcely for a righteous man 
 will one die : I say righteous, for 3 perhaps for a good man— 
 that is, a great benefactor—some one would even dare to die. 
 But in the world’s history it was never heard of, that one died 
 for an enemy. Now the commendation of divine love is, that 
 Christ died for enemies and sinners. The apostle, in supplying 
 this illustration, intimates that we are to reason from the one 
 to the other; and if Christ’s death is to be taken in the sense 
 in which the death of one for another is here portrayed, the 
 obvious meaning is, that one gives his life in the room of 
 another. The death of Christ, far transcending every example 
 of human love, which hardly ever dreamt of laying down one’s 
 life for a friend, was a display of love for enemies. The terms, 
 and the entire character of the transaction as here described, 
 allow us to form no other conclusion than that the death of 
 Christ was vicarious. We have an unmistakeable description 
 of the character of Christ’s death, and of what the church must 
 hold it to have been. No one, certainly, can understand this 
 
 1 ovrss : tliese words refer to man’s disposition. The great truth, that 
 Christ’s death ended God’s hostility to us, is quite consistent with this. 
 
 2 See a valuable note in Meyer’s Commentary on the import of Ixip and 
 ?rs pi, and his reference to passages. 
 
 3 The ydp in the second clause of ver. 7 is not to be rendered yet ; it leans 
 on the tacit thought which we have brought out. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 151 
 
 language in tlie sense that He suffered to give us an example 
 of virtue. The illustration and reasoning show that the allu¬ 
 sion is to a vicarious death. 
 
 From the Lord’s vicarious death two important conse¬ 
 quences are derived, and it is considered as standing in close 
 causal connection with them both. 
 
 1. The apostle declares that we are justified by His blood 
 (ver. 9). This expression means, not only His bloody death, 
 but His whole sinless obedience, culminating in that bloody 
 sacrifice. It is a synecdoche; and the apostle intimates that 
 the sole cause of justification is the atonement, not our virtue, 
 not our amendments, not the termination of our enmity already 
 mentioned, not even our faith, however important this is as the 
 instrument of reception. By that atoning blood sin is deleted 
 as if it had never been, and the man is accepted. The apostle 
 in this passage is content to put cause and effect together, 
 without explaining how the result was brought about, because 
 this had already been done in express terms. How, when we 
 are said to be justified by His blood, the expression intimates 
 that we are not only discharged from deserved punishment, but 
 personally accepted. The death of Christ is put in causal con¬ 
 nection with the justification of our persons; but this could 
 not have been unless it were a vicarious death, and a vicarious 
 obedience accepted by Him who pronounces the acquittal. The 
 apostle deduces, too, an important inference. He assumes that 
 Christ’s death put sinners on a new footing, a new standing 
 before God; in a word, that it rectified their relation. And 
 then he argues: “ If justified as sinners by His blood, much 
 more shall we as friends be saved from wrath through Him.” 
 This is an argument from the stronger reason. 
 
 2. The apostle next declares that we are reconciled to 
 God by the death of His Son (ver. 10). This is a phrase 
 alternated with being justified. The term reconciliation, as we 
 have seen, presupposes alienation, displeasure, or enmity on the 
 part of the moral Governor of the world, and intimates that He 
 
152 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 has cemented with us a new relation of friendship. That the 
 change is caused by the death of Christ, is here expressly 
 stated. In the language of Paul, where we chiefly find the 
 I use of this expression, God is never said to be reconciled: we 
 are said to be reconciled to God. And the reason is, that in 
 ordinary language the action of reconciliation is described from 
 the side of the offending party. A prince is not said to be 
 reconciled to an offending subject, though it is he who lays 
 aside his displeasure : the subject is said to be reconciled to 
 him, because the transaction takes its designation from the 
 party offending. The atonement was interposed by God be¬ 
 tween His righteous wrath and us men in such a way as to put 
 humanity on a new and friendly relationship to God. When 
 the apostle affirms that we are reconciled to God by the death 
 of His Son, he means that the death of Christ removed all the 
 impediments on God’s side, so that His just anger was averted, 
 and His free favour turned toward us. 
 
 Many interpret reconciliation as if 'it meant that there 
 never was estrangement on God’s side, but only on man’s side ; 
 and, consequently, that it is completed the moment we lay 
 aside our aversion, and by a course of repentance and loyal 
 obedience show ourselves well affected towards God. That 
 is not the apostle’s meaning, as is proved by the slightest 
 examination of his words. He sets forth the vicarious nature 
 of Christ’s death, and deduces reconciliation from it by the 
 connection of cause and consequence, alternating the words 
 reconcile and justify as phrases descriptive of the same change 
 of relation. If justification is a judicial act of God implying a 
 change of relation on His side as well as on ours, reconciliation 
 implies the same, as appears from the words: “ If we, being 
 enemies, were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.” 
 The emphasis of the clause lies on the words being enemies, 
 and it affirms that we were reconciled when enemies. If so, 
 it is self-evident that reconciliation to God does not consist 
 merely in laying aside our enmity. For how, on such a theory, 
 
TIIE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 153 
 
 could we be said to be reconciled to God when we were 
 ENEMIES ? 
 
 On tlie contrary, reconciliation is caused by something 
 objective (ver. 12)—by the death of God’s Son. The apostle 
 teaches that the vicarious death of Christ was the ground of 
 restoration to the divine favour. The argument in this second 
 case, altogether like the former, takes for granted that, in con¬ 
 sequence of Christ’s death, we passed into a new relationship 
 to God—one of favour. It is as follows: If such a change of 
 relation took place in virtue of Christ’s death, if we were re¬ 
 conciled to God by the death of His Son, much more shall we, 
 being admitted into friendship, be saved by His life. This is 
 an argument a fortiori , based on the two states of Christ, taken 
 in connection with the new relation in which we stand. And 
 the apostle could not have argued in this way, if there had 
 been nothing objective effected by the death of Christ. 
 
 The words mean that we were taken into the new relation¬ 
 ship, or restored to favour, by the death of God’s Son. The 
 
 apostle thus connects cause and consequence, without defining 
 
 % 
 
 in what way and by what steps the result was won. He de¬ 
 clares that God Himself was the author of reconciliation by 
 the death of His Son, and that we receive it in the free exercise 
 of His grace. He does not base his reasoning, however, on the 
 moral change effected: he does not say, If God loved us when 
 we had no spiritual affection toward Him, how much more 
 will He save us when we have amended our disposition and 
 changed our sentiments towards Him ! That would not be in 
 keeping with the train or scope of his reasoning. He fixes 
 his eye on the altered objective relation effected by the death 
 of Christ. But when God stands related to us as a Father, and 
 not as an offended Judge, then an inward change ensues: con¬ 
 fidence and delight in Him must be the consequence, the im¬ 
 mediate fruit, of reconciliation. Hence, glorying is mentioned 
 as the result of receiving the objective atonement; and the 
 apostle declares: “We also joy [better, glory] in God through 
 
154 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the 
 atonement” 1 (ver. 11). 
 
 To this, however, it is urged as an objection, that such a 
 mode of viewing reconciliation makes us at once enemies and 
 friends; and it is said, Can we regard God as both hating and 
 loving us; as evincing displeasure, and concerting the means 
 of taking us into favour ? This difficulty vanishes when we 
 come to see that love and wrath well enough consist together, 
 because men are presented to His view both as the creatures 
 of His hand, and as sinners, yet the objects of His grace. 
 He had wrath and enmity against their sin, according to 
 His holy nature and the inalienable claims of justice; but 
 He had love to His creatures, and a disposition to do them 
 good. And the atonement, as an arrangement interposed be¬ 
 tween divine wrath on the one hand, and the sinful human 
 race on the other, was the removal of all the impediments 
 that stood in the way of the divine love. The text shows 
 that free love provided the atonement, but that men were 
 ACTUALLY TAKEN INTO FAVOUR ONLY ON THE GROUND OF SATIS¬ 
 FACTION. 
 
 IY. Another memorable passage on the atonement is the 
 section in the fifth chapter, which institutes a comparison 
 between the disobedience of the first man and the obedience 
 of the second man (vers. 12-19). From this section two verses 
 may specially be selected, as giving a forcible illustration of 
 the satisfaction of Christ: Therefore, as by the offence of one 
 judgment came upon [better, it is to] all men to condemnation; 
 even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon [better, 
 it is to] all men to justification of life. For as by one marts dis¬ 
 obedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one shall 
 many be made righteous (Eom. v. 18, 19). The principal point 
 to which the apostle directs attention, and which met him at 
 this part of his argument, was, How could the satisfaction of 
 
 1 The word 7ta.ru.Wa.yn is the objective fact of the atonement considered as 
 effecting reconciliation, and received as a gift. Christ’s act is said to reconcile. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 155 
 
 one man avail for many ? And he shows that it is not sur¬ 
 prising to find the entire ground of our redemption in the 
 work of one, when we go back to the original constitution 
 given to the human family: for we are saved upon the same 
 principle, and by a constitution altogether similar. Without 
 anticipating the result, let us analyse the passage. 
 
 In drawing the parallel between the two representative 
 men in whom the whole human race is found respectively, 
 Paul says : “ By one man sin entered into the world, and death 
 by sin” (ver. 12). To forestall mistakes, we must observe 
 that this language does not mean by one man as created, but 
 by one man as sinning. That this is the import of the ex¬ 
 pression, is proved by the frequent repetition of the same 
 words: by one that sinned (ver. 16); by one man’s offence 
 (ver. 17); by one man’s disobedience (ver. 19). The apostle 
 does not mean that sin entered in consequence of some flaw 
 or defect in the primeval constitution of man’s nature, as if 
 he were but earthly or carnal when he came from the Creator’s 
 hand. 1 The words before us mean, one man as he committed sin. 
 
 Another point that must be correctly apprehended in order 
 to obtain a right view of the whole is, What is the import of 
 sin here described as entering ? The answer is, that it refers 
 to Adam’s sinning act. This is evident from the language 
 which the apostle holds all through the section, and which is 
 frequently alternated with other terms of similar import. This 
 terrible phenomenon —sin personified through this and the two 
 following chapters as a potentate, tyrant, or power—is described 
 as entering into the world, where it was before unknown. It 
 had a commencement in the world, and subordinated all to its 
 sway. But while Adam’s first sin is specially meant, as is 
 clear from all the various antitheses in which it here stands to 
 the atoning work of Christ, we are not of course to dissever it 
 from the sinful nature to which it adheres. 
 
 1 Usteri, in his Pauline Doctrine, reproduces the Schleiermacher theology to 
 this effect; hut it has no support in Paul nor in any text of Scripture. 
 
156 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 The next term is death, represented as the penal conse¬ 
 quence of sin. Temporal death is, beyond all doubt, compre¬ 
 hended in the apostle’s words; for he elsewhere says, that in 
 Adam all die (1 Cor. xv. 22). On the other hand, the limita¬ 
 tion of the meaning to temporal death is quite unwarrantable, 
 when the contrast obviously leads us to the most extensive 
 signification. This is confirmed by the language of the New 
 Testament generally, and by the Pauline phraseology particu¬ 
 larly (Rom. i. 32, vi. 21). The term death must be taken 
 here, and in the Mosaic narrative, in the widest sense, com¬ 
 prehending all that misery which flows from our estrangement 
 from God—the antithesis of divine life. 
 
 Next, the apostle draws a parallel between the two repre¬ 
 sentative men as follows : As by one man sin entered into the 
 world, and death by sin; so by one man righteousness entered 
 into the world, and life by righteousness. Such would have 
 been the two counterpart members, had the parallel been for¬ 
 mally completed at the point where the comparison began 
 (ver. 13). But the latter member is withheld, and we have 
 only a compensation for it in the words, the figure of Him 
 that was to come 1 (ver. 14). The full parallel is resumed, and 
 at length completed, further down in the context (ver. 18). But 
 before advancing to that verse, which fills up the parallel (ver. 
 18), the apostle states some points of disparity, in which there 
 is A much more, a preponderance, again and again repeated, 
 as found on the side of Christ. It is a much more of potency 
 in the causes in operation (ver. 15), and a much more also in 
 the results produced in connection with such causes (vers. 
 16, 17). Having stated the general resemblance, and certain 
 
 1 Calvin well says on this clause : Hcec particula posila est vice alterius 
 membri. We cannot suppose the sense suspended by the long parenthesis be¬ 
 tween the wtrvip of ver. 12 and the ovru of ver. 18, more especially as the apostle 
 introduces points of dissimilarity as well as points of correspondence. Plainly, 
 the comparison must be completed before the points of dissimilarity begin (at 
 ver. 15). The best exegetes find the counterpart member to utrjnp, as we have 
 done, in tvttos rov ptkkovro;. (See an essay by Dr. Schmid, Tubinger Zeitschrift, 
 1831 .) 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 157 
 
 points of dissimilarity, the apostle returns to the broad out¬ 
 lines of the parallel, and gives full and formal expression to it 
 (ver. 18) ; and the words indicate a conclusion drawn from the 
 whole previous statement. 
 
 But we forbear further commentary, as we have adduced 
 the passage only as a striking exhibition and proof of the 
 atonement. The apostle is anticipating the objection, How 
 could the obedience of one avail for millions ?—a difficulty that 
 must be met. The current notion among the Jews of old, and 
 among self-righteous men at all times, is: If our own virtue 
 and works of the law do not pass for righteousness, how can 
 another man’s avail, and especially how can it avail for count¬ 
 less numbers ? The apostle’s reply is, that this is readily 
 understood when men take into account the peculiar constitu¬ 
 tion under which the Creator saw meet at first to place the 
 human family. The principle on which we are saved is the 
 same as was originally set before mankind. The way of justi¬ 
 fication by the obedience of another stands on a similar footing 
 
 to the way in which we fell: the principle is that of one for 
 
 0 
 
 many. As by the trespass or offence of one it is to all men to 
 condemnation, so by the righteousness of one—in other words, 
 by the approved and accepted obedience of one—it is to all 
 men to justification of life. Here two things are comprehended 
 as standing in connection with the atonement: (1) the justifi¬ 
 cation of the man, that is, of the person in his relative standing; 
 (*2) the restoration of the nature by the donation of life. The 
 former paves the way for the latter. The life is premial life, 
 and follows as the consequence of righteousness, but is com¬ 
 prehensive both of spiritual and eternal life. This life follows 
 as the reward of righteousness, according to the principle set 
 forth in the law : “ This do, and thou shalt live.” 
 
 The second of the verses above quoted grounds the former 
 by furnishing additional explanation. The two clauses of the 
 one (ver. 18) may be connected with the two clauses of the 
 other respectively (ver. 19); and the grounding particle for 
 
158 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 links them together in this way : “ Therefore, as by the offence 
 of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation,— FOR by 
 one man’s disobedience many were made sinners,—even so by 
 the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto 
 justification of life; FOR by the obedience of one shall many 
 he made righteous.” What is the obedience of one, by which 
 many are made or constituted righteous ? This may easily he 
 perceived from the counterpart disobedience by which many 
 are made sinners. It is not enough to say that the death of 
 Christ is so called because on His part it was a proper act of 
 love. Nor will it suffice to say that the atonement is so called 
 because suffering was imposed by the Father’s command, and 
 responded to on Christ’s part by an act of obedience. These 
 views make no room for the element of active obedience, as 
 not less necessary than the suffering. The words are plainly 
 descriptive of the entire obedience of Christ, active and passive. 
 This is evident from the fact that by means of it many are 
 constituted righteous, which can only he by the double element; 
 and it is further evident from the disobedience of Adam in the 
 opposite member. For if Adam’s trespass contains two parts,— 
 an obligation violated and a guilt incurred,—and if the - second 
 man must enter into both, since the divine justice could not 
 permit either to be relaxed or modified by one jot or tittle, it 
 follows that in that obedience of one man, which makes many 
 righteous, we must comprehend both these elements. His obedi¬ 
 ence thus included all that was required of man in innocence, 
 and all that was justly incurred by man in his state of guilt. 
 
 This- great transaction was not by accident. The obedience 
 of one for many, and as making many righteous, was the true 
 and intended effect of Christ’s incarnation—the great compen¬ 
 sation set over against the fall of Adam. It is the result of a 
 constitution expressly parallel to that under which man was 
 made, and, like it, of a positive and sovereign character; and 
 it is here said to be the principle of one for many. Scripture 
 thus puts the disobedience of Adam in express antithesis to 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 159 
 
 tlie obedience of Christ. It speaks as if there had been but 
 two men in the world into whose obedience or disobedience 
 their entire seed enters. And indeed there have been but two 
 representative men, and under the one or the other we are all 
 comprehended. A comparison of the two, such as is here in¬ 
 stituted, greatly conduces to the correct apprehension of the 
 constitution which it pleased God, in the exercise of sovereign 
 dominion, to give to the human race. These two truths shed 
 reciprocal light on each other, and are set over against each 
 other. Tor this there may be many reasons; but one reason, 
 besides the vivid contrast, undoubtedly is to furnish the only 
 analogy which can be produced. Nor can I forbear to say that 
 it would have contributed not a little to the clearer under¬ 
 standing of the whole subject, had the Scripture method on 
 this great theme been universally followed. Had the atone¬ 
 ment and the fall been more put in this contrast, the light shed 
 by this means on both would have been steadier and clearer, 
 and many a prejudice would have been removed. Many who 
 have doubts of the one, would have had their difficulties over¬ 
 borne or rempved by the evidence of the other. 
 
 To all the cavils of human reason the answer is easy. It 
 does not fall to us to justify that constitution given to the first 
 man, and renewed in the second man. Nor does it become us 
 too curiously to inquire into the reasons of such an appoint¬ 
 ment, when we call to mind that the sovereign will of God, 
 holy, wise, just, and good, is reason enough. To give reasons, 
 argues a pretension to knowledge which is not given to us. 
 Let it suffice that it pleased God to constitute man in a public 
 head, who was made in the image of God, and summoned to 
 the test of obedience in the full maturity of all his powers, in 
 the possession of a sinless nature, and with a full knowledge, 
 doubtless, of his representative position. The constitution 
 given to man differed from that which was given to angels, 
 who must have been placed on their own individual footing, 
 from the fact that they partly stood and partly fell. 
 
160 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 More than anything else, this original constitution given to 
 man throws light on the atonement. We are redeemed in the 
 same way : the obedience of one is the righteousness of many. 
 This calls for a twofold submission on our part—a submission 
 to the divine sovereignty which gave the constitution to 
 which we have referred, and a submission to the divine word, 
 which here emphatically proclaims it as a certain truth. We 
 must accept both. Thus sin enters by the first man, and 
 spreads through the race, and death by sin. On the contrary, 
 righteousness, or the atonement, enters by the second man, and 
 is unto all and upon all them that believe; and life is by 
 righteousness. This is the Pauline parallel; and I have only 
 to add that it would have been well if human writers, in their 
 discussions on the subject, had been content to receive this 
 divine constitution on God’s authority as a truth, and with 
 the heart-loyalty due to His sovereign dominion. The whole 
 matter has been complicated and perplexed by laborious 
 attempts to commend it to the natural reason of men; all of 
 them sorry efforts to make men believers by reason, whereas 
 faith must stand, not in the wisdom of man, but in the 
 authority of God. 
 
 The testimony of this passage is conclusive as to the great 
 fact that the atoning obedience of Christ puts us into the 
 category of righteous ones, for so the words signify. 1 It was 
 the obedience of the Son of God, however; for not only are we 
 here to recall the primeval constitution, but also the divine 
 dignity of the Surety. Hot that He obeyed in the divine 
 nature, but He who did obey was a divine person—the Son of 
 God; and it must never be forgotten that He took our nature 
 as a workman takes a tool or instrument to accomplish a 
 certain end. This obedience to the law in all its parts He 
 
 1 Ka.n<rrix.l)Yi<Ta.v, rendered in the English version were made, is stronger than 
 the Greek word warrants : it means, “were put into the class or category of” 
 sinners, and into the category of righteous ones. How ? By the representative 
 action of one for many. 
 
\ 
 
 TIIE EPISTLE TO THE KOMANS. 1G1 
 
 required not for Himself, but wrought it out for us, that it 
 might at once have infinite value, and be made an absolute 
 gift. 
 
 V. Another passage of great importance on the atonement 
 is the section in the sixth chapter, which sets forth the con¬ 
 scious relation which the apostle says he occupied to Christ in 
 His death: What shall we say then l Shall we continue in sin, 
 that grace may abound 1 God forbid. How shall we, that are 
 dead [better, that died'] to sin, live any longer therein ? Know 
 ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were 
 baptized into His death ? that like as Christ was raised up from 
 the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk 
 in newness of life. For if we have been planted together [better, 
 co-planted] in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the 
 likeness of [better, we shall at the same time belong to] His 
 resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with 
 Him [better, co-crucifiecl], that the body of sin might be de¬ 
 stroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is 
 dead is freed [better, is justified] from sin. Now, if we be dead 
 with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him (Bom. 
 vi. 1-8). This memorable passage must be clearly understood, 
 because the same language recurs in many of the Pauline 
 epistles. We have therefore to inquire whether the expres¬ 
 sions represent the death of Christ as vicarious, or whether 
 they are to be explained according to a mystical interpretation, 
 without reference to the idea of substitution. 
 
 To understand what is meant by dying with Chpjst, we 
 must apprehend the connection. The apostle, after describing 
 our standing in the second Adam (v. 12-19), had added, that 
 where sin abounded, grace much more abounded. Perceiving 
 the objection that would be made to such a view of grace, 
 the apostle says, “ Shall we continue in sin, that grace may 
 abound?” and rejects the imputation with abhorrence. Hot 
 content with this, he proceeds to prove that this perversion 
 could not ensue, for a reason which touches the deep elements 
 
 L 
 
162 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 of God’s moral government, and renders it impossible. What 
 is the reason lie assigns ? It is not tlie influence of a new 
 class of motives which he brings out at the end of the chapter, 
 but a solid ground in law. He argues from a fact—the great 
 objective change of relation intimated by dying with Christ. 
 
 We have to inquire, then, what is intimated by those ex¬ 
 pressions on which he lays the greatest stress of his argument 
 (ver. 12): dying with Christ, and dying to sin, buried with 
 Christ, co-crucified and co-planted 1 with Him. One text 
 will serve as a key to the meaning, viz., “ We thus judge, that 
 if one died for all, then all died,” for so the words must be 
 translated (2 Cor. v. 14). There the apostle, it is obvious, uses 
 these two expressions interchangeably: He died for all, and 
 all died in Him. He describes the same thing from two differ¬ 
 ent points of view. The first of the two describes the vicarious 
 death of Christ as an objective fact; the second sets forth the 
 same great transaction, in terms which intimate that we too 
 are said to have done it. Thus w T e may either say, Christ 
 died for us ; or say, we died in Him. We may equally affirm 
 He was crucified for us, or we were co-crucified with Him. 
 This alternating phraseology, duly observed, makes all plain. 
 But it must be fully apprehended that we have not two acts 
 presented to us by the expression,—one on Christ’s side, and 
 another on ours, that is, an experience on our side parallel 
 to His. AVe have but one public representative, corporate 
 act performed by the Son of God, in which we share as 
 truly as if we had accomplished that atonement ourselves. 
 
 The mistakes committed in the interpretation of this 
 chapter of the epistle—and they have come down from ancient 
 times—are mainly due to the fact that the ideas of the fifth 
 chapter have not been carried into the sixth. If we carry 
 the thought supplied by the representative character of the 
 two Adams from the one chapter into the other, the diffi¬ 
 culty vanishes. Hay, the very same form of expression is 
 
 1 The preposition in composition retains its force in trvvtrct<pnftsv } <rvn<rra.v(u6n i etc. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 163 
 
 found in the fifth chapter in the statement: “ By one man sin 
 entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed 
 upon all men, for that all sinned ” (Bom. y. 12). The mean¬ 
 ing is, all men sinned in the first man’s act of sin; for that 
 public act was representative, and common to all his offspring. 
 There have been, in fact, but two men in the world, with the 
 two families of which they are the heads; there have been 
 but two public representatives. The idea of Christ’s Surety¬ 
 ship, and the representation of His atonement as the act of 
 one for many, run through the entire section, with only this 
 peculiarity or difference as compared with other passages, that 
 here WE are described as doing what our representative did; 
 that is, the one corporate act is described from our share in 
 the transaction. But let us notice the expressions. 
 
 It is said WE died to sin (ver. 2). As this phrase is 
 very much misunderstood, its meaning must be ascertained. 
 It frequently occurs in the Pauline epistles in different forms, 
 and uniformly alludes not to an inward deliverance from sin, 
 but to the Christian’s objective relation, or to his personal 
 standing before God in the vicarious work of Christ; it means 
 that we are legally dead to sin in Christ. 1 This is rendered 
 quite certain by two other expressions occurring in the section. 
 The first of these passages applies the same language to the 
 Lord Himself; for He is said to have died to sin once (ver. 
 10). How the only sense in which the Sinless One can be 
 regarded as dying to sin, is that of dying to its guilt, or to the 
 condemning power which goes along with sin, and which must 
 run its course, wherever sin has been committed. He died to 
 the guilt or criminality of sin, when it was laid on Him; cer- 
 
 1 This mode of interpretation indicated by J. Alting in his Commentary, is 
 comparatively recent, and has mainly been advocated by recent Dutch divines, 
 Klinkenberg, Heringa, Yinke. Haldane, in his Commentary on Romans, main¬ 
 tains it; but it is not yet admitted by the Germans. The old view advocated 
 by the Reformers and Puritans, failed by making the whole too much a sub¬ 
 jective experience, or an inward renovation. The origin of the misinterpretation 
 must be traced to the separation of the sixth chapter from the fifth, as if a wholly 
 new subject began at Rom. vi. 1. 
 
164 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 tainly He did not die to its indwelling power. The second of 
 these passages shows that this dying was the ground or meri¬ 
 torious cause of our justification: “ He that is dead has been 
 justified (not freed, as it is unhappily rendered in the English 
 version) from sin” (ver. 7). The justification of the Christian 
 is thus based on his co-dying with Christ; that is, we are said 
 to have died when Christ died, and to have done what Christ 
 did. The words undoubtedly mean a co-dying with Christ in 
 that one corporate representative deed ; that is, they mean that 
 we were one with Christ in His obedience unto death, as we 
 were one with Adam in his disobedience. Christ’s death to 
 sin belongs to us, and is as much ours as if we had borne the 
 penalty. And the justification by which our persons are for¬ 
 given and accepted, has no other foundation. It is note¬ 
 worthy that the fifth chapter, from which this idea is carried 
 over, describes all this in the third person; whereas the sixth 
 chapter describes it in the first person, and from our own share 
 in it. 
 
 It is also said in this section, that our old man is crucified, 
 or co-crucified, with Him. The entire section of which this is 
 a part, is to be regarded not as hortatory, but as the simple 
 statement of fact; it does not set forth anything done by us, 
 but something done on our account, or for our sake, by a Surety, 
 in whose performance we participate. But, it may be asked, 
 may we not hold with the great body of expositors, from the 
 Beformation downwards, that these varied expressions designate 
 two separate classes of actions,—one done by Christ, and a 
 similar or parallel one by us,—and that the phraseology must be 
 taken in two different senses as used respecting Christ, and as 
 used respecting us ? Ho ; the expressions are not to be taken 
 in a proper sense as applied to Christ, and in a figurative sense 
 as applied to us. The acts are not two, but one, described 
 from two different points of view. There is not one crucifixion 
 on the part of Christ, and a second, parallel and similar but 
 different, crucifixion on the part of His people. There is but 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 165 
 
 one corporate act, as we noticed in tlie previous chapter,—the 
 act of one for many. 1 
 
 But what is the OLD man that is said to be co-crucified with 
 the Lord ? Does not this refer to inward corruption ? Though 
 commentators have long expounded it in this way with a sort of 
 common consent, such an explanation is untenable, as it would 
 make the expression synonymous with the next clause, and 
 thus not only yield a bald tautology, but give an instance of 
 inept reasoning; for the one clause is made the ground or con¬ 
 dition of the other. The old man is crucified, in order that 
 the body of sin, or sin within us as an organic body, might be 
 destroyed, Now there must be a difference between the two 
 clauses, as-the former is in order to attain the latter. The old 
 man said to be crucified with Christ, is therefore our old per¬ 
 sonality, or Adamic standing, which is terminated that we 
 may have a new relationship to God in the crucified Surety; a 
 privilege which lays the foundation also for the destruction 
 of inherent corruption. But these two (ver. 12)—person and 
 nature—are not to be confounded; nor will the apostle’s reason¬ 
 ing admit any comment which confounds them. 2 
 
 But, to bring the matter more fully home to the mind of 
 his readers, the apostle says we were baptized into His 
 death (ver. 3). The Lord, in the historic outline of His death, 
 is presented to us as laden with sin, and satisfying divine 
 justice; and baptism, as a symbolical representation, exhibits 
 our connection with Him, or participation in that great cor¬ 
 porate act which was in the room of all His people. We are 
 supposed to have done what He did, and to have undergone 
 what He underwent, to satisfy divine justice. The symbol 
 
 1 The notion of two acts, similar hut separate, has led commentators and 
 practical writers into a labyrinth of mysticism, which cannot he put into intelli¬ 
 gible words. See the modern German exegetes as examples. 
 
 2 The want of this distinction is the source of most of the modern theological 
 confusion. The Reformers drew the line between justification and sanctification. 
 Later divines called the two the relative and real, the forensic and inherent. 
 But whatever name is used for the objective and subjective, we must maintain 
 this distinction, or confound everything. 
 
166 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 of baptism showed this, and the apostle recalls the fact that 
 it was a baptism into His death, an emblem of oneness 
 with Christ, or fellowship with Him in His death to sin (ver. 
 10 ). 
 
 But when it is said that we were co-planted with Him IN 
 the likeness of His death, it may be asked, does not this seem 
 to run counter to all that has been said as to the one corporate 
 representative act of Christ ? If mention is made of the like¬ 
 ness of His death, does not this seem to intimate two acts,—one 
 on Christ’s side, and one on ours ? Does not this take away 
 our attention from the objective act of substitution, to some¬ 
 thing more mystical in human experience analogous to the 
 work of Christ ? By no means. It is one act and one atone¬ 
 ment in the room of sinners to which all these terms refer. 
 And the expression, “ in the likeness of His death,” seems to be 
 an allusion to baptism as an emblem, likeness, or symbolical 
 representation. 1 The connection of the two verses, we think, 
 proves this. 
 
 But another thought to be noticed is, that the oneness with 
 Jesus in His death, or the co-dying with Him, secured the 
 ulterior end of life. The death was the price of the life. 
 The one was the cause, the other was the unfailing reward or 
 consequence. We must put these two in juxtaposition. 
 
 First, then, all the above-named expressions, and others 
 similar to them, point to a discharge from a hard master. That 
 master is sin, which is described through' these two chapters 
 as a mighty potence, or tyrant, that entered into the world 
 by one man, and reigned over the human race. This is more 
 than a personification, more than a figure of speech, for the 
 apostle is struggling to express a relation where human analo¬ 
 gies break down. He has no term by which to describe it 
 but the power of a potentate, or of a master, over his slave. 
 By death this yoke is broken, according to the language of Job : 
 
 1 J. Alting, in liis valuable Commentary, proposes tliis exposition on Rom. 
 vi. 5. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 167 
 
 “ There the wicked cease from troubling; and the servant is 
 free from his master” (Job iii. 19). The apostle declares that 
 not only was the death of Christ a substitution in our room, 
 but that, in consequence of its being a definite and express 
 substitution, we may be said to have done what He did. And, 
 in virtue of our oneness with Him, we are discharged from 
 sin as a master. 
 
 But this secures life ; for this life is the fruit, effect, or 
 reward consequent on the former. If the Christian died with 
 Christ, he will also live with Him, by a bond as sure as that 
 which obtains between antecedent and consequent, between 
 Christ’s own death and resurrection. If we died with Him, 
 we believe that we shall also live with Him (ver. 8). But if 
 that is so,—if Christians live with Christ as surely as they died 
 with Him,—it follows that their life can no longer be devoted 
 to sin, but to God, as was the life of Christ. They have fellow¬ 
 ship with the Lord in His resurrection-life, a participation of 
 the same holy life that the Lord lives in heaven, and cannot, 
 therefore, surrender themselves to a course of sin. 
 
 How this is the grand answer to the current cavil or objec¬ 
 tion to the doctrines of grace mentioned at the beginning of 
 the chapter. The apostle, in refutation of it, appeals to the 
 deepest principles in the moral government of God. He proves 
 that Christ’s vicarious death, for the satisfaction of divine 
 justice, and for the annihilation of sin, opens a way for the 
 entrance of a new reign of life. He makes it indubitably 
 evident that Christ’s own resurrection-life, which comes in to 
 renovate and transform humanity, renders a life of sin, or a 
 continuance in sin, impossible. Motives may go far; and 
 they, too, are called into exercise. But this is a sphere im¬ 
 mensely elevated above the power of mere motives. The 
 life of Christ enters to renew mankind, and to secure 
 
 HOLINESS. 
 
 YI. A further testimony, of much weight on the doctrine of 
 the atonement, is as follows: For what the law could not do, in 
 
168 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in 
 the likeness of sinful flesh [better, in the likeness of the flesh of 
 sin], and for sin [better, as a sin-offering'] condemned sin in the 
 flesh ; that the righteousness of the law might he fulfilled in us, 
 who walk not after the flesh, hut after the Spirit (Rom. viii. 3). 
 The apostle had stated at the commencement of the chapter, 
 that, notwithstanding the indwelling sin which still adheres to 
 11 s, and which he described in the previous chapter (vii. 15-25), 
 there is no condemnation to the Christian; and then he sub¬ 
 joins the text under our notice as the ground of the non- 
 condemnation, and of the deliverance from the law of sin and 
 death. The passage amounts to this, that there is NO condem¬ 
 nation, because sin has been condemned in Christ’s flesh, 1 
 and the approved fulfilment of the law is laid to our account. 
 The following elements of the atonement come to light in this 
 passage:— 
 
 1. The source of the atonement is traced to God the Father 
 having a Son to send. The language emphatically declares 
 that the whole atonement owed its origin to God as its source, 
 and that it must be read off from the act of the Father as 
 sending His Son to offer it. It emanated from God as its 
 fountain; for it could not have been extorted from Him had 
 He not spontaneously devised and executed it. And as He 
 was the source from whom it came, so was He the authority 
 by whom it was accepted as a complete satisfaction. What 
 was prepared by God, must of necessity be acceptable to 
 Him. 
 
 2. The person by whom the redemption-work was finished, 
 was the eternal Son, His own Son, His proper Son. This 
 title indicates not only filiation, but true and proper Godhead; 
 for He is the Son of God in a unique sense, not by adoption, 
 not by incarnation, not by resurrection, but by an eternal act 
 
 of generation, in consequence of which He is designated the 
 
 * 
 
 1 The two expressions, oii^lv xccTcixpipuz and xarixpivi rbv otpunpr'itzv, must he seen 
 together. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 1G9 
 
 only-begotten Son. And the influence of the divine nature of 
 the Lord on His whole atoning work is not obscurely indicated: 
 it was the work of a divine person, and owed to this its bound¬ 
 less value and dignity. Thus the Lord Jesus, in his redemp¬ 
 tion-work, cannot be regarded as mere man, but as God-nran, in 
 whom both natures concurred at every step to the production 
 of a joint result. The work is thus one, because the person is 
 one. It was the deity of God’s Son that gave His redemption- 
 work a value which is altogether infinite ; and, thus viewed, we 
 find that it not only emanated from God, but was consummated 
 by the workmanship of Him who was God. 
 
 3. The Son of God was sent in the likeness of sinful 
 flesh; that is, of the flesh 1 of sin. This expression must be 
 carefully investigated, lest we should either err by overstate¬ 
 ment, or come short of its meaning by defect of statement. It 
 goes very deep, but we must be careful to fathom it. One 
 thing is self-evident: the language must be understood as 
 affirming the true incarnation of the Son of God, and as ascrib¬ 
 ing to Him a real humanity, in contrast with every Docetic or 
 phantom theory of His becoming man. And further, the union 
 of Godhead and manhood in the one person of the eternal Son 
 carried with it this consequence, that it must needs be sinless 
 humanity, inasmuch as the Son of God could not have united 
 to Himself anything sinful. By the operation of the Holy 
 Ghost, His humanity, which never for an instant existed apart 
 from the divine person of the Son, was generated pure; like 
 sinful flesh indeed, but not sinful flesh. And this was secured 
 by the fact, that though He took His flesh from Adam through 
 the Virgin, He never was in Adam’s covenant, but the second 
 Adam, the restorer. He was a kinsman-Bedeemer, to be within 
 the pale of our humanity; but He neither derived any taint 
 of mind or body by transmission from Adam, nor contracted 
 any guilt for which He was personally responsible. 
 
 1 iv opoiupan <rctpxo$ ccpapTixi ; on wllich Chrysostom says, ovh s ykp oc/xex,pruXov 
 cru.pxa. up^iv. 
 
170 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 The import of the expression we are considering is not 
 exhausted, however, by the idea of a bare incarnation, or His 
 becoming man. That, of course, lies at the foundation of the 
 whole; but there is a further thought, which cannot be ex¬ 
 cluded. The statement that He was sent in the likeness of 
 sinful flesh, implies that between Him and other men no per¬ 
 ceptible difference could be traced; that as to personal appear¬ 
 ance, in weakness and exhaustion, in infirmity and weariness, 
 in sorrow and mortality, He was in all respects made like unto 
 His brethren. The language intimates that He entered into 
 the human family poor and despised, hungry and thirsty, 
 subject to the ordinary toils of labour in an earthly calling, 
 and to the fatigue consequent upon it; a man of sorrows, and 
 acquainted with grief; not exempt from the fear of death nor 
 from actual mortality. In short, He came within the circle of 
 humanity, and into all that this entailed, so far as it could be 
 experienced by One who was at once sinless man and the 
 beloved Son of God. But several observations are here neces¬ 
 sary to put this matter in its proper light, which is rarely, if 
 ever, expounded with all the fulness and precision which are 
 necessary. 
 
 a. We are not to consider the Lord as assuming this like¬ 
 ness to the flesh of sin in a mere arbitrary way, and without 
 sufficient cause. It is not enough to say that He assumed this 
 likeness to fallen humanity for no reason at all, or merely for 
 the purpose of being like His brethren. Though His partici¬ 
 pation in our nature, in its sufferings and temptations, qualified 
 Him to sympathize with us, and fitted Him to be a merciful 
 and faithful High Priest (Heb. ii. 17), we are not warranted to 
 conclude that this was all the reason for which He was sent 
 in the likeness of sinful flesh. He was found in fashion as a 
 man, and in the likeness of a sinful man, so that no difference 
 could be discovered between His flesh, which was sinless, and 
 that of other men, who are sinful. 
 
 b. We are not to regard the Lord as deriving those sinless 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 171 
 
 infirmities by transmission from Adam or from His mother 
 by the necessity of nature. They were by no means an in¬ 
 evitable accompaniment of the incarnation, or of wearing our 
 humanity. Mortality, which some suppose to be all that is 
 meant by the phrase under consideration, was not a necessary 
 adjunct of assuming our humanity, any more than were the 
 heaviness and agony, the sorrows and fainting, the tears, trials, 
 and temptations, by which He was made like unto His brethren. 
 They could not come upon Him in any other way than sin 
 came upon Him. They came upon Him, not as a personal 
 legacy by derivation or transmission from the first man, or from 
 the fact of His entering into our world, but simply on the 
 ground of His voluntary Suretyship. They were in His case 
 the consequences and effects of sin, but of sin not His own, 
 and merely borne by imputation. In other words, He was the 
 curse-bearer because He was the sin-bearer. 
 
 c. We cannot regard sin as attaching to the earthly life of 
 Christ. A certain class of crude divines, who know neither 
 what they say nor whereof they affirm, have of late been assert¬ 
 ing a modification of Irvingism, to the effect that sin belongs, 
 so to speak, to that life in which Christ knew no sin, and that 
 He has “ done with sin in having done with the life to which 
 sin belonged.” 1 The great error of Irving, who maintained 
 that our Lord assumed fallen flesh, was precisely similar. 
 But from this it would follow that the mortality and sorrows, 
 the temptations and trials to which He was subjected, fell 
 upon Him by the necessity of nature, not by substitution or 
 voluntary Suretyship. That supposition subverts the very 
 principle of substitution, which takes for granted that a sinless 
 person, with a complete exemption from sin and all its conse¬ 
 quences, spontaneously entered into the position and responsi- 
 
 1 In this crude style do many Plymouthists express themselves (see Darby’s 
 Girdle of Truth, p. 298 ; and MHntosh, Synopsis, iii. p. 454) ; not apprehend¬ 
 ing that if Christ was personally in Adam’s covenant, He could not have been 
 a Mediator for others ; for He would not have been without personal guilt and 
 corruption. 
 
172 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 bilities of the sinner. The crude theory to which we have 
 
 ♦ 
 
 referred, is contradicted by the entire provisions and arrange¬ 
 ments of the incarnation. The Lord Jesus never was in Adam’s 
 covenant, but came as the second Adam, the counterpart of 
 the first; and His entrance into humanity by the supernatural 
 conception, was meant to obviate the imputation of Adam’s 
 first sin, as well as the transmission of any of its consequences 
 by the necessity of nature. He was personally exempt, both 
 as the incarnate Son and as the second man, from all the guilt, 
 as well as from all the consequences connected with the guilt, 
 of the first Adam. He was within the human family as a 
 kinsman-Bedeemer, and not outside its pale; but that was all 
 which His incarnation as such, or simply considered, properly 
 involved. To suppose that sin, or any of its consequences, 
 attached to the person of the Lord by the fact of assuming our 
 humanity or entering into human life, is a lamentable confusion 
 of idea. It perplexes and disorganizes everything ; it confounds 
 things that differ. 
 
 The personal and the official in the life of Jesus must 
 always be distinguished. These can never be merged in each 
 other, without the most mischievous and fatal issues. The 
 personal relation is one thing, the official is another. The 
 former brings Christ before us as a divine person, and calls 
 attention to a sinless humanity,—that is, to a humanity ac¬ 
 cording to its idea or normal condition; and if the mediation 
 on which He entered had not involved the propitiation for 
 sin as well as the obedience originally devolved on man as 
 man, the Lord Jesus would doubtless have appeared in a 
 noble humanity, in the same humanity, at least, as that which 
 Adam possessed before the fall. But this could not be on 
 account of the problem to be solved. At present, all I wish is 
 to show that, in our conceptions, the personal must be dis¬ 
 tinguished from the official. The personal relation of Jesus 
 possessed a full immunity from the imputation of guilt, and 
 from inherent taint in every form. The personal underlies the 
 
TIIE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 173 
 
 official; and if we should suppose that sin attached in any 
 sense to the person of the Lord, or to the human life in which 
 He came, He would have been incapacitated for His work of 
 mediation and vicarious obedience. There could have been no 
 substitution in our room and stead. 
 
 This will enable us to understand the words, “ in the like¬ 
 ness of sinful flesh.” The expression points to the effects of 
 which sin was the cause, but sin not His own. The conse¬ 
 quences resulting from the imputation of sin to Jesus were 
 such, that He was in all points made like the brethren, or sent 
 in the likeness of the flesh of sin; that is, subject to suffering 
 and mortality, as if there had been no difference between man¬ 
 kind and Him. And when we call to mind what we have 
 elsewhere proved, that He was the sin-bearer from the moment 
 of assuming our humanity, we have at hand a ready explana¬ 
 tion of the otherwise inexplicable fact, that He came among 
 men as if He were one of them, exposed to sorrow and tempta¬ 
 tion, suffering and death. His human nature never existed 
 apart from personal union to the Son of God, nor apart from 
 sin-bearing; and hence He appeared in the likeness of the 
 flesh of sin, not by a mere arbitrary assimilation to us men, 
 but because He bore in His own body the weight of imputed 
 sin; a fact which gave rise by legitimate consequence to such 
 results. . „ 
 
 The apostle states that God, in preparing a body for Christ, 
 sent Him in a humanity, not such as it was in a state of 
 integrity, when it was beautiful and glorious, but in a form 
 such as it now is, viz., as bearing the sad marks of sin. Thus 
 no perceptible difference appeared between His nature and 
 ours, not because precisely the same flesh was transmitted to 
 Him that goes down from Adam to his posterity, but because 
 He took upon Him, by voluntary Suretyship, that load of im¬ 
 puted guilt, which carried in its penal consequences all that 
 He endured of abasement and heaviness, temptation, suffering, 
 and mortality. It was still, however, officially assumed, not 
 
174 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 personally inherited. It was sin not His own; and it was a 
 humiliation and a cruel crucifixion to which He submitted, not 
 because He must, but because He was pleased so to do. In 
 a word, He was so like the flesh of sin when found in fashion 
 as a man, so tempted in all points like as we are, that no 
 difference was perceptible to any eye. That humanity so 
 abased, and suffering from the effects of sin, must have been 
 a vast humiliation for such a person, may easily be supposed. 
 Yet God sent His Son to wear humanity in such a form; and 
 the reason of all this is immediately subjoined, as we have next 
 to notice. 
 
 4. The words, for sin, or, more correctly, sin-offering, 
 connected with the words on which we have been commenting, 
 convey this meaning, that He came in the likeness of sinful 
 flesh because He was a sin-offering or a sin-bearer. The first 
 Adam, ushered into a world without sin, was provided with a 
 nobler body. The second Adam, immensely greater than he, 
 came among men from another sphere, and showed Himself in 
 the likeness of the flesh of sin, in meanness and abasement. 
 Some limit the likeness of sinful flesh to this, that He was 
 subject to suffering and death. But while these elements are 
 unquestionably included as important ingredients, they are not 
 all, nor do they exhaust the apostolic idea. 
 
 The expression, for sin, is by some regarded as denoting 
 that Christ was cruelly put to death, or treated with sinful 
 malice and insult. But such a comment cannot be made even 
 exegetically plausible; the words will not bear it. Another 
 comment is to the effect that He was sent on account of sin, 
 as the cause which weighed with God to send Him. The 
 meaning, on this supposition, will be, that God intended to 
 punish sin by means of Christ; and but for such a design, it 
 might have been thought that He was visited with suffering 
 without sufficient cause. This is a tenable comment. But of 
 all the interpretations, by far the most natural is the mode of 
 construing which refers the words to the sin-offering, or to an 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 175 
 
 atoning sacrifice. In confirmation of this, we find tlie phrase 
 so used in the Epistle to the Hebrews 1 (Heb. x. 6), and in the 
 Septuagint version of Isaiah, where Christ’s soul is said to he 
 given as an offering for sin (Isa. liii. 10), as well as in many 
 other places in the same version (Lev. iv. 35, v. 6, vi. 17). 
 The sense will he as follows:—By such a sacrifice for sin, the 
 sacrifice of His own body, though He owed nothing, and was 
 under no liability, He condemned sin in the flesh. As Christ 
 is elsewhere directly and by implication called a sacrifice, I do 
 not see that there ought to be any doubt whether this is the 
 meaning of the Pauline expression. Besides, on this expla¬ 
 nation, everything will be found to fall into proper order in 
 the structure of the sentence, without any ellipsis or any word 
 to be supplied: it will be construed with what precedes, not 
 with what follows. The only objection that can be made to 
 this interpretation is, that the passage does not make mention 
 of Christ’s death, but of His mission. But there can be no 
 objection on that ground : for we often find similar phrases in 
 connection with the propitiation of Christ, the sending being 
 for the sake of the death, and comprehending it (1 John iv. 
 9-10). We hold, then, that the expression denotes a propi¬ 
 tiatory sacrifice, a sin-offering. 
 
 5. But it is added, that by this means God condemned sin 
 in the flesh. To apprehend the meaning of this phrase, it 
 must be noticed that sin is still personified, as it was in the 
 three previous chapters. The apostle speaks of sin entering 
 into the world, and reigning over the human family as a 
 potence, monarch, or cruel master (Bom. v. 12, 17), and as 
 exercising an authority, from which we are legitimately rescued 
 only by a death to sin (Bom. vi. 2). The reason of this peculiar 
 phraseology may be, that a distinction can be drawn between 
 
 1 Uspi upxprtus, sin-offering. Origen interpreted it piacular sacrifice. Tlie 
 great Lutheran divines, for a time, also took this view of the phrase here,— 
 Melancthon, Chemnitz {Ex. Cone. Trid. i. 141), Baldnin, Spener {die Evan- 
 gelische Glaubens-gerechtigkeit, p. 600). 
 
176 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 the man and the sin which enslaves him; God condemning the 
 man, not as His workmanship, hut as he has sin. Sin destroys 
 the person, and being therefore much like a person, is capable 
 of being personified. From the passage where he first spoke 
 of its entrance (v. 12), up to this point, the apostle has been 
 personifying sin; and hence we have no warrant to take the 
 word sin in any other acceptation in the passage before us. 
 We must still regard sin in this passage as the potentate that 
 has held the human family under his power. But when Christ 
 was sent by the Father to engage with this enemy, He over¬ 
 came him, judged, and condemned him. 
 
 But we have next to notice how God condemned sin. The 
 same personification as was before used, is still continued. 
 Sin is spoken of as a person judged at a higher tribunal, and 
 righteously condemned. In consequence of this, he has no 
 further claim to those over whom he had previously tyrannized, 
 for they'are now set free. Ho other signification can be attached 
 to the word condemned but such as is identical with the mean¬ 
 ing of the word in the first clause of the chapter; for the no¬ 
 condemnation which believers enjoy, is based on the condem¬ 
 nation of sin, which was accomplished in the flesh of Christ. 
 
 The question, indeed, as to the flesh, in which sin is said 
 to have been condemned, is variously answered by different 
 interpreters. But the connection decides that the allusion is 
 to the human flesh assumed by Christ; that is, to the same 
 person of whom he had said that He was sent in the likeness 
 of sinful flesh. The apostle plainly refers to the flesh of Christ, 
 and intimates that God condemned sin on Him as the sinless 
 sin-offering. He satisfied the divine claims, partly by His 
 perfect obedience,—that is, by what the Son of God, as sent 
 into the world, rendered in our room,—partly by bearing the 
 curse of the law,—in a word, by sinless sin-bearing ; which 
 may be taken as the descriptive formula for the atonement. 
 And in consequence of this vicarious work, sin was condemned 
 in His flesh, and lost its power over us. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE KOMANS. 
 
 177 
 
 But there are two ways in which this allusion to the 
 condemnation of sin has been expounded. Some less accu¬ 
 rately explain the expression in a more subjective sense, viz. of 
 abolishing, or eradicating sin. 1 That cannot be accepted as the 
 meaning of the word, which has always a judicial idea. Hence, 
 others more happily take the term in its proper meaning, as 
 denoting that God judicially condemned sin in the flesh of 
 Christ, when He offered Himself as a sin-offering. The term, 
 wherever we find it, intimates a judicial sentence (Bom. ii. 1, 
 v. 18). In short, it is a condemnation that frees us from con¬ 
 demnation, the sentence being executed on our Surety (Gal. 
 iii. 13; 1 Pet. ii. 24). The language denotes that Jesus was 
 visited with penal suffering, because He appeared before God 
 only in the guise of our accumulated sin; not therefore as a 
 private individual, but as a representative, sinless in Himself, 
 but sin-covered, loved as the Son, but condemned as the sin- 
 bearer, in virtue of that federal union between Him and His 
 people, which lay at the foundation of the whole. Thus God 
 condemned sin in His flesh, and in consequence of this there is 
 no condemnation to us. 
 
 The apostle furthermore states all this as a result which 
 the law could do nothing to effect. And as to the philological 
 construing of the sentence, the first part of the verse may be 
 fitly placed in apposition with the whole statement, in the 
 following simple way: “ A thing impossible 2 for the law, in 
 that it was weak through the flesh.” 
 
 6. The last point to be mentioned is, that Christ was made 
 the sin-offering, and condemned sin in the flesh, for this further 
 
 1 This subjective exposition, proposed by the Socinians, has latterly found 
 support from many evangelical divines ; but it cannot be vindicated, because 
 xccrtxpivt has a forensic meaning, and no example can be adduced to prove that 
 it means to abolish, apart from a judicial sentence. 
 
 2 There are three modes of construing the sentence. Luther resolved it, 
 What the law could not do, God did ; Winer makes it an anakolouthon ; Fritzsche, 
 followed by Philippi, makes ro aSuvxrov rou v'opov, as apposition to the whole sen¬ 
 tence, thus: a thing [or, the thing ] impossible for the law. The last is the simplest, 
 and most natural. 
 
 M 
 
178 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 object, THAT THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE LAW MIGHT BE FUL¬ 
 FILLED in us. That is so like another expression of the same 
 apostle, that the two passages may fitly be compared for mutual 
 elucidation (2 Cor. v. 21). This expression cannot be referred 
 to any inward work of renovation; for no work or attainment of 
 ours can with any propriety of language be designated a “ fulfil¬ 
 ling of the righteousness of the law.” The words, “ the righteous¬ 
 ness of the law,” are descriptive of Christ’s obedience as the work 
 of one for many (Rom. v. 18). This result is delineated as the 
 end contemplated by Christ’s incarnation and atonement, and in¬ 
 timates that as He was made a sin-offering, so are we regarded as 
 fulfillers of the law. The one was with a view to the other (jfm). 
 And when the righteousness of the law is said to be fulfilled IN 
 us, the meaning is that it belongs to us, and is applied to us in 
 consequence of that union by which Christ abides in us, and we 
 in Him. 1 It is fulfilled in us, as if we had done it all ourselves. 
 
 VII. Another passage on the atonement is to this effect: 
 If God bo for us, who can be against us ? He that spared not 
 His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not 
 with Him also freely give us all things ? Who shall lay anything 
 to the charge of God's elect ? It is God that justifietli; who is 
 he that condemnetli ? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is 
 risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh 
 intercession for us (Rom. viii. 31-34). Here the apostle ex¬ 
 tols the privileges of those who are completely freed from 
 condemnation by the atonement. And when we analyze these 
 triumphant questions, which follow each other in rapid suc¬ 
 cession, we perceive that the atonement is a real transaction, 
 furnishing the fullest security for real persons. Beholding 
 enemies and opposition on every side, the apostle confidently 
 defies them, on the ground that God is for us (ver. 31). But 
 that challenge is based upon another statement which connects 
 the Christian’s safety with the atonement (ver. 32). 
 
 1 This is the exposition of the best Lutheran divines of the post-Reformation 
 age—Calovius, Spener, and others ; of Jacomb, Brown of Wampliray, etc. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE EOMANS. 
 
 179 
 
 Before entering on the explanation of the clauses, it is 
 necessary to define the import of the words, His own Son. 
 These words carry with them the idea of a proper Son, of a 
 Son according to divine relationship prior to His incarnation; 
 and every one who reads the words without prepossession, and 
 with a simple desire to find out the meaning of the writer, is 
 naturally led to refer them to the divine Sonship. The apostle’s 
 expression is intended to bring out two things: on the one 
 hand, the strong love-relation which the Bather occupied to 
 the person of the Mediator ; and, on the other hand, the infinite 
 dignity and value attaching to whatever was done by the Son 
 * of His love. Furthermore, to apprehend the thought here 
 brought before us, and how the Son is said to be delivered, it 
 must be noted that we cannot suppose the three divine persons 
 in the Godhead without any natural order of being, of willing, 
 and of working; for the Bather is said to have given the Son, 
 and evinced His infinite love by giving Him. We cannot 
 suppose that the second person assumed our nature merely by 
 compact or agreement, without any relation of natural order; 
 for such a notion would be out of harmony with the entire 
 language of Scripture, which always represents the Bather as 
 sending His Son, or the first person as giving the second. 1 The 
 love to sinners discovered in redemption is thus seen in its first 
 origin in the Bather. 
 
 Next, the scope of the apostle’s argument, and the nature 
 of it, must be distinctly traced. It is an argument from the 
 greater to the less; the same style of reasoning of which we 
 have already had some striking examples in this epistle (Bom. 
 v. 9, 10). The argument is, that He who gave the greater, will 
 certainly give the less; that He whose love surmounts the 
 greatest difficulties, will not be baffled by what comparatively 
 is much less arduous. And He amplifies the infinite love of 
 God to make the cogency of the reasoning the stronger and 
 more forcible. When God gave His Son for us, the expression 
 
 1 See Vitringa’s Latin and Dutch replies to Roellius on Christ’s Sonship. 
 
180 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 undoubtedly means that He gave Him for our good, for our 
 advantage. But the inquiry still remains : In what sense, and 
 with what peculiar force, are we to understand that the death 
 of Christ was for our good ? Was it so by example, doctrine, 
 or instruction ? or was it because He died a vicarious death 
 when we should have died,—a punishment in the place of those 
 who must otherwise have perished ? That is a point to be 
 decided by other elements and expressions that enter into the 
 description of His death; and they have already been under 
 our examination in other passages. The giving up of the Son 
 of God, here referred to, certainly does not mean for our benefit, 
 in a vague and indefinite sense; for the inference deduced 
 from it, that all things will be conferred along with Christ, 
 plainly refers to the idea of substitution. Did not many pious 
 men in the Jewish nation give themselves for the good of their 
 countrymen ? Were not many prophets .and righteous men 
 slain ? But of whom was it ever said that their sufferings 
 were the means of all other blessings that were conferred on 
 others ? On the contrary, the blood of Abel and of all the 
 martyrs rather cried for vengeance. But here it is said that 
 with Christ crucified all good things were conferred. 
 
 In this passage there is first a statement of fact, and then 
 an argument founded upon it. It is the statement of fact ex¬ 
 hibiting the source, nature, and scope of the atonement, with 
 which we have to do. The great argument practically deduced 
 from it, supplies an inexhaustible ground of confidence and 
 expectation. 
 
 1. The first thing in the statement of fact is : “ God spared 
 not His own Son.” This expression occurs several times 1 in 
 the Hew Testament with an allusion to punishment. Thus it 
 is said of the Jews, that God spared not the natural branches 
 (Bom. xi. 21); of the angels that sinned, that God spared them 
 not, but cast them down to hell (2 Bet. ii. 4); and of the old 
 world, that God spared not the old world, but saved Hoah 
 1 See De Haas, over Romemen, v. tot. viii. 1793. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 181 
 
 (2 Pet. ii. 5). The expression, as applied to the Son of God, 
 means that God did not withhold Him, the constituted surety 
 of others, from the abasement and suffering which must needs 
 be borne in the execution of His function, but dealt with Him 
 according to strict justice. Though essentially a divine person, 
 He is here considered as the Son of God assuming our nature 
 with the sin and punishment which are properly ours. Hence, 
 notwithstanding the infinite and eternal love with which He 
 was regarded as the Son, and which never could be lowered or 
 withdrawn, God spared Him not. He was at once loved and 
 not spared, according to the twofold relation which belonged to 
 Him, as the Son of God and as man’s surety. There is nothing 
 incongruous in this. He was, on the one hand, the object of love 
 as the Son of God, and also as the sinless fulfiller of the law (John 
 x. 17). But, on the other hand, He was the object of punitive 
 visitation, and not spared, as the surety and the sin-bearer. 
 
 The words here used seem intended to recall the human 
 analogy in the case of Abraham, and certainly suggest that it 
 was a sort of violence to the Pather-love of God when He 
 spared Him not. What does this presuppose ? It assumes 
 that He would have spared His Son had He wished to execute 
 upon us the punishment we had incurred. He would have 
 spared His Son, and removed the cup of suffering from Him, 
 had He not purposed to confer upon us all conceivable good. 
 But, in love to us, He spared not His own Son. He removed 
 not the cup from Him, that it might never be presented to us. 
 This scripture connects the Christian’s safety under divine pro¬ 
 tection with the fact that God spared not His own Son,—a 
 phrase which implies that He spared not the Surety, that He 
 might rescue us. 
 
 The second thing in the statement of fact is: “ God de¬ 
 livered 1 up His Son.” This is not precisely synonymous with 
 the former, nor quite the same as the expression, “ He gave 
 
 1 See J. Alting on the passage, and his proof that this comprehends a de¬ 
 livering over by God to human violence. 
 
182 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 His only-begotten Son” (John iii. 16); at least there is a 
 shade of difference. In the phrase before us, there is the fur¬ 
 ther idea that the supreme God delivered Him into the hands 
 of men, to be treated as if in reality He were the malefactor 
 which they represented Him to be. This delivery into the 
 hands of sinners has already been explained by us (Acts ii. 23). 
 Judas and the high priest, with the council, were concerned 
 in it; but there was a hand above theirs, and there is nothing 
 to prevent us seeing a principal and an instrumental cause. 
 The unworthy instruments of this delivery only sought to 
 gratify their malice; the just Judge acted righteously. Christ 
 was tried and sentenced at a human tribunal, which was but 
 the visible foreground of an invisible trial in which the right¬ 
 eous God was judging righteously, for human guilt was laid 
 upon the person of the Substitute. Tor wise reasons, already 
 noticed, God arranged the events of the atoning sacrifice in 
 such a way that Christ was not to be cut off by the immediate 
 hand of God, but by men who were His hand, and only grati¬ 
 fied their malice against the representative of God. The 
 human judge, who in the most unprecedented way absolved 
 and yet condemned, declared Him faultless and yet passed 
 sentenced against Him, represented in the transaction the 
 Judge of all the earth, who regarded Christ in a similar way. 
 The human judge could only pass a sentence that would affect 
 His body; but another sentence from a higher tribunal took 
 effect upon His soul, and brought home the wrath of God. 
 And under this invisible infliction the Lord experienced agony 
 and desertion; under this He poured forth His complaint, His 
 strong crying and tears, and endured that penal death which 
 rescues us from the second death. 
 
 A further statement is, that the Son of God was delivered 
 up for us ALL. As we have already noticed the substitution 
 underlying the passage, we do not need to return to this, and 
 only further inquire for whom all this was done. They are 
 special persons; but the apostle does not say for all, but for 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE HOMANS. 
 
 183 
 
 US ALL. And when we ask who they were, the obvious answer 
 is, that they were the believing men to whom Paul wrote, and 
 who were joined with himself. They are the same persons in 
 reference to whom the apostle said, “ If God be for us, who 
 can be against us ?” They are the same parties who are de¬ 
 scribed all through the epistle, and specially designated in the 
 context as the predestinated, the called and justified; in a 
 word, they are the true church of God, for whom Christ died. 
 
 It cannot be said that God is for all and every one, since 
 there are many who are without reconciliation, and have Him 
 not as a protector and defender. 1 
 
 2. If such is the statement of fact, the argument based upon 
 
 it is in the highest degree important. It is a form of reasoning 
 
 % 
 
 from the greater to the less—from the stupendous act of God 
 in delivering up His Son, to the lesser blessings which go along 
 with it and are appended to it,—thus: He who gave the greater, 
 will not grudge or withhold the less. The passage, too, takes 
 for granted that the death of Christ altered our relation, 
 making us, of enemies, the friends of God and the objects of 
 divine protection. The argument is: He that did all this for 
 sinners, will not abandon us when friends; He who gave the 
 greater, will not grudge the less. 
 
 The only point further demanding notice is furnished by 
 the striking antithesis : “ Who is he that condemneth ? It is 
 Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again” (ver. 34). 
 This challenge as to its import gives a thought of the same 
 kind with what was considered above at the commencement of * 
 this chapter (Rom. viii. 1, 3). The non-condemnation of the 
 elect—that is, of every one for whom Christ died—is here 
 affirmed in the most emphatic way by this triumphant chal¬ 
 lenge. The justice of God was satisfied for them; and the 
 challenge is : Who can condemn one for whom He died ? In 
 a word, everything concurs to proclaim aloud the vicarious 
 
 1 The explanation of this class of texts is easy, if we consider that the apostle, 
 under the us and we, comprehends the redeemed church of Christ. 
 
184 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 death of Christ for our redemption, and none can condemn 
 them. 
 
 VIII. Other allusions to the atonement, though more in¬ 
 direct and less express in statement, occur in the Epistle to 
 the Eomans. Thus the apostle refers to the connection between 
 the purchase of a people and Christ’s dominion over them 
 when he says, “ Eor to this end Christ both died, and rose, and 
 revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and living” 
 (Eom. xiv. 9). The special reference of the atonement, too, 
 comes to light emphatically in the descriptive name for a 
 Christian—“one for whom Christ died” 1 (Eom. xiv. 15). An¬ 
 other passage may be noticed, containing a quotation from a 
 Messianic psalm: “ The reproaches of them that reproached 
 Thee fell upon me ” (Eom. xv. 4; Ps. lxix. 9). The words 
 contain an allusion to the atonement, from which the ethical 
 precept is enforced, as in many other passages (2 Cor. viii. 9). 
 It is not enough to say with some that the words describe 
 Christ as deeply affected, from the zeal animating Him, with 
 reproaches cast upon God; nor to say that, from the intimate 
 fellowship between Him and the Father, He endured all that 
 was cast on the Father. Nor do the words set forth the pun¬ 
 ishment of blasphemers pronounced on Christ. They rather 
 intimate that sins, bringing dishonour upon God, were in their 
 guilt laid 2 on the Lord Jesus, or so imputed to Him that He 
 bore them in His own body, as if He were guilty and men 
 were innocent. Hence He did not please Himself; and from 
 ' this the apostle enforces conformity to His example (comp. 
 1 Pet. iii. 18). 
 
 1 We shall consider this title of a Christian below, when we come to 1 Cor. 
 viii. 11. 
 
 2 Bengel, who apprehends this passage more profoundly than other com¬ 
 mentators, thus expounds it. See also Hofmanni demonstratio, l.c. 
 
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 185 
 
 SEC. X.—THE TESTIMONY IN THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE 
 
 CORINTHIANS. 
 
 During Paul’s three years’ residence at Ephesus, he learned 
 that doctrinal and practical corruptions, calling for prompt 
 correction, had crept into the recently founded church of 
 Corinth, and he sent from Ephesus (1 Cor. xvi. 8) his first 
 epistle, containing a solemn warning, and a call for the im¬ 
 mediate exercise of discipline (1 Cor. v. 1-5). Peculiar cor¬ 
 rections of various kinds were needed to bring back the 
 disciples to their true position; and in dealing with these 
 abuses, the apostle takes occasion to exhibit the bearings of 
 the atonement in a great variety of lights applicable to their 
 religious condition. He places these corruptions one by one 
 in the light of Christ’s redemption-work, and refutes them 
 from that central truth. 
 
 I. When party-spirit and undue attachment to the in¬ 
 dividual peculiarities or gifts of human teachers were to be 
 corrected, the apostle exhibits the absurdity and self-contra¬ 
 diction of indulging this spirit in the following way: Was 
 Paul crucified for you ? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul 1 
 (1 Cor. i. 13.) He shows the Corinthians that this was a 
 tendency at once incongruous and misplaced in Christianity, 
 because they did not owe their redemption to the ministers by 
 whom they believed; that only One was the true master; 
 and that His unique authority, to which too much deference 
 could never be paid, was based on His redemption-work. 
 Nothing more convincingly shows that the atonement was 
 in its nature different from a martyr’s testimony, and from 
 all mere example or instruction, however this might be con¬ 
 firmed by exposure to peril, or by actually sealing the testi¬ 
 mony with blood. 
 
 The phraseology here used, shows that the meaning con¬ 
 veyed by the expression, Christ was crucified for us, is, that 
 
186 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 He satisfied divine justice in onr stead. As an illustration, the 
 apostle spoke of one man dying for another who was a righteous 
 or good man (Eom. v. 7). Yet, when Christ is said to have 
 been crucified for us, the meaning is, that He by substitution 
 bore our sins, and brought in eternal redemption. This ques¬ 
 tion, Was Paul crucified for you ? contrasting Paul’s work 
 with Christ’s, shows that Christ’s death was for a wholly dif¬ 
 ferent end than can be competently applied to one man’s act 
 for another. We may be required to put life to hazard for 
 the brethren, and to fill up what is behind of the sufferings of 
 Christ (2 Tim. ii. 10 ; Col. i. 24) ; but in what sense ? Hot as 
 dying for their sins, but to confirm the truth of the gospel, and 
 edify the church by a spectacle of stedfastness and constancy; 
 for the Christian rather suffers, than exposes the church to 
 danger. But between sufferings belonging to confessors for the 
 truth, and vicarious sufferings as a propitiation for sins, there 
 is a world-wide distinction. 1 There may be a certain similarity, 
 but no identity, no equality. The expression, “ crucified for 
 us,” intimates something unique and incommunicable, belonging 
 to the work performed by Him who was the one Mediator 
 between God and man. That substitution was competent to 
 Him alone: He redeemed us from eternal death, and the curse 
 of the law. When believers suffer in Christ’s cause, this is a 
 filling up of what is behind of His buffetings from the hand of 
 man, or the fury of Satan stirring up human instruments against 
 those who are engaged in spreading His cause. But the ques¬ 
 tion, “Was Paul crucified for you ?” intimates by contrast, that 
 as to His atoning work, Christ’s sufferings were unique, vica¬ 
 rious, and incommunicable. 
 
 II. The apostle places in the light of the atonement another 
 aberration of the Corinthian church,—the undue admiration of 
 
 1 Turretin, de Satisfactione Christi, p. 97, says happily against Socinus, who 
 expounds the phrase as simply denoting that Christ’s position was only that of 
 priority: ‘ £ Paulus non negat tantum prioritatem ordinis aut gradus, sed rem 
 ipsam tollit tanquam alienam et soli Redemptori . . . propriam.” 
 
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 187 
 
 human eloquence, or the wisdom of words : For Christ sent me 
 not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words , 
 lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the 
 preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto 
 us who are saved it is the power of God (1 Cor. i. 17, 18). Two 
 points are here brought out in connection with the atonement: 
 the simplicity which Paul used in preaching it; and the fact 
 that the preaching of it is the power of God. 
 
 (1.) The reason for simplicity and abstaining from the 
 wisdom of words was, lest the cross of Christ should be made 
 of none effect. Paul neither gratified the Greek passion for 
 eloquence, nor threw into his preaching any powerful rhetoric 
 at his command, and of which these epistles contain several 
 striking examples (1 Cor. xv.); and this he did, lest the gospel 
 should lose its power, lest men should turn their attention from 
 the cross to the words in which it was presented. He did not 
 call in the aid of human philosophy, or the wisdom of words, to 
 make an impression for the gospel, well aware that foreign 
 matter or rhetorical refinement was only subversive of its 
 efficacy, and that it was sufficiently powerful of itself to bring 
 conviction and peace to a human conscience. He abstained 
 from the wisdom of words, lest men should undervalue it, as if 
 it had not power to touch a human heart, but needed eloquence 
 to induce men to receive it. The honour would thus be given 
 to the art, and not to the matter. 1 
 
 (2.) The preaching of the cross was the power of God. 
 This remarkable statement is put alongside of another—that it 
 is to them that perish foolishness. The wise among the Corin¬ 
 thians—that is, philosophic minds attached to some of the 
 famous schools of philosophy—held it was folly to represent 
 the Son of God as dying on the cross; while to the Jews the 
 cross was an offence, because it was, as they thought, incom¬ 
 patible with the pictures of the Messiah’s everlasting reign 
 given in the prophets. Paul declares, notwithstanding all this 
 1 See Mosheim’s Erhldrung of the two epistles to the Corinthians. 
 
188 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 Gentile and Jewish resistance, that he was determined to know 
 nothing and to preach nothing hut a suffering Messiah, exalted 
 indeed to universal dominion, hut whose kingdom was based 
 upon His cross. 
 
 The preaching of the cross was called the power of God, 
 because the announcement of Christ’s atoning death, in its 
 full outline, brought divine power upon the scene, the re¬ 
 newing of man’s nature, the restoration of the divine image 
 once possessed in paradise. The power here mentioned refers 
 not to miraculous accompaniments of the gospel, nor to the 
 omnipotence which brought about the fact of the atonement, 
 but to the power of God displayed in converting and regene¬ 
 rating men where the cross was preached. The gospel con¬ 
 tinues to be the power of God as the instrument by which 
 men dead in sin are raised to spiritual life. An almighty, 
 supernatural power goes along with the word; but with what 
 word, with what message ? With the preaching of that cross, 
 which was, and still is, to so many foolishness. This result 
 is found to follow wherever preaching is connected with the 
 GREAT FACTS OF CHRIST’S ABASEMENT AND ATONING SACRIFICE, 
 as the provision of divine love for the guilty. 1 But only that 
 1 gospel is the power of God which proclaims that the cross 
 was the propitiation for sin, the sole ground of pardon. The 
 proclamation of these great facts continues to produce, as it has 
 always done, transforming results, which are referred to the 
 pow r er of God; for God inhabits that word which is based on 
 the incarnation and the cross. It is the habitation of His 
 power,—it is, as it were, His chariot; all the attributes of God 
 surround it and adorn it (Heb. iv. 12); but let anything else 
 be substituted for the cross, and preaching is denuded of its 
 efficacy, and stripped of this power. 
 
 1 Compare Rom. i. 17, where the gospel is called 'buvapis SioZ ; and Heb. iv. 
 12, where the various attributes of God are connected with God’s word. This 
 fact, that the word and divine power are united together, is one of the most 
 signal proofs that the atonement is accepted and ever valid, for it brings God’s 
 present power upon the scene. 
 
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 189 
 
 III. Another passage in the same context, to correct the 
 same state of mind, is as follows: But of Him are ye in Christ 
 Jesus, who of God is [better, was] made unto us wisdom, and 
 righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. i. 30). 
 The whole section in which these words are found, has Christ 
 crucified for its theme. It is primarily intended to guard the 
 Corinthians from the undue love of human eloquence ; it shows 
 that men partake of Christ, not by the wisdom of words, but 
 by the gift of God. Tour terms are used to describe what 
 the Christ as crucified becomes to His people,—viz., wisdom, 
 righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. The distri¬ 
 bution of them has often been too artificial and out of harmony 
 with the context. Thus many regarded them as descriptive of 
 the threefold office of Christ; wisdom being referred to His 
 prophetical office, righteousness to the priestly office, and the 
 two others to the kingly office. 1 That classification—a most 
 unhappy one—proceeds on a mistake of the meaning. The 
 apostle, throughout the context, is describing Christ crucified: 
 he had called Him, a few verses before, the power of God, and 
 the wisdom of God (1 Cor. i. 24); and in the verses immedi¬ 
 ately after this passage he declares the determination on which 
 he had acted,—to know nothing among them save Jesus 
 Christ, and Him crucified (1 Cor. ii. 2). Certainly, Christ 
 crucified is the theme to which the four terms refer, and this 
 suffices without more formal distribution. 2 The entire passage 
 
 1 See the numerous Latin, Dutch, and German expositions of the Heidel¬ 
 berg Catechism, where this text is quoted, question 18. They adopt almost 
 universally this distribution. 
 
 2 Cocceius and his followers suppose that the words are put in a reversed 
 order ; that redemption, though placed last, is the first in order, or the source; 
 and that from this flows next in order, the regenerating and sanctifying faith by 
 which we axe justified, till we arrive at the wisdom of God. That is more subtle 
 than natural. L. Bos supposes a parenthesis, thus : ( who was made wisdom 
 to us of God ;) and takes the three words, righteousness , sanctification, and re¬ 
 demption, as designations of Christians, instead of saying, fully righteous, holy, 
 and redeemed. Others have given different distributions. See Meyer’s note, 
 though defective, and Prof. A. Butler’s sermon on this text. 
 
190 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 tlius refers to the priestly office of Christ, or to the benefits 
 derived from His cross. 
 
 (1.) Christ was made 1 to ns wisdom. The meaning is, that 
 He was the objective wisdom, in whom are hid all the trea¬ 
 sures of wisdom and knowledge; and that He was so, as the 
 Christ crucified. First the constitution of His person, and next 
 His finished work, peculiarly adapted to meet the wants of 
 man, and to harmonize the attributes of God in man’s redemp¬ 
 tion, discover unsearchable wisdom. Christ crucified was the 
 objective wisdom of God; and the apostle, in dilating on the 
 theme, felt that, though it was disrelished by those who boasted 
 of Greek culture, and an offence to the Jew, he was speaking 
 wisdom among them that were perfect. 
 
 (2.) Christ was made to us righteousness. The previous 
 elucidation of this term enables us to dispense with many 
 remarks. Two things were necessary. On the one hand, we 
 needed to be saved from the guilt of violating the divine law, 
 and from treason against the Divine Majesty; and the right¬ 
 eousness indispensably necessary was found in the second 
 Adam, who subjected Himself to our guilt, and transferred it 
 to His innocent head. He made it His own by suretyship, 
 confessing it in the name of all for whom He appeared, ac¬ 
 counting for it to divine justice, submitting to the penalty, and 
 drinking to the dregs the bitter cup filled with the curse of a 
 broken law. We equally needed, on the other hand, His active 
 obedience, which fulfilled the divine law, and brought in an 
 everduring righteousness. And the Lord Jesus did both eob 
 us. He transferred our sins to Himself as if they were His 
 own, and laid His merits to our account, as if w T e had rendered 
 all His meritorious obedience in our own person. And to make 
 all this available to countless millions, who were to stand in 
 Him as mediator, surety, and kinsman, He was at once very 
 man and very God. 
 
 1 The English version, in rendering iyivridn as a present, has rather obscured 
 the allusion to Christ crucified as the theme. 
 
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 191 
 
 (3.) Christ was made to ns sanctification. This term is 
 closely connected with the former by two Greek particles, 1 
 which show that it is of the same nature, class, and order with 
 the former. Hence it is evident that we must take the term in 
 the only sense in which it can apply to Christ crucified, in the 
 objective acceptation, for that which Christ has been made to 
 us on the ground of His atoning sacrifice, viz. the introducer 
 of sinners to God, the foundation of priestly privilege, the 
 Author of their worship and boldness of approach. The same 
 thought is brought out in the Lord’s words, when He announced 
 that He sanctified Himself for the sake of His disciples that 
 they might be sanctified (John xvii. 19); and in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, where it is said, “Both He that sanctifietli and 
 they who are sanctified are all of one” (Heb. ii. 11). We must 
 go back to the Jewish worshippers, and the severe prohibition 
 against coming before God if not purified according to the pre¬ 
 paration of the sanctuary; for persons defiled were without 
 access, and debarred from fellowship with Jehovah and other 
 worshippers. But, when sprinkled by the blood of sacrifices, 
 they were readmitted to the worship. They were then a holy 
 people. The blood of sacrifice was their sole ground of access. 
 Even so, by means of the one ever valid sacrifice of Calvary, 
 sinners excluded on account of sin have access in worship 
 and boldness to approach a holy God. In that sense Christ 
 crucified was made of God to us sanctification. 
 
 (4.) Christ was made of God to us redemption. The term 
 is to be taken here in the strict sense, denoting that Christ 
 was our objective redemption, who has bought us with a price. 
 It means that He was, in His own person, our Bedeemer and 
 redemption. We shall not enlarge on this word, as it occurs 
 again and again in different connections. It may here suffice 
 to say that Christ is viewed as the objective ground of our 
 
 1 The particles n *«) always unite things as related classes, and the em¬ 
 phasis is thrown on the first. (See Hartung on the Particles, and Hofmann’s 
 Schriftbeweis ; Passow by Rost, and Hand on ts.) 
 
192 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 deliverance from captivity by a valid ransom, and that His 
 active and passive obedience redeemed His people from the 
 penal consequences of their sins. Though many expositors 
 prefer to take this term in the wide sense as referring to final 
 deliverance at the resurrection, that is out of keeping with the 
 context, which refers to Christ crucified. Besides, that accep¬ 
 tation requires some other terms to warrant it (Rom. viii. 23; 
 Eph. iv. 30). 
 
 IV. The church is directed to purge out the leaven of sin 
 by the consideration that Christ, our passover, was an atoning 
 sacrifice: Christ our 'passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let 
 us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of 
 malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity 
 and truth (1 Cor. v. 7, 8). The whole matter is put in an Old 
 Testament guise : the Hew Testament times are compared with 
 the passover feast, the Redeemer with the paschal lamb, the 
 purification of the houses from every particle of leaven with 
 the outward and inward holiness of the Christian church. 
 The entire Hew Testament age, or, more strictly, the entire 
 life of a Christian, is to be nothing else than a keeping of the 
 feast of redemption, in the same way as the passover was the 
 feast of deliverance from Egypt. Christ is presented to us as 
 the antitype of the paschal lamb, and all is traced to His 
 vicarious sacrifice. In noticing this peculiar phrase, sacri¬ 
 ficed for us, it is to be observed that we have not only a 
 distinct allusion to the fact that Christ was sacrificed in the 
 only sense in which a victim could be offered,—that is, as a 
 perfect lamb, and by divine appointment,—but that it was a 
 transaction which, from the nature of the case, involved substi¬ 
 tution. 1 When it was for us, the import is, that it was for 
 our benefit, but only so because, according to the nature of the 
 transaction, it was in our room and stead. Christ, by His 
 
 1 Tnrretin, de Satisfactione Christi (p. 198), says happily: “Si mactari et 
 offerri debuit victim a super altari, nonne et ipse pro nobis Irvin et peccata super 
 lignum tulit ?” (1 Pet. ii. 24; 1 Cor. v. 7.) 
 
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 193 
 
 death, was our deliverance, the true Paschal Lamb slain for 
 us; an expression never used of any merely human teacher 
 or benefactor. If applied to a Paul or Peter, who bore much 
 and suffered much for the church, it would be felt to be in 
 the highest degree incongruous and absurd. It can be used 
 only of a sin-bearing substitute. 
 
 The apostle’s words plainly take for granted that the pass- 
 over was a proper sacrifice, and hence it is called the sacrifice 
 of the Lord’s passover (Ex. xii. 27). It was not a mere 
 symbol of deliverance from Egypt, though connected with 
 their captivity and freedom, but pointed to something special: 
 it lay at the foundation of the separate standing of Israel and 
 of their economy. The sprinkling of the blood on the lintels 
 and door-posts preserved their first-born from the destroying 
 angel on that night of woe to Egypt. The lamb was the sin- 
 bearer; the worshipper, confessing guilt, and acknowledging 
 that no personal innocence of his exempted him from the 
 merited infliction of that divine wrath which the adjoining 
 families experienced, ascribed all to divine grace and to the 
 divinely-appointed passover. It must specially be noticed 
 that paschal blood effected the church’s separation from the 
 world, and made Israel a kingdom of priests. The passover 
 was the foundation-sacrifice which set apart the nation for 
 God, and made them a holy people. It was the passover that 
 drew a clear line of demarcation between the church and the 
 world,—the one being under God’s protection, while the other 
 was left under divine wrath. And from age to age it was 
 this sacrifice of the Lord’s passover that kept up the distinc¬ 
 tion between Israel and the Gentiles, the church and the 
 world. Israel by this means became a peculiar people, a holy 
 nation. They came out and were separate, much in the same 
 way, though with a marked complexional or national variety, 
 as the church of God still stands apart from the world and 
 was redeemed for this end. 
 
 But what were the later celebrations of the passover—the 
 
 N 
 
194 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 repetitions of it in subsequent times ? Were they merely com¬ 
 memorative ? They were much more. 1 The subsequent repe¬ 
 titions of the passover were also sacrificial, and not a mere 
 memorial, as appears from the language used respecting it as 
 a standing institution in Israel (Ex. xxxiv. 25). The offering 
 of it as the Lord’s sacrifice, and the taking of the blood to the 
 altar, prove it not to have been a mere commemoration of a 
 past fact in Egypt. Its annual effect was to continue what 
 had been begun—to keep Israel what they had been appointed 
 to be, the people of God. The repetition only repeated His 
 redeeming act. God was considered as sparing Israel anew 
 from the avenging angel, redeeming them from bondage, and 
 renewing their fellowship with Himself, till the true Passover 
 came that accomplished the types, and terminated them for 
 ever. The annual celebration of the passover preserved Israel 
 to be the people of God, for the first paschal sacrifice was 
 only the first of the series. We may illustrate the first and 
 the subsequent passovers by the analogy of creation and 
 preservation. The latter is a work of God no less than the 
 former, the continuation of what was once begun, but not 
 less requiring the present agency of God. And so important 
 was the passover to Israel, the covenant people, that it not 
 only made them a separate, peculiar, and holy nation, but 
 gave significance to all the other sin-offerings. Ho Jew might 
 neglect it, and no stranger had a part in it. 
 
 Erom this realization of the type in Christ crucified the 
 apostle deduces two things, to which we shall but advert. 
 
 1. The Christian church in general, and every individual 
 believer, are exhorted to keep the feast (ver. 8), and to keep 
 it, not once a year, but constantly. Our entire life is to be 
 the keeping of a redemption festival, the reality of which the 
 deliverance from Egypt was but a type. All our life, nay, the 
 entire period of the Christian church on earth, must be festival 
 
 1 See Hengstenberg’s excellent exposition on tlie passover in his work on 
 Sacrifice, and also on John i. 29 ; also Kliefoth. 
 
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 195 
 
 days,—days of pleasantness and joy, because of the magnitude 
 of those blessings which the atonement conferred on us; for 
 the Son of God was sacrificed that we might keep the feast 
 perpetually, and with festive joy. 1 
 
 2. They ought to purge out the old leaven (ver. 7), that is, 
 have no old leaven of malice and wickedness in the celebra¬ 
 tion of the feast (ver. 8). The apostle interprets the meaning 
 of this arrangement, and exhorts the Corinthian church to the 
 observance of it: to labour for sincerity and unfeigned purity, 
 external and internal, to evince their redemption and separa¬ 
 tion from the world by a holy and blameless life. The image 
 is peculiarly adapted to the matter which the apostle was 
 enforcing — the holiness, internal and external, of the New 
 Testament church. 
 
 V. Some licentious practices had crept into the Corinthian 
 church demanding immediate correction; and it deserves notice 
 that the apostle puts them in the light of Christ’s atonement, 
 exposing their hatefulness as inconsistent with the position of 
 redeemed men: What! know ye not that your body is the temple 
 of the Holy Ghost which is in you , which ye have of God, and ye 
 are not your own ? For ye are [better, were\ bought 2 with a price: 
 therefore glorify God in your body (1 Cor. vi. 19, 20). Three 
 things are contained in this memorable passage, which is of 
 the greatest value on the doctrine of the atonement: (1) The 
 privilege that Christians are the temple of the Holy Ghost, 
 and not unoccupied; (2) they are bought to be another’s, 
 and are not their own; (3) the fact of being bought supplies 
 the most powerful motive for glorifying God. These three 
 apostolic thoughts are thus put together as an argument: A 
 Christian may not surrender himself to impurity, for this reason, 
 that he has become the property of a new master, and is more¬ 
 over under the influence of a new motive, prompting him to 
 
 1 See Calvin’s admirable Commentary ; also Mosheim’s. 
 
 2 Here again the English version is unhappy in its use of a present tense for 
 
 riyopoitrUriri. 
 
196 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 dedicate his life to a holy service. As our task, however, is to 
 develope the doctrine of the atonement, we limit our attention 
 to the scope at which we aim. 
 
 The apostle, in setting forth that we are not our own, an¬ 
 nounces that we are bought, and bought with a price (r/^ 77 ). 
 Though we do not expressly find here the terms ransom and 
 redemption, beyond question the same thought is presented to 
 our minds. The several apostles, as we shall see, with the most 
 perfect uniformity of teaching, compare our deliverance from 
 guilt to a slave’s deliverance from bondage by the payment of a 
 costly price. The underlying thought is captivity, or a state of 
 slavery, under which we are viewed as held; and five distinct 
 ideas are unfolded in the apostles’ phraseology wherever they 
 touch this theme,—viz. the captive, the holder of the captive, the 
 Eedeemer, the price, the receiver of the price. But it is asked, 
 Why was it not an absolute deliverance, when divine love was 
 engaged in this great transaction ? Why did not the God of 
 love simply pronounce our liberation, without a ransom ? No 
 absolute deliverance of this nature is ever alluded to in Scrip¬ 
 ture. Not was a liberation possible without a price or ransom, 
 in consequence of the fact of sin, against which all the divine 
 perfections were arrayed. The unspotted holiness, the inflexible 
 justice and faithfulness of God, as well as the inviolable authority 
 of His law, rendered the liberation of guilty men without a 
 ransom simply impossible. 
 
 When mention is made of a price, and of Christians as 
 bought with a price, the terms plainly enough display the 
 nature, intention, and scope of Christ’s death (comp. Apoc. v. 9). 
 The Lord’s delivery to death was the price by which we were 
 bought. The allusion is to the well-known prevalent custom 
 of classical times, with which the apostle was familiar, by 
 which, on the payment of a price, a slave passed out of the 
 hands of one master into the service of another. The apostle 
 applies the same style to the Christian’s deliverance, or redemp¬ 
 tion from one service to another. He does not here speak of 
 
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 197 
 
 purchased blessings, but of purchased men. In like manner 
 Paul speaks of the church purchased with the blood of Christ 
 (Acts xx. 28). As to the price paid, it is elsewhere sufficiently 
 described, when it is represented as the act of Christ, who 
 gave His life a ransom for many, who gave Himself a ransom 
 for all to be testified in due time (Matt. xx. 28; 1 Tim. ii. 6). 
 If the death of Christ, or His obedience unto death, w r as the 
 price, it must be added that the party bought or purchased 
 are Christians, who in virtue of the ransom pass into another 
 service, and become the property of another owner: “ Ye are 
 not your own.” 
 
 To invalidate this conclusion, various evasions have been 
 proposed by those who object to the doctrine of Christ’s sub¬ 
 stitution. Thus, the Socinians were wont to allege that the 
 expression meant no more than absolute deliverance, without 
 the intervention of any price or ransom. And to give the 
 greater colour to this theory, it was alleged that the words mean 
 no more than that we serve Christ, without taking any ac¬ 
 count of the fact that once we were not Christ’s servants. 1 In 
 a word, they will admit only the metaphorical use of the term. 
 But they cannot prove this. When a word occurs in a proper 
 and in a metaphorical sense, it is obvious that in each case 
 we have to consider which signification is the most natural 
 and admissible. But primarily we must take a term in its 
 proper sense, till we are required on good grounds to admit the 
 figurative sense. Even were we to concede an occasional use 
 of the metaphorical sense of this term by inspired men, it 
 would not follow that in all the passages commonly adduced 
 for redemption by ransom, we are to call in the metaphorical 
 meaning. Besides, there are appended terms which decide 
 the question. We do not argue merely from the words, to 
 redeem, to buy, but take in as further proof the subjoined 
 terms, “ ransom,” “ the precious blood of Christ,” and the like, 
 which amply prove, if anything can, that the deliverance was 
 
 1 That is all that Crellius will see in it. 
 
198 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 not simple or absolute, but on tbe ground of a payment made 
 in our room and stead. In a word, our opinion as to the fact 
 of its being a true and proper redemption is confirmed by texts 
 like tbe present, which make mention of a price. 
 
 In the present instance we have not merely the word 
 bought, but also the additional idea of a price. Hot only so : 
 the apostle’s mode of reasoning from the ransom is of such a 
 nature as to prove that it was no figurative or metaphorical 
 buying to .which he referred. These two clauses, “ And ye are 
 not your own, for ye were bought with a price,” are so linked 
 together, that the latter is adduced as the ground or cause of 
 the former. A price had been paid; and as the reason why 
 we are not our own is that we were bought with a price, 
 nothing could more convincingly prove that this is no figura¬ 
 tive buying, no metaphorical ransom. On the contrary, the 
 ransom or price paid for us makes us another’s property, and 
 not our own. To insist on the metaphorical sense in such a 
 passage, even though it were philologically admissible else¬ 
 where, would make Paul reason absurdly. 
 
 On this text we must take notice of a new and strange 
 comment offered by certain modern writers, who, with many 
 evangelical sentiments, unhappily deny Christ’s satisfaction, 
 or accounting to divine justice in our stead. Admitting the 
 biblical terms ransom and price, they expound them as some¬ 
 thing not given to God with a view to the satisfaction of His 
 law and justice, but graciously conferred on man, the poor, the 
 naked, and the destitute, from the eternal riches of divine mercy. 1 
 That theory is propounded by those who will see nothing but 
 love and moral redemption in the atonement; but it is little 
 better than a fallacious use of Scripture terms, denuding them of 
 their significance. With them, redemption means not deliver¬ 
 ance from guilt and wrath, but liberation from self-will, and a 
 life of self; and this text is made to mean that Christ gave His 
 
 1 So Klaiber, die N.T. Lehre von der Siinde und Erlosung , 1836, p. 456 ; 
 and also R. Stier. 
 
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 199 
 
 precious life merely to liberate us from selfishness, that is, to do 
 a work in us, but not for us. It confounds person and nature, 
 the objective and the subjective, the standing of the man rela¬ 
 tively and the inner condition of the heart, and is inconsistent 
 with the language of the text, whether we take account of the 
 words or the reasoning. The apostle affirms that we are not 
 our own, because a price was paid, that we might become the 
 property of another, as in ancient times a slave became another’s 
 property by right of purchase. And it is nothing but an abuse 
 of terms to reduce this to the idea of deliverance from self-will 
 or self-love. 
 
 The meaning of the passage will be evident from the fol¬ 
 lowing outline. It presupposes captivity : it takes for granted 
 that in our natural condition.we were sold under sin, exposed 
 to the curse, subject to Satan, according to the just judgment 
 of God, and that a ransom was necessary and fully paid; not, 
 indeed, to Satan, who was but the executioner of God’s justice, 
 but to God, our original owner, and the fountain of justice, to 
 whom we are by this means legitimately restored. Though 
 God condones all sin to us, exacting no price at our hands, 
 deliverance from captivity was not without an adequate price 
 paid by a Mediator in our stead. We thus pass into the 
 ownership of Him by whom we are redeemed. This, of course, 
 assumes the divine dignity of the Redeemer; for redemption, 
 to be His property, is competent only to one who is divine. 
 The redeemed of the Lord, once slaves under a hard tyrant, 
 become the possession of Him who paid their ransom-price. 
 
 The practical deduction from this is, that Christians have 
 no warrant or right to use their bodies as they please, because 
 they are the property of Christ, and their members the members 
 of Christ. They may not abuse their bodies, because they are 
 not their own, but His who bought them; and are therefore to 
 live according to the will and pleasure of Him by whom they 
 were redeemed. The argument is irresistible. Bought at an 
 infinite price from the hand of their enemies, they belong 
 
200 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 rightfully to Him who paid their ransom-price ; and hence the 
 apostle adds the exhortation to glorify God. It may here he 
 added, that we have a twofold security for holiness, objective and 
 subjective—a new proprietorship, and a new motive; and there¬ 
 fore that it is a calumny when the adversaries of grace assert that 
 redemption by an atonement opens a door to licentiousness. 1 
 
 YI. Another abuse which had crept into the Corinthian 
 church, was such an undue exercise of Christian liberty as put 
 a stumbling-block in the way of brethren; and it is exposed 
 and corrected by being placed in the light of the atonement: 
 And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for 
 whom Christ died ? (1 Cor. viii. 11.) The same admonition on 
 the same subject we found in another epistle (Eom. xiv. 15). 
 The question was as to the eating of things offered in sacrifice 
 to idols, or eating what the Jewish Christians deemed defiling. 
 The freer Gentile Christians felt themselves at liberty to par¬ 
 take without restraint; but evils arose from their reckless use 
 of liberty. They grieved and hurt the consciences of their 
 weaker brethren, by inducing them to take a liberty in which 
 their conscience did not allow them. Hence the apostle’s 
 reproving challenge. 
 
 Here we shall consider the peculiar designation by which 
 a Christian is named, and the ethical principle based upon it. 
 
 1. The designation of a Christian is, one for whom Christ 
 died. This expression occurs in the proper sense, or in an 
 acceptation appropriate to the thing. The sense in which 
 Christ died for a redeemed man is unique. Though the ex¬ 
 pression may, in a certain sense, be used to denote what one 
 man does for his fellow-men with a view to be serviceable, 
 especially in propagating the Christian religion, and in founding 
 the Christian church (Acts xv. 26 ; 2 Cor. xii. 15), still that is 
 only in a very modified sense. It cannot be denied by any 
 one acquainted with Scripture phraseology, that it was never 
 said of any mortal man who made himself useful to others by 
 
 1 See Arnold’s Latin refutation of tlie Racovian Catechism. 
 
FIRST EPISTLE TO TIIE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 201 
 
 toils or endurance, imprisonment, danger, or death, borne for 
 their good, that he suffered or died for them to the extent that 
 Christ is said to have suffered and died for His people. We 
 cannot understand the phrase, as applied to Christ, in the sense 
 that He suffered to give us an example, nor in the vague sense 
 that He suffered by exposing Himself to danger which might 
 or might not actually strike Him. He spontaneously put 
 Himself in our room and stead, to hear sin and encounter cer¬ 
 tain death as the due punishment of those whose place He 
 occupied. When the apostle reasons on the supposition of 
 what may take place in common life,—that one may by possi¬ 
 bility suffer for another in a lower sense,—he gives us to 
 understand how he uses the preposition (Rom. v. 7). As Christ 
 Himself puts the matter, the most important part of the task 
 committed to Him consisted in this, that He laid down His 
 life for the sheep; and He connects with this the additional 
 explanation, that He was neither constrained by inevitable 
 necessity, nor mastered by His enemies’ power. He laid down 
 His life of His own proper motion, as one having power to 
 do so, and at His Father’s command; proceeding, as this com¬ 
 mand did, on the supposition that He had power to lay it down 
 (John x. 18). A Christian is thus one for whom Christ died. 
 
 2. The apostle next adduces a motive for the well-regu¬ 
 lated exercise of Christian liberty from the atoning death of 
 Christ. Christian duty in general is enforced by considera¬ 
 tions derived from the cross. But the special duty here re¬ 
 ferred to—that of abstaining to offend or vex a Christian 
 brother by unduly standing upon the right of exercising Chris¬ 
 tian liberty—is inculcated by the constraining motive derived 
 from the death of Christ. The consideration of the costly 
 price by which Christ redeemed any Christian brother in par¬ 
 ticular, furnishes a specially cogent motive to limit Christian 
 liberty. He who puts another’s spiritual welfare to hazard 
 by such a course, knows not the value of the ransom; and 
 the apostle exposes the selfish disregard of a brother’s wel- 
 
202 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 fare by the contrast furnished by tlie love of Christ, and by 
 the value which the Lord put upon him. It is as if he said : 
 Christ died for that brother, and put such value on him, that 
 He did not grudge His abasement and agony to win him; and 
 will you not limit your liberty in such trivial things as meats 
 and drinks, to rescue him from danger to which he will other¬ 
 wise be exposed ? The antithesis between Christ’s redeeming 
 love and the selfish disregard of a brother, implied in such a 
 course, is put in the most pointed way. 
 
 Before leaving this passage, it is necessary to obviate an 
 Arminian comment. From the expressions here used, a false 
 conclusion has been drawn as to the extent of Christ’s death, 
 and the security of those for whom He died. That is a false 
 deduction springing from a wrong idea of the word “ destroy,” 
 which does not here denote eternal destruction. It often means 
 to hurt, to injure—the opposite of that which tends to the use 
 of edifying. The apostle does not mean that one man destroys 
 another; for that is not competent to man, and is the sole 
 
 prerogative of God, who can destroy soul and body. But one 
 
 « 
 
 brother may put a stumbling-block in another’s way, and by 
 this means mar his peace, defile his conscience, and occasion 
 weakness, trouble, and sorrow. The apostle does not mean 
 actual perdition, as if any for whom the Saviour offered Him¬ 
 self a surety could finally be destroyed. How could they 
 perish finally, when Christ had offered Himself an eternally 
 valid sacrifice, expiating their sin, and satisfying all the claims 
 of the law in their room and stead ? (John vi. 39.) They are 
 kept not only by power, but by the security furnished by 
 divine justice itself, to the salvation ready to be revealed. 
 
 The motive here supplied is, in an ethical point of view, 
 of the strongest and most cogent. The apostle wishes to point 
 out to those uncharitable asserters of liberty, that he whom 
 they respected so little was not so viewed by Christ, but was 
 so tenderly loved that the Lord had not disdained to die for 
 him. He speaks of those who were made Christian brethren 
 
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 203 
 
 by that atoning death, and shows that, from the infinite price 
 paid, we may estimate the value to be set on them. Hence 
 the point of the admonition, not to offend them. 
 
 VII. The apostle, while correcting another abuse, in con¬ 
 nection with the Lord’s Supper, which had also crept into the 
 Corinthian church, takes occasion to expound the meaning of 
 the institution. He points out that it was a memorial of the 
 Lord’s death, and that they who celebrate it show the Lord’s 
 death till He come (1 Cor. xi. 23-27). He records the event 
 as he had received it from the Lord Himself; for though 
 some suppose the words mean that Paul received the account 
 of the institution from the disciples who were present, that is 
 plainly an inadequate commentary on the words. The terms 
 imply, beyond doubt, a special communication, given by the 
 Lord Himself, that Paul, in founding the churches, might act 
 with as much confidence and as certain knowledge as the other 
 apostles. When he adduces the very words of Christ uttered 
 at the institution of the Supper, they are carefully distinguished 
 from his own. Among other things peculiar to the Pauline 
 account of the Supper, may be noticed the words, “ This do 
 in remembrance of me.” The verb may be either in the in¬ 
 dicative or imperative mood, but far more fitly in the latter, 
 expressive of command. These words are given twice, nearly 
 in the same form, first at the distribution of the bread, next at 
 the giving of the cup; and Luke, as was to be expected from 
 Paul’s companion, also records the words in the same way. 
 
 But what did the Lord mean, when He bade the first dis¬ 
 ciples do this in remembrance of Him ? The opponents of 
 the atonement considered as a vicarious sacrifice, say the words 
 merely direct us to remember His salutary doctrine, or His 
 example, or His great commandment to love our fellow-men. 
 That Paul apprehended the words in a different way, is evident 
 from the comment which he gives: he affirms that we show 
 forth, not His doctrines, not His example, but His death as 
 an atoning sacrifice for sin (ver. 26). 
 
204 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 "Without dwelling on the sacramental elements and actions, 
 let it suffice to say that they point to the one sacrifice of the 
 cross. Thus, when the bread was given, He said, “ This is 
 my body,”—alluding to His entire humanity, in respect of the 
 obedience which He rendered to His Father in the room of 
 sinners. When the wine was given, He said, “ This cup is the 
 new covenant in my blood,”—alluding to the blood of sacrifice, 
 by means of which the new covenant was formed. Though 
 the former may be said to bring before the mind His whole 
 suffering obedience generally, we cannot fail to see that the 
 Supper came in room of the passover, and recalled the eating 
 of the passover. But besides, a new covenant was to come in 
 room of the Sinaitic covenant, and the Lord deemed it fitting 
 to give an emblem of the blood of sacrifice, by means of which 
 those heretofore aliens could be taken into a new covenant, as 
 a holy people, and sit as guests, without danger or dread, at 
 the Lord’s table. They, in a word, by that sacrificial blood 
 entered into a new covenant-standing, no longer shadowy or 
 capable of dissolution, but perfect and inviolable. 1 
 
 All this is recalled to memory by the constant celebration 
 of the Supper, intended to be a perpetual institution and fre¬ 
 quently repeated. The disciples commemorated His death, 
 not as a thing indifferent, not as a historic incident having no 
 direct bearing on present interests and experience, not as a 
 mere confirmation of His doctrine, but as a true atonement. 
 They were to have a memorial of Christ crucified, and His 
 redeeming love, brought home to them by means of emblems 
 vividly recalling to them the nature of His sacrifice, and fur¬ 
 nishing food for the understanding and the heart. When they 
 were directed to show His death till He come,—that is, when 
 the death of Christ was made the ground of festive com¬ 
 memoration,—we see what an important and unique design 
 lay at the foundation of His sufferings and death. These could 
 
 1 See our previous volume, Sayings of Jesus on the Atonement , on Matt, 
 xxvi. 28, where this connection is expounded at large. 
 
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 205 
 
 be no other than vicarious—the actions of a substitute ancl 
 surety. 
 
 The Lord’s Supper, thus replete with significance, has 
 maintained its ground in the church amid all the revolutions 
 of time. The Lord did not leave it to the apostles to institute 
 it after His departure, but regarded it as so important, that 
 by His own authority, while yet present, He instituted it in 
 the most solemn manner on the night of His betrayal, imme¬ 
 diately before going out to the garden. The bread and wine, 
 selected as emblems of His body and blood, were designed 
 to imbue His disciples with the persuasion, (1) that His 
 body was the true paschal sacrifice; and (2) that His blood 
 was the true sacrificial blood by which the new covenant was 
 constituted, more perfect by far than the covenant at Sinai. 
 
 The elements were signs of a reality,—pledges in hand, that as 
 
 ■ 
 
 surely as they took the sign, they by faith received the thing 
 signified; for they were seals and pledges as well as signs. 
 The covenant is founded simply on the blood shed for many, 
 for the remission of sins, without any other element, whether 
 in the form of intervening merit, or moral improvement, or 
 services to be performed, as the procuring cause. The cup of 
 thanksgiving was thus the participation of the blood of Christ, 
 and the bread the participation of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 
 x. 16). 
 
 The sacrament of the Supper loudly proclaims this great 
 truth to all time, and all ages must hear it. Till the Lord 
 come, His atoning death must be proclaimed with festive joy 
 at the Supper, as often as it is deemed proper to celebrate it. 
 Of how great importance must that truth be which Jesus so 
 vividly portrayed, and the perpetual memory of which He 
 so carefully secured ! This shows what a rank and place be¬ 
 long to the atonement. It is the principal thing in the gospel; 
 nay, it is the gospel. Take it out of the gospel, and it ceases 
 to be the gospel. 
 
 VIII. In proceeding to correct another error, which had 
 
206 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 reference to the resurrection of the body, the apostle takes 
 occasion to describe the gospel which he preached, and to 
 which he continued faithful: For I delivered unto you first of 
 all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our 
 sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and 
 that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures 
 (1 Cor. xv. 3, 4). Paul had received the gospel which he 
 preached, not from men, but by particular revelation from the 
 Lord; and it was all based on the cross. The gospel which he 
 had preached from the beginning, which the Corinthians had 
 received, and by which they were saved if they continued 
 faithful to it, was to the effect that Christ died for our sins 
 according to the Scriptures, and that He rose again according 
 to the Scriptures. Can this mean that Christ died for our 
 sins merely in the sense of a moral redemption—that is, as 
 freeing us from moral corruption ? No. The words mean, 
 that our sins causally put Him to death. But we must more 
 narrowly consider the phraseology. 
 
 All depends on the proper import of the expression, dying 
 for OUR sins. The Greek preposition here used is sometimes 
 found in connection with persons who are the proper object 
 of Christ’s atonement (Luke xxii. 19; 1 Cor. v. 7; Bom. viii. 
 32; John x. 11 ; Bom. v. 6, 7); and in such a connection the 
 expression has the signification of expiation for the good of 
 another, or for his benefit, always presupposing a vicarious 
 atonement. The preposition is also used to denote men’s 
 advantage in connection with the final cause, or the end 
 designed (John vi. 51). But when construed with sins, as 
 here, the expression can only mean that His death was the 
 deserved punishment. We could not from the preposition 
 alone draw the conclusion that the death of Christ was the 
 consequence of our sins, or the punishment of our guilt, were 
 there no further particulars in the passage to lead us to that 
 thought. But when mention is made, as in the passage under 
 consideration, of suffering and death, the meaning unquestion- 
 
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 207 
 
 ably is, that our sins were the procuring cause of the suffer¬ 
 ing. The words, beyond doubt, refer to our sins as the meri¬ 
 torious cause of Christ’s death; and the thought expressed is, 
 that the death of Christ was the punishment of sin. Though 
 the preposition of itself has various shades, according to the 
 connection in which it stands, certain it is, that when the 
 death of Christ is put in connection with our sins, the strict 
 meaning can only be, that these sins were the cause of His 
 death, and that the sufferings were the punishment of our 
 guilt. 
 
 This will be more evident if we take in another phrase 
 connected with His resurrection: “ If Christ be not raised, 
 your faith is vain: ye are yet in your sins” (1 Cor. xv. 17). 
 The reason of this connection is not obscure, if we apprehend 
 the suretyship involved in Christ’s death; that He was a 
 public person, or Representative of His people both in His 
 death and in His resurrection; that He died for our sins, in 
 the sense that He, by imputation or transfer, took them upon 
 Himself, making them His own, and submitting to the conse¬ 
 quences they entailed. If Christ had remained in death, it 
 would have been an argument that those sins laid on Him, 
 and spontaneously borne, had not been expiated by His death. 
 Had Christ not risen, we should not have been set free from 
 former sins: they would still have been put to our account. 
 The argument of the apostle amounts to this, that the scope 
 of the atonement, with its validity and efficacy, would all 
 have been neutralized, if the Surety, who went down to death 
 under the sins of His people, had not risen: we should yet 
 be in our sins. When He rose, therefore, it was undeniable 
 evidence that our sins had been expiated by His death (com¬ 
 pare Rom. iv. 25). 
 
 What objection is propounded to all this by the Socinian 
 party ? It amounts on philological grounds to this, that the 
 Greek preposition denotes, not the meritorious cause, but the 
 final cause,—that is, that Christ died to remove future sin. But 
 
208 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 that is not to expound words, but .to deposit foreign thoughts 
 in the record; and our function as interpreters is to evolve the 
 meaning of language, not to adapt it to our preconceived ideas. 
 It is one thing to say that Christ died for sins which have 
 already been committed, and the guilt of which must be borne, 
 and another thing to say that He died to abolish future sins. 
 The former idea is in Paul’s words: the latter cannot be put 
 into them without altering the record. The expression can 
 mean nothing but the guilt of sin considered as the meri¬ 
 torious cause, or impelling cause, of the Lord’s death. Grotius 
 has well proved that the preposition, thus used, denotes the 
 impelling cause 1 (see Eom. xv. 9 ; Eph. v. 20). When it is 
 said, then, that Christ died for our sins, it means that He bore 
 their punishment. 
 
 The Socinians will have some words supplied or understood 
 —a device that cannot be endured. To show, however, that 
 it is not simply a matter of interpretation with them, but a 
 foregone conclusion, it may be mentioned that Socinus ex¬ 
 plicitly declared, that were the doctrine of vicarious sin-bearing, 
 and the punishment of one for the sins of another, mentioned 
 not once, but many times, in Scripture, he would not believe 
 it, because it could not be. That open declaration is candid 
 at least; but it is an appeal to reason, not to revelation, and 
 an admission that Scripture is not made the ultimate judge, 
 but only to be interpreted as seems best suited to confirm or 
 
 i 
 
 dress out a preconceived hypothesis. 
 
 But taking the divine word as the ultimate authority, we 
 may affirm that no language could more precisely express a 
 meritorious cause than the words of the text. When our sins 
 are connected with Christ’s sufferings and death, the words 
 bring out cause and effect. The words can be taken in no 
 other sense than in that of the impelling or meritorious cause 
 of the effect described. They mean that our sins—that is, the 
 
 1 See the admirable discussion of the prepositions 'bid, -rtpl, vvip, when con¬ 
 strued with dptapriM, in the first chapter of his work, de Satisfactions Christi. 
 
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 209 
 
 guilt contracted by us—caused the suffering and death of the 
 Lord; and words cannot more accurately express the idea. 
 
 SEC. XI.—THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 The second epistle, written a short time after the first—at 
 least after such an interval as enabled Titus to go to Corinth 
 and to return to Paul—is somewhat different in tone, and 
 alludes to the good effect produced by the admonitions which 
 had been addressed to the Corinthian church. Titus had been 
 sent to learn the impression made by the first epistle, and re¬ 
 ported that some of the abuses had been corrected. The party 
 divisions, however, were not suppressed ; and Paul was under 
 the necessity of continuing personal explanations, and also 
 vindicating his authority against those who depreciated his 
 commission, in comparison with that of the other apostles who 
 had been trained in the Lord’s society in the days of His flesh. 
 The apostle, in the midst of these personal allusions, takes 
 occasion to interweave several references to the atonement; 
 and to these testimonies we must now come. 
 
 I. In referring to activity and labour in the discharge of 
 his office, the apostle declares that he was constrained by his 
 Lord’s atoning love: For the love of Christ constraineth us; 
 because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead 
 [better, then all died, or the all diedi]: and that He died for 
 all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, 
 but unto Him who died for them, and rose again (2 Cor. v. 14,15). 
 The intense activity and zeal to which the apostle alluded in 
 the previous verses are traced to their source—the redeeming 
 love of Christ. And this leads him to dwell on the nature of 
 the atonement, which is aright apprehended, according to the 
 meaning of this passage, only when we duly discover the pro¬ 
 minent place to be assigned to substitution. This is seen in 
 
 the clause “ one died for all,” even when we render the Greek 
 
 0 
 
210 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 preposition (vsrgp) for the benefit of. The idea of substitu¬ 
 tion, or exchange of places, underlies the thought, as we have 
 noticed already (Bom. v. 7). Besides, substitution or vicarious¬ 
 ness comes to light, beyond all question, in the logical deduc¬ 
 tion, then the all died for if all for whom the Lord died 
 are regarded as dying in His death, no doubt can exist as to 
 the fact of substitution: it is taken for granted as an undoubted 
 reality. The apostle speaks of us men exposed to death on 
 our own account, and worthy of condemnation; and to rescue 
 us, a Surety or Deliverer steps forward, in the exercise of 
 boundless love, and dies in our stead. The language involves 
 substitution, and can be understood only on the supposition 
 that one dies in another’s room. It is not the case of a hero 
 exposing himself to danger or death for the benefit of his 
 countrymen, nor the case of a friend dying for the benefit of 
 a friend, which the apostle tells us (Bom. v. 7) may perad- 
 venture occur in the world’s history. Hone of these cases 
 comes up to what is indicated here ; for in such a case it would 
 never be affirmed that they for whom the death was under¬ 
 gone died in Him. We have to understand, in Christ’s case, 
 federal unity and substitution. 
 
 1. What does the apostle mean by the word die, as thus 
 applied to .us ? And how are we said to have died in the 
 Lord’s death ? One thing is self-evident: the apostle does not 
 use it in the first clause literally, and in the next clause meta¬ 
 phorically ; for, on such a supposition, the deduction made by 
 the apostle would not hold, and the expression would be un¬ 
 meaning. He has before his eye the case of sinners doomed 
 to death, for whom a Surety offered Himself vicariously; and 
 only in such a case can they for whom the Surety interposed 
 
 1 Beza correctly lays stress on the article ol before sravrs? : “Illi omnes 
 mortui sunt.” Our authorized version is always unhappy in its rendering of 
 uiriOoivov, were dead ; for the meaning is, all died. This is admitted by all the 
 modern exegetes of note, though they too exclusively limit it to the subjective 
 realization in the faith of the individual (so Meyer). Plainly it is here re¬ 
 ferred to as an objective fact. 
 
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 211 
 
 be said to have satisfied the law or borne the penalty. We 
 take the word in the two clauses in precisely the same sense. 
 It is the same phraseology, with the same import, which we 
 found in the Epistle to the Eoinans, as descriptive of the one 
 representative act of Christ ; which for the most part is set 
 forth as rendered for us, but in a considerable number of pas¬ 
 sages is also spoken of as if we had personally done it (Rom. 
 vi. 2). And the manner in which the two phrases are here 
 
 * i 
 
 alternated is worthy of notice. We may either say that Christ 
 died for us, or that we died with Him. And the logical 
 form of the verse explains the principle on which that alter¬ 
 nating phraseology proceeds: “ If one died for all, then the 
 all died.” Erom this it is plain that we must take the word 
 die, applied to Christ in the one clause, and applied to His 
 people in the other clause, not only in the same sense, but as 
 referring to the same act. The death here mentioned is not 
 twofold, but numerically one; for we are not to regard Christ 
 as performing one act, and ourselves as performing another 
 parallel and similar to His. When we look at the general 
 tenor of the apostle’s doctrine, we find, on the one hand, that 
 death is represented as the wages of sin; and, on the other, 
 w T e see the great Surety undergoing the penalty in our room: 
 and we are said to have died in Him, because His act was 
 representatively our act. The atoning death of the Lord, 
 on the ground of federal unity and substitution, was also our 
 act; that is, was accepted as OUR act in Him. 
 
 2. The next inquiry has reference to the life into which 
 the Christian enters, and to the connection between the life 
 and the death He died. What was meant by the apostle when 
 speaking of them who live, or of the living ones, as the ex¬ 
 pression literally means (ver. 15) ? Ho one who apprehends 
 the Pauline phraseology as to the believer’s dying with Christ, 
 or crucifixion with Christ, can doubt that the life which follows 
 is premial life, subsequent to the meritorious obedience which 
 was rendered. It is life following a perfect fulfilment of the 
 
212 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 divine law, and regarded as its reward. Very generally, ex¬ 
 positors take this life as referring to the term of onr human 
 existence, or the natural life. But that is wide of the mark. 
 The connection between the atonement and the life immedi¬ 
 ately subjoined, points, we think, to a causal connection, and 
 thus leaves no doubt that the allusion is to spiritual or eternal 
 life, which is elsewhere described as hid with Christ in God 
 (Col. iii. 3). The living ones are such as enter into premial 
 life, because the Surety fulfilled the law, and expiated sin in 
 His death. 
 
 But it is intimated that this life is a dedicated life, not 
 a life of self-seeking, after the flesh, or in the prosecution of 
 what tends to our own profit, honour, or gratification. This 
 life was secured by Christ’s death, and promoted by His resur¬ 
 rection : for the concluding clause of the verses above quoted 
 shows that Christ died for us, and that He rose again. And 
 it is not said that He rose for us, but that He died for us; 
 for there is a certain difference of meaning. The resurrection 
 comes within the sphere of reward, and enabled Him to diffuse 
 His life through His own people, redeemed to be His—for He 
 underwent death with this express end in view, that He might 
 win a people as His property—and replenish them with the 
 divine life which He procured for them, and dispenses accord¬ 
 ing to their needs. He thus induces them to live not to them¬ 
 selves, but to Him. 
 
 To return to the expression one died for all : no doubt 
 can be entertained, either from the nature of the transaction, 
 or from the logical inference already mentioned, that the 
 phrase denotes the exchange or substitution of one for another. 
 But we have still further to consider in what sense Christ is 
 said to have died for all. Plainly, the allusion in the present 
 case is of equal extent in both clauses. The all for whom He 
 died are the same parties, and no other, 1 who are next said 
 
 1 In the discussions on the extent of the atonement, this has been triumph¬ 
 antly proved by Owen, Death of Death, vol. x. p. 350 ; Honert, de gratia Dei 
 
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 213 
 
 to liave died in Him; that is, all who are regarded as expiating 
 sin, and fulfilling the law in Him—the same men to whom 
 the redemption is applied, and no wider circle, at least in the 
 passage under consideration. 
 
 It may not he unfitting, before leaving this passage, to refer 
 to two expositions of such expressions which cannot be ac¬ 
 cepted, and yet are widely diffused,'—the Arminian or Lutheran 
 comment, and the Amyraldist comment. 
 
 a. As to the Arminian tenet, it is to this effect: that Christ 
 in a certain respect offered Himself a sacrifice sufficiently for 
 all, and for every man in the same sense. They leave it 
 uncertain whether they interpret the preposition as denoting 
 for the good of ALL, or in the room of all. They main¬ 
 tain that it was for all alike, without distinction and without 
 exception. Taking hold of the wider or more general aspects 
 in which some texts appear to present the atonement to the 
 mind, they conclude that Christ was priest and victim for all 
 mankind without exception, whether they believe or not, 
 whether they are saved or not; that the sacrifice of Christ was 
 not only infinitely precious, but offered with such a purpose 
 both on the Father’s side and on the Son’s side, that it should 
 be for all and every man. That this is an unscriptural com¬ 
 ment, is evident from the fact that an accepted sacrifice obtained 
 the remission of sins. And Christ dispenses to all for whom 
 He died—that is, to all who become His people—the reward 
 of His obedience, remission, regeneration, and final glory. The 
 clear inference from such a comment would be universalism, 
 or universal salvation, which the Scriptures emphatically re¬ 
 pudiate. It will not do to distinguish between the purchase 
 and the application of redemption, so as to affirm that they 
 
 non universal^ p. 571 ; Jaq. Trigland, de Volunt. Dei et grat. univ. p. 282 ; 
 Turret, tom. ii. loc. 14, qu. 14, sec. 36. So long as men incorrectly translate 
 a-r'^avov were dead , as in tlie English version, they readily argue that the spiritual 
 death of men is universal, and that the death of Christ is equally so. But when 
 they correctly render, in the second clause, then they all died, that argument 
 has no foundation. 
 
214 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 are not of equal extent; for that amounts to disjunction and 
 separation, vitiating the nature of the atonement as a vicarious 
 transaction. 
 
 b. The Amyraldist theory, or that of the double reference, 
 acknowledges a true substitution in the room and stead of 
 those who were given to Christ, and whose sins He actually 
 bore, hut asserts, moreover, that He died for the advantage 
 of the rest, though not in their stead. 1 In a word, this theory 
 maintains a double reference; that is, that He died in the 
 room of some, and for the good of the rest. According to this 
 exposition, the biblical phrase, to die for men, has not a uni¬ 
 form sense, but a different meaning in different passages. This 
 we can by no means concede; for Christ is never said to die 
 for men in any other sense than in the sense of substitution 
 or exchange of places. He really entered into our place, and 
 by so doing incurred our doom and responsibility; and we 
 as truly enter into His place, and partake of His merits and 
 reward. And a different mode of viewing the transaction is 
 not to be found in Scripture. 
 
 That many who are not believers derive great advantages 
 from Christ’s atonement, is not denied. They enjoy an economy 
 of forbearance, are freed from the pernicious errors and defile¬ 
 ments of idolatry, and live among the people of God. But 
 these blessings, manifold and various, do not warrant us to say 
 that the Lord died for men in a double way, or with a double 
 reference; that is, for some vicariously, and for others to give 
 them only a temporary advantage. He died as a representative 
 and surety; and whatever their representative Head did, they 
 are regarded as having done, as this text proves. He not only 
 died for them all, but they all died in Him. 
 
 II. Another important passage, defining the nature of the 
 atonement, occurs a few verses afterwards in the same chapter: 
 And all things are, of God , who hath reconciled us to Himself by 
 
 1 This theory is equally unbiblical and inconsistent,—a makeshift or accom¬ 
 modation scheme between two other opinions. 
 
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 215 
 
 Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation ; 
 to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself 
 [better, God was reconciling the world unto Himself in Christ ], 
 not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed 
 unto us the word of reconciliation (2 Cor. v. 18,19). The apostle 
 bad mentioned that the new creature emanates from God, and 
 then assigned as its ground the atoning work of Christ. We 
 have first to notice the principal cause of the reconciliation: 
 “ all is of God, who hath reconciled us.” The allusion is to 
 the Father, to whom the Saviour was wont to refer all that He 
 did. We have to consider God as offended and provoked by 
 sin, and yet providing the reconciliation by which they who 
 had incurred His displeasure are restored to His favour. The 
 term reconciliation, as we have elsewhere shown, implies 
 that in ourselves we were exposed to divine wrath, and that 
 a divine provision brought it to an end. 
 
 There is no force in the current objection, that God could 
 not entertain anger or hostility, when He so loved us, that He 
 sent His only-begotten Son to usher in the reconciliation. 
 Scripture affirms both; and, as we have already proved, they 
 can well consist together. That sins provoke the holy God, in 
 the exercise of His moral government, to righteous anger, is 
 an axiom or first principle with every one who has acquired 
 a rudimentary knowledge of God; for all men know that He 
 is no indifferent spectator of the moral actions of His creatures 
 (Bom. i. 32). He claims the exercise of vengeance as His 
 peculiar attribute, which He will have left in His own hand; and 
 He declares that He will repay (Bom. xii. 19). But He ceases 
 not to love His creatures as His workmanship; and He loves 
 them with a supperadded love, when, viewing the elect in His 
 Son, He loves them with the same love with which He loves His 
 Son. In Christ the wrath of God is appeased, but not by a re¬ 
 laxation of justice or a reduction of His claims. He cannot but 
 bear just anger against sin, and against the sinner on account 
 of sin, as is sufficiently proved by actual punishments inflicted. 
 
216 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 The apostle intends to bring out the proper nature of re¬ 
 conciliation, as is plain from the fact that he expressly mentions 
 that God hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ. This 
 shows, as an analysis of the language suffices to prove, that 
 in effecting the reconciliation, God exercised His mercy not 
 absolutely, and irrespective of a mediator; for participation in 
 divine favour depends on the work of a Surety, whom God 
 appointed as the way of access or channel by which His favour 
 could be obtained. This is evident by a comparison of passages 
 in the Hew Testament, where allusion is made to reconcilia¬ 
 tion as a transition from wrath to favour, from hostility to 
 friendship, from alienation to restored fellowship. That is 
 the uniform import of the term; and however much mutual 
 reconciliation is involved in the nature of the case, the term 
 principally means reconciliation on the part of Him whose 
 anger was incurred, and who could renew a friendly inter¬ 
 course only on the ground of a satisfaction. 
 
 But it is argued by those who allow anger in God, only in 
 the case of those who remain at last impenitent till the day of 
 grace is past, that reconciliation means our favourable disposi¬ 
 tion toward God. They put this view on several grounds, all 
 which are equally baseless. Thus, they assert (1) that God is 
 never called man’s enemy ; an argument as absurd as it would 
 be to argue against punishment, on the ground that a human 
 state or judicial tribunal is never called the enemy of the citi¬ 
 zens, when the question is whether the authority of the law is 
 to be executed against transgressors: for a human tribunal is 
 but a reflection of the divine, and based on the same eternal 
 principles of justice. They assert (2) that, in biblical lan¬ 
 guage, reconciliation never indicates that anything is necessary 
 on God’s side before our reception into favour. 1 That, too, is 
 
 1 Ritsclil of Gottingen, in his de ira Dei, pp. 13-20, utterly misapprehends 
 the doctrine, when he maintains that the doctrine of the wrath of God has 
 nothing to do with the atonement. See a much better exposition by Weber, 
 vom Zorne Gottes, p. 290. But even he stops short of the full biblical doctrine 
 on the ira Dei. 
 
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 217 
 
 contrary to the words before ns: “ who hath reconciled ns to 
 Himself by Jesus Christ.” And the same thing appears in 
 the Epistle to the Bomans, where, as we already pointed ont, 
 it is affirmed that we were reconciled to God by the death of 
 His Son (Bom. v. 10). Bnt (3) another assertion, as baseless 
 as the two former, is, that we cannot snppose such a thing as 
 the appeasing or pacifying of God’s anger, because we nowhere 
 read in the Hew Testament of God’s reconciliation to man. 
 But we have already proved that the term, as used in Scrip¬ 
 ture, is not equivalent to our being well affected toward God, 
 and imbued with a friendly disposition toward God, but 
 means that we are secured from His wrath (Bom. v. 9), and 
 can count on His favour and benefits (Bom. v. 1). In a word, 
 it is God’s favour toward us, not our favourable disposition 
 toward God. 1 
 
 This leads me to the use of the term, and to the definition 
 of it. The party whose affection has been won cannot be 
 determined from the nominative to the verb, nor from the 
 accusative case which follows the verb, but is ascertained 
 from the connection and the known position of the parties. 
 The restored favour of the offended party has an influence on 
 the other: they each come into a new position. Warrantably 
 we may either say that a person is reconciled to us, or that 
 we are reconciled to him. When the verb is found in the 
 passive, it either means to give up a quarrel on our side 
 (1 Cor. vii. 11), or to induce another to abate his anger and 
 terminate his just resentment against us (Matt. v. 24). In 
 the latter passage, the words, “ Be reconciled to thy brother,” 
 do not mean, Be well disposed to thy brother—for that, in the 
 case adduced by the Lord, could have been done in the temple 
 —but, Leave thy gift; go and induce thy brother, who has just 
 cause of resentment against thee, to return to a friendly disposi¬ 
 tion toward you. And this required a visit to the offended party. 
 
 1 See a fine note of Calvin in his commentary on this passage, putting the 
 grace of God and the anger of God in striking juxtaposition. 
 
218 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 In this sense the word occurs wherever allusion is made to 
 man’s reconciliation to God. It does not mean our subjective 
 reconciliation to God, but God’s objective reconciliation to 
 us; and one of the most conclusive proofs of this occurs in a 
 passage already noticed: “We joy in God, through our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, bv whom we have now received the atonement,” 
 or reconciliation (Eom. v. 11). There it is said to have been 
 received. An inward act of man is done, or performed; it 
 cannot be received: but there it is affirmed that we received 
 it. That the allusion is to the appeasing of God’s anger, 
 clearly appears from the words which refer to Christ’s death 
 as the meritorious cause of effecting peace (Eom. v. 10). 
 
 In the great transaction of reconciling sinners, God is an 
 active party: He reconciles us to Himself by Jesus Christ. 
 And what comes in between the love of God and His holy 
 anger ? Only one thing—the atonement—which harmonizes 
 both in our reconciliation to God. God Himself provided the 
 atonement as the means of reconciliation, and on this sole 
 ground of intercourse He receives us to favour. Hot that men 
 laid down their opposition and sued for peace. The principal 
 cause is God, who provided reconciliation. Then, as to the pro¬ 
 curing cause, Christ by His • atonement meritoriously won the 
 favour of God for those who, but for this, would for ever have 
 been given up to divine wrath and condemnation. Eeconcilia- 
 tion, then, is simply the removal of the separation and enmity 
 between God and the world. But we must notice the language 
 more minutely. 
 
 As to the method of construing the second of the two 
 verses (ver. 19), three modes are proposed, for reasons which 
 demand attention. 
 
 a. Some take the expression, “ God was in Christ reconcil¬ 
 ing the world,” as an allusion to Christ’s divine nature. 1 Paul 
 is thus regarded as teaching that the Eedeemer was not 
 
 1 This was for a time the received exposition in the Lutheran Church. See 
 Wolfii curce. 
 
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 219 
 
 merely the instrument which God made use of in the work 
 of redemption, hut that He was also God Himself. Certainly 
 reasons may he urged in hehalf of this view from the struc¬ 
 ture of the language. Thus, it may he said, two representa¬ 
 tions are given in succession, which we may warrantahly 
 suppose are somewhat varied, and not a mere tautology. In 
 the first, God is described as the author of the reconciliation, 
 and Christ as the instrument hy whom it was accomplished: 
 “ All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself hy 
 Jesus Christ.” And in the second it is said: “God was in 
 Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.” How, it is argued 
 that, to avoid the flat repetition of one and the same thing, it 
 is better to view the clause as referring to the higher nature 
 of Christ. This interpretation considered the Eedeemer not 
 as a mere instrument, hut as a divine person, capable of so 
 great a work, and giving it a boundless value. 
 
 b. Another mode of construing is as follows: “God in 
 Christ was reconciling the world.” This is the mode of re¬ 
 solving the words generally received at present hy the most 
 eminent philological expounders. 1 This view is maintained 
 chiefly because the following clause more precisely defines in 
 what way the atonement was effected. The two points, then, 
 are.as follows: 1. A non-imputation of sin to us so far as the 
 matter hears upon our relation toward God ; 2. The atoning 
 act considered as emanating not from man, but from God, or 
 as God’s own act in inward unity and fellowship with Christ. 
 Undoubtedly this interpretation can he rendered highly pro¬ 
 bable, and gives a satisfactory sense. 
 
 c. Another mode seems to me even preferable, according 
 to the translation above given: God was reconciling the world 
 unto Himself in Christ. This does not construe the words IN 
 Christ with the activity of the divine nature in the Lord 
 Himself, nor with the Father’s activity in providing the atone¬ 
 ment, but in connection with the new relation into which 
 
 1 vv Karakdcro-uv are thus taken together as a sort of emphatic imperfect. 
 
220 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 mankind were brought, as they stood in Christ. The meaning 
 will then he: God reconciled them in Christ, as He regarded 
 them in Him, and comprehended them in union with His Son, 
 according to His covenant and purpose. This seems to me the 
 shade of meaning that properly belongs to the passage. 
 
 With regard to the other terms, are we to understand the 
 word world as descriptive of the human family ? In this 
 general sense the word frequently occurs in the style of Paul 
 and the other apostles (Eom. iii. 19; 1 Cor. i. 21). It is often 
 used to indicate the unbelieving world, as contradistinguished 
 from the church of God, because the great majority still con- 
 tinues alienated from the life of God. Here it does not mean 
 the world of believers—a sense in which, so far as I know, it 
 does not occur—but the world of mankind as one day standing 
 out to view, including Jews and Gentiles alike. 1 From this, 
 however, it by no means follows that all were actually reconciled. 
 Our mode of construing in Christ proves the opposite. And 
 this is further confirmed by the clause which runs parallel with 
 it: “ not imputing their trespasses unto them.” Thus the apostle 
 speaks of an accomplished fact, finished once for all. But one 
 or two points may still be separately noticed. 
 
 1. We are said to be reconciled in Christ; an expression 
 which at first sight seems to be equivalent to the phrase by 
 Christ, which occurs in the previous verse. But they do not 
 coincide. The present phrase denotes something more: for 
 the apostle’s language is precise, representing Christ not only 
 as the meritorious cause of reconciliation, which the phrase of 
 the previous verse in such a connection usually means, but as 
 the objective reconciliation. As in Him we have the objec¬ 
 tive redemption (Eph. i. 7), so in Him we have the objective 
 reconciliation; much in the same way as He is said to be 
 made of God unto us righteousness and sanctification (1 Cor. 
 
 1 Charnock (vol. ii. p. 212, folio edit.) says, strikingly: “God imputed a 
 world of sins to Him, because He undertook for that world God had created by 
 Him.” 
 
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 221 
 
 i. 30), or as He is called our peace (Eph. ii. 14). The apostle 
 changes the preposition on purpose. 
 
 2. The reconciliation was effected by not imputing to us 
 our trespasses (ver. 19). Opinion varies, indeed, as to the way 
 in which the participial clause is to he resolved: some regard¬ 
 ing the non-imputation of sin as the cause 1 of reconciliation; 
 others, less correctly, considering it as the effect. The latter 
 is a mistaken view, and is opposed to the usage of a parti¬ 
 cipial clause. Paul affirms that God reconciles the world by 
 not imputing to men their trespasses. And the reconciliation, 
 as to its mode, is effected in this twofold way: (1) by not im¬ 
 puting sin to us, and (2) by Christ becoming the sin-hearer 
 (ver. 21); that is, the world is reconciled because sin was laid 
 on Christ, and not imputed to us. 
 
 3. God is said to place those to whom sin is not imputed 
 in a state of reconciliation to Himself. That means, that the 
 atonement restores men to their right relation to law and 
 order; or, more definitely, to a friendly fellowship with a 
 personal God. It is the removal of hostility. As redemption 
 is a redemption to God in the sense that we are liberated 
 from captivity to belong to God (Eev. v. 9; 1 Cor. vi. 19), so 
 reconciliation is a reconciliation to God in the sense that we 
 are restored to God so as to he His friends; and the reconcilia¬ 
 tion supposes something mutual: for a mutual relation of this 
 nature is essential to the thing, though not properly in the 
 word. 
 
 Only one thing remains to he noticed. The words, “ Be 
 reconciled to God,” which Paul adds as the burden of all 
 preaching (v. 20), are equivalent to “ Receive the atonement.” 
 
 III. Another passage, subjoined to the former, and closely 
 connected with it, points out most emphatically the mode of 
 the atonement: For He hath made Him to be sin for us who 
 knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in 
 
 1 Thus Galvin well puts it. On linguistic grounds, too, this is required by 
 the relation of the participle to the verb. See Winer, § 45. 
 
222 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 Him (2 Cor. v. 21). The verse, connected by the grounding 
 particle for with the previous passage descriptive of the 
 message of reconciliation, assigns the ground on which that 
 message rests. That is the force of the particle for; and the 
 import is, that God made an exchange between us and Christ, 
 of such a nature that He, the sinless, was treated as if He 
 were the sinner—nay, as sin itself—that we might be made 
 the righteousness of God. 
 
 Two statements are thus brought together, and lie near 
 each other: the non-imputation of sin to those who are recon¬ 
 ciled (ver. 19), and the fact that Christ was made sin. And 
 these two statements involve each other. The reason or 
 ground on which the non-imputation of sin proceeds, is the 
 fact that Christ was made sin 1 (ver. 21). That is involved in 
 the message of reconciliation. But these two points just 
 mentioned, and lying at the foundation of preaching, incon- 
 trovertibly show that the end of Christ’s coming was not to 
 proclaim absolute forgiveness, but to usher in an expiation, or a 
 work of atonement, on the ground of which that proclamation 
 of forgiveness might be made. The connection between the 
 atonement and the message, “ Be reconciled to God,” is thus 
 clearly brought out. Apart from the atonement, preaching 
 would have no foundation, would have no message to proclaim, 
 and would be denuded of all the force accompanying it. 
 
 In exhibiting the contents of this pregnant text, I shall 
 endeavour, with all brevity, to bring out its import under a 
 few heads. 
 
 1. The source of the whole atonement is traced to God, 
 who is said to have made Christ what the text describes. 
 And the expression raises our thoughts to that agreement, or 
 covenant, according to which the Bather appointed His own 
 Son to assume our human nature and bear our guilt. 
 
 2. But a further idea, that of sinlessness, is brought out 
 
 1 The connection between the pw XoyiZ.'oy.ivos ccy.a.priav, and Christ being made 
 upctprioL, has been generally noticed in former and recent times. See Charnock 
 
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 223 
 
 in the words, who knew no sin. The expression is intended 
 to show that the sinless perfection of Jesus—that is, His 
 innocence and perfect obedience to the divine law—was the 
 foundation or presupposition of the entire work of expiation. 
 But in whose account was He judged sinless ? The Greek 
 phrase, which has a peculiar force attaching to it, which must 
 accurately he ascertained, contains an answer to that question. 
 The peculiar phrase, who knew no sin, is called by philo¬ 
 logists the subjective negation, because wherever it is used it 
 denotes a negative estimate or judgment formed in the mind 
 of some party. And when we ask, By whom was the judg¬ 
 ment formed in this case ? the conclusion to which we must 
 come is, that it either expresses Christ’s own conscious esti¬ 
 mate—and the subjective negation will, on this supposition, 
 set forth His own consciousness of perfect sinlessness—or 
 else that it expresses the Bather’s judgment formed of Him at 
 the divine tribunal. One thing is very evident: the terms and 
 context do not allow us to refer the phraseology to a mere 
 ordinary human estimate of Jesus, Most naturally, the party 
 whose judgment is introduced, and who regarded Him as sin¬ 
 less, is the same that was represented as making Him to he 
 sin for us—viz. God. 1 If we take this acceptation, as the 
 strict import of the Greek phrase leads us most naturally to 
 do, then Jesus was esteemed or judged by God as completely 
 faultless, and as never having had one feeling at variance with 
 the divine will and law. He did no sin. But the relation of 
 the two connected clauses is of such a kind as makes it clear 
 that sinlessness is equivalent to perfect obedience, for the 
 negative side implies the positive mode of putting it. He 
 was thus exempt from every fault, whether of omission or of 
 commission. And the ultimate aim of God in all this, was 
 
 and Owen, passim; Weber, p. 296. Yinke, Leer van Jesus en de Apostel. aang. 
 Zijn Lijden , p. 357. 
 
 1 Winer, in his Grammar, says of pri yvovru, § 55, 5: “Geht anf die Yor- 
 stellung dessen der ilm zur ccpuprlu. macht, zuriick.” 
 
224 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 not only to qualify Him for undertaking the task of sin- 
 bearing, but also to pave the way for bringing in a vicarious 
 righteousness. The statement therefore is, that He who was 
 sinless in God’s account—and only one immaculately perfect 
 in every part of positive obedience could be so—was made 
 sin. 
 
 3. This sinless one, judged in God’s account as one who 
 knew no sin, is next described as having been made sin. The 
 first inquiry is, What does this properly mean ? 
 
 a. Many deem it best to take it as simply equivalent to a 
 sin-offering; and, indeed, the Septuagint several times uses the 
 original word to denote this sacrifice : for the sin-offering was 
 regarded as incorporated sin or embodied guilt, viewed objec¬ 
 tively and apart. Such an exposition affords a competent 
 enough sense, and does not in fact alter the meaning. 1 But it 
 deserves notice, in the first place, that throughout this entire 
 passage the apostle makes no use of sacrificial language; and 
 the term reconciliation is allowed on all hands to be taken 
 from ordinary life, and not from the sacrificial ritual. Then 
 it is evident that the apostle draws a contrast between two 
 things,—between the personal sinlessness of Jesus, and His 
 official position as made sin for us,—and that this contrast is 
 lost by the sacrificial reference. But there is a further anti¬ 
 thesis not less strong. Christ is represented as made sin for 
 us, in the same way in which we are made the righteousness 
 of God ; that is, by a judicial act on the part of God, the moral 
 Governor and Judge. This is unfavourable to our accepting 
 the idea of a sin-offering. It would be quite unsuitable in the 
 second clause, which affirms that we are made the righteous¬ 
 ness of God, and therefore it cannot be admitted in the first. 
 But for the connection, and the twofold antithesis now men¬ 
 tioned, the rendering “ sin-offering ” would be unobjectionable. 
 
 1 The phrase is not vrtp) a,u.a.prta$ (Rom. viii. 3). Though this view has been 
 held by eminent men, and been very common for three centuries, it must give 
 place to the view that we have the abstract noun for the concrete. 
 
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 225 
 
 The double antithesis seems to demand the abstract term sin, 
 as correctly rendered in the English authorized version. 
 
 b. Much less appropriate is another interpretation, made 
 Him a sinner. Many excellent writers have explained the 
 phrase in this way, 1 hut it is plainly inappropriate. In the 
 first place, no instance of that usage occurs in Scripture. Then 
 there is a want of due precision evinced in the way of distin¬ 
 guishing things that differ by the propounders of this inter¬ 
 pretation. If, indeed, care was taken to distinguish between 
 the personal and the official, there would not be the same 
 objection to the word. But the term sinner is in all lan¬ 
 guages too much associated with the idea of personal demerit 
 to be applied to Christ, and is out of keeping with the constant 
 reference to His perfect innocence, and to His suffering as the 
 just for the unjust, the holy for the unholy. The two ideas, 
 always put together throughout the entire Scriptures in the 
 delineation of the atonement—viz. sinlessness and sin-bear- 
 ING, or personal perfection and official liability to divine wrath 
 —and which are repeated here, must ever be kept apart both 
 in form and substance. It is therefore a mistake to make the 
 term sin equivalent to sinner in the passage before us. 
 
 c. We abide by the abstract term sin, 2 which, we may 
 notice, is here used by the apostle with a peculiar force. What 
 does it convey to Christian minds ? It affords this sense— 
 that Christ was made the sin of His people by the imputation 
 of their guilt to Him; for the sin not imputed to those who 
 
 1 The Socinians expounded it in the sense that Christ was so reputed, 
 “pro peccatore ah hominibus habitum.” Grotius exposed this, de Satisfac- 
 tione, p. 24. Then many sound divines, down to the Dutch writers at the 
 beginning of this century, rendered upapria by the concrete term sinner, 
 raising their regard to God’s tribunal. But that is harsh. See Witsius’ beau¬ 
 tiful chapter in his Irenicum (ch. ii.), in which he shows against Crisp and 
 his followers, that they had carried their phraseology much too far: they 
 appealed to Luther’s strong language, but went far beyond him. Chauncey, 
 Neonomianism Unmasked, 1692, admirably holds the balance between extremes. 
 
 2 a-papria,, as an abstract noun, is without the article, which is common 
 (1 John ii. 2, iv. 10). See Winer’s Grammar, p. 109. See Doedes’ exposition 
 of this text, in his second article on the Atonement, Jaarboeken, 1846, p. 341. 
 
 P 
 
226 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 are reconciled (ver. 19) is, as we liad occasion to notice already, 
 liere said to be imputed to Christ, and in such a sense that He 
 could he described as made sin. The words, strictly considered, 
 therefore mean, that by God’s appointment He was made sin, 
 not in mere semblance, but in reality, not before men, but 
 before God, on the great foundation of a federal unity between 
 Him and His people. He was, as it were, the embodiment of 
 sin or incorporated guilt; and we may well affirm that never 
 was so much sin accumulated upon a single head. He was 
 not made sin in a vague, indefinite, abstract way; but the very 
 sins of which we are painfully conscious in the moment of 
 conviction—that is, our own sins of nature and life—were laid 
 on Him, or transferred from our head to His. He bore their 
 burden; and this rendered it possible to visit Him with the 
 recompense due to sin, and with its necessary punishment, 
 which would otherwise have been impossible. 
 
 The true import of this memorable clause, then—which, 
 along with some other texts, has always been considered as of 
 paramount moment for determining the true nature of the 
 atonement—is thus rendered apparent. It means that, by God’s 
 appointment, Christ was made the sins of all His people, and 
 that He made them His as much as if He had been divinely 
 constituted sin in the abstract, or as sin embodied; that they 
 were transferred to His person by what is usually designated 
 imputation, and charged to His account. 1 That was effected 
 in such a way as clearly displayed the distinction between His 
 personal and representative standing before God. While He 
 was personally the object of the Father’s everlasting love and 
 complacency, He was officially guilty in our guilt. The paternal 
 and the governmental on the part of God may easily be dis¬ 
 tinguished and viewed apart. He never was the object of the 
 Father’s loathing or aversion, even when forsaken. He never 
 was, what the sinner inevitably is, abhorred, or abominable ; 
 
 1 See Charnock, vol. ii. p. 684 ; and especially Turretin, de Satisfactione, 
 p. 117, where we have a luminous discussion against one-sided tendencies. 
 
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 227 
 
 because a distinction could always be made between the only 
 begotten Son, the righteous Servant, and the sin-bearing Sub¬ 
 stitute. 
 
 How He was made sin, will appear from the following 
 description. While here among men—that is, from the in¬ 
 carnation to the cross—He was, by a divine act, made the 
 sin-bearer in room of His people; and there never was a mo¬ 
 ment, from the assumption of our nature to the death on the 
 tree, when He did not bear our sins and appear guilty as the 
 surety of His church. Hor was He guilty before men, but 
 before God. And furthermore, it must specially be noticed 
 that this was not legal fiction, but divine fact. A second con¬ 
 sideration, necessary to the full comprehension of this great 
 transaction, is, that it was not by any infusion within, but by 
 objective imputation. And it carried with it consequences of 
 a punitive character not less real and heavy than if the sin 
 had been His own. He made it His own by His voluntary 
 act. 
 
 Here it seems necessary to take notice of the evasion to 
 which the opponents of the vicarious satisfaction usually have 
 recourse. The objections are singularly similar, if not the 
 same in words, whether we have regard to former or recent 
 times. These passages are all explained away by the writers 
 to whom we allude, as if they referred only to indignities en¬ 
 dured at the hands of men. They reduce the statement made 
 by the apostle in this verse to this, that the Lord received 
 from the hands of men a treatment which wore the appearance 
 of, and might have been construed as if it w T ere, the treatment 
 given to a sinner. But is there any indication that the words 
 express mere semblance or appearance ? The text does not 
 affirm that He was reputed among men to be a sinner. It 
 affirms that He was made sin; that God made Him so: and 
 that plainly goes much further than to imply that He wore in 
 man’s esteem the appearance of being a criminal or a sinner. 
 Plainly the allusion is not to what He received at the hands 
 
228 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 of man, or was reputed in man’s judgment, but to what was 
 laid on Him by God. By no construction of language can the 
 words be made to denote afflictive treatment at the hands of 
 men; for that would make Christ occupy no other than a 
 martyr’s place. The superadded words, “ made sin for us,” 
 sufficiently explode that commentary; for the injurious treat¬ 
 ment to which Jesus was subjected could never, without sub¬ 
 stitution, have been described as undergone for us. Who 
 will affirm that the fact of men entertaining ill thoughts of 
 Christ, and treating Him as if He were a sinner, could make 
 Him stand “ for us,” or make Him reputed by God as made 
 sin for us, in any true acceptation of the terms ? 
 
 The import of the passage, then, amounts to this : Christ, 
 the sinless One, the realized ideal of humanity, the embodi¬ 
 ment of the divine law, wrapped Himself in His people’s sin, 
 and was constituted sin, by His Father’s act and by His own, 
 in such a manner that at the bar of God He was no longer 
 innocent. Bather He was made the concentrated sin of the 
 redeemed church, because found among sinners, federally united 
 to them, and charged at the bar of God with all their sins. 
 
 This sin-bearing capacity of Jesus proceeds on several pre¬ 
 suppositions,—a community of nature, and a federal relation 
 between the Surety and those in whose behalf His work was 
 undertaken. Without these no basis could have existed 
 either for imputation or punishment; for penal suffering has its 
 formal ground in guilt. So true is this, that it would be an 
 anomaly, an incongruity, a moral impossibility, in the divine 
 government to punish without guilt. Hay, it would be a 
 subversion of justice. The scope of this entire statement, 
 therefore, is, that the Lord Jesus was in the divine judgment 
 regarded in no other light than as a surety; and that, being 
 made sin according to the divine constitution, He was charged 
 with guilt not less really than if it had been all His own. 
 The entire life of Christ on earth, as delineated by the evan¬ 
 gelists and described by the apostles, is indeed set forth as the 
 
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 229 
 
 brightest exhibition of sinless perfection. But they add an¬ 
 other feature—that of sin-bearing. The expression, the sinless 
 sin-bearer, may be said aptly to describe His earthly career. 
 Certainly they who look merely at His innocence mistake the 
 gospel, if they do not overthrow it. He was not a sinless in¬ 
 dividual, as one of many, but A sinless Surety or Mediator 
 in our stead. And the text further states, that to exempt us 
 from the guilt of sin—or, in other words, that sin might no 
 more be imputed to us—the sinless One was “made sin for 
 us.” This is, in theological nomenclature, correctly enough 
 termed the imputation of sin to Christ. 
 
 4. The end for which Christ was made sin was, that we 
 MIGHT BE MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HlM. The 
 apostle again uses the abstract term, as in the previous clause. 
 We need not dwell on the phrase “ the righteousness of God,” 
 which we already expounded at large. Let it suffice to say 
 that here the one clause of this verse explains the other. We 
 are made the righteousness of God in the same way in which 
 Christ was made sin. The antithesis of the two clauses is in 
 the highest degree important. They are both objective ; they 
 are both by imputation, not by infusion. We are, through 
 Christ’s vicarious obedience, made the righteousness of God. 
 And this is found only in Him objectively, and as we are 
 united to Him by a living faith. 1 
 
 IY. Another passage in the same epistle, containing the 
 same allusion to the exchange of places, is as follows : For ye 
 know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was 
 rich, yet for our sokes He became poor, that ye through His 
 poverty might be rich (2 Cor. viii. 9). The apostle’s design was 
 to enforce liberality toward the poor saints for whom he was 
 making a contribution among the Gentile churches; and he 
 presents to the mind of the Corinthians the most constraining 
 motive—the Lord’s abasement to poverty for our sakes. There 
 
 1 See the chapter on the Counter-imputations of Sin and Righteousness, 
 p. 198, in Rev. H. Martin’s excellent work on the Atonement. Nisbet, 1870. 
 
230 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 are three points to which the passage refers, and to which we 
 shall make a brief allusion. 
 
 1. The clause “ though He was rich” refers to His divine 
 pre-existence, or to that which He possessed as the Creator 
 and owner of all. In the form of God eternally rich, exempt 
 from any want, and not needing even the external universe to 
 fill up a blank or to complete His personal happiness, He lived 
 in the eternal fellowship of His Father before the world was. 
 We may say, that before the outward universe was called into 
 being by His fiat, and when it existed only by possibility in 
 Him, He was infinitely blessed in Himself; and the world was 
 made to be an object on which His boundless fulness was to 
 be lavished, but not to fill up an unsatisfied want in Him, 
 personally considered. 
 
 2. He became poor in the exercise of grace to us. This 
 refers to earthly abasement, to which He spontaneously came 
 down for man’s sake; and it is affirmed of the whole person 
 of the God-man, on the principle that we speak of Him in the 
 concrete by either of His natures. 1 The allusion is to the in¬ 
 carnate state of the Lord, when He became what He was not; 
 for there was no change, and there could be none, upon His 
 deity. But as He entered into a new sphere, and a new form 
 of activity, Paul has in his eye the whole abased poor life of 
 Christ; and the statement is, that as He lived on earth without 
 property, goods, or comforts, such as other men enjoy, and had 
 not where to lay His head, it was all for our sakes. 
 
 This was done not simply as a preliminary to His arrest 
 and crucifixion—though the apostle says that, had they known 
 Him, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 
 ii. 8)—but as the penal consequence of sin all through life; 
 for He was at once the sin-bearer and the curse-bearer 
 at every stage of His career. Hence it was that He took 
 poverty as He took other parts of our curse; and the design 
 was to free us from the penal consequences of sin. 
 
 1 See Zanchius, tom. iii. cle Filii Dei Incarnatione, p. 278. 
 
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 
 
 231 
 
 3. It was for our sakes ; that is, for the good of the Corin¬ 
 thians, and all Christians generally. The meaning appears 
 from the last passage expounded by ns. The Lord made an 
 exchange of places with ns. The atoning element, though 
 commonly ascribed to the death of Christ, or to His blood 
 sacrificially viewed, takes in His entire sin-bearing life, and 
 His continuous abasement as the substitute of His people. 
 But it may be asked, Why is such emphasis here laid upon 
 His poverty ? The subject suggested it to the apostle’s mind, 
 and the whole is placed in a strong antithesis. We do not 
 need to view the separate parts of His suffering obedience as 
 separately meritorious, as if it served a good purpose to ascribe, 
 as some have done, pardon to His death, and acceptance to His 
 active obedience. That serves no purpose but to complicate 
 the matter, and divide into fragments the one work of the 
 Lord. The whole obedience together is meritorious; but it 
 may be seen in many lights, as a compensation or exchange. 
 It is competent, doubtless, on the warrant of such a passage, to 
 hold that the whole atoning obedience is applied in its unity 
 at etery point, and with a phase adapted to every actual want 
 of the human heart. But that is rather the application of the 
 vicarious work to the details of human necessity; and in this 
 way we may fitly affirm that He was abased to atone for pride, 
 poor to expiate the guilt of covetousness, hungry and thirsty 
 on account of that intemperate indulgence which has in all 
 ages conquered men from the eating of the forbidden fruit to 
 this hour. 1 In the same manner, we may affirm that He was 
 abased that we might be exalted, a. servant to set us free, 
 troubled that we might be comforted, tempted that we might 
 conquer, dishonoured that we may be glorified, and scourged 
 that by His stripes we might be healed. The entire abase¬ 
 ment of Christ, in the unity of His obedience, was for us; and 
 
 1 See Polanus, Syntagma Theologice, p. 1237. This exchange of places and 
 experience is specially brought out by Anselm, Meditations concerning Redemp¬ 
 tion ; by Luther and Gerhard ; and by Calvin, Com. in harmoniam Matthcei. 
 
232 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 we do not need to seek a separate atoning element in every 
 little detail. 
 
 As to our becoming eich in consequence of Christ’s work, 
 that is His reward as purchased for us. It is not earthly 
 riches, indeed; for this was neither the design of His atone¬ 
 ment, nor the actual result, but the whole riches of His in¬ 
 heritance and kingdom. 
 
 SEC. XII.—THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 This epistle furnishes a testimony to the atonement the 
 more striking, because, contrasted with a legal tendency, set¬ 
 ting it off like a foil. The apostle had twice visited Galatia 
 (Gal. iv. 13; Acts xvi. 6, xviii. 23), and refers to his preaching 
 of the atonement there when he says that Christ Jesus had 
 been evidently set forth before their eyes as crucified (Gal. 
 iii. 1). But within a short time after his last visit, a perilous 
 corruption of doctrine had been introduced, through the artful 
 representation of zealots for the law, who had succeeded in 
 bringing over the Galatians to the opinion that the observance 
 of Jewish rites was necessary to their acceptance with God. 
 
 The apostle’s aim in the epistle was to counteract this legal 
 spirit. It was not a question as to a few indifferent rites with 
 which the Jews were familiar, and which they were not pre¬ 
 pared as yet to abandon, but a question as to acceptance with 
 God; for these ceremonies were considered as necessary for 
 acquiring righteousness. In exposing this error, the apostle 
 brought the Galatians to the atonement as the sole ground of 
 man’s acceptance, and one to which no addition could be 
 made; and the whole argument went to prove, that they who 
 substituted another ground of acceptance overthrew the foun¬ 
 dation of Christianity. Hence his repeated appeals to the 
 atonement at all the turns of his argument. In the very 
 salutation with which the epistle opens, he interweaves an 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 233 
 
 allusion to the death of Christ as the one foundation of accept¬ 
 ance and redemption. 
 
 I. The first passage on the atonement is as follows: Who 
 gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this 
 present evil world (Gal. i. 4). How much the apostle’s mind 
 was possessed with this great truth, appears from the fact that 
 he starts with it, and intimates through the entire epistle that 
 nothing besides Christ crucified can stand as the foundation of 
 a sinner’s acceptance. 1 Three points may be noticed on this 
 verse. 
 
 1. The self-oblation of the Lord Jesus: who gave Himself. 
 The expression occurs elsewhere, to intimate that He willingly 
 offered Himself (1 Tim. ii. 6; Tit. i. 14; Matt. xx. 28). The 
 phrase which our Lord employs is of the same import: “ I lay 
 down my life” (John x. 17). Christ was not seized by the 
 hand of violence, but spontaneously offered Himself; a line of 
 thought followed out in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Hot 
 only did the Eather provide the sacrifice, and deliver Him up 
 to death for us all (Bom. viii. 32): the Lord Jesus gave Him¬ 
 self by a priestly act. The phrase indicates Christ’s spon¬ 
 taneous priestly action in His death. 2 This peculiar mode of 
 describing the atonement indicates that He was the priest of 
 His own sacrifice—the sacrificer and the victim in one. 
 
 2. The apostle’s language affirms still more definitely, that 
 He gave Himself for our sins. The object was to lead the 
 Galatians into deeper views of the scope of Christ’s atoning 
 death, and to rescue them from any hankering after legal 
 ceremonies that made the death of Christ superfluous. The 
 expression indicates that there was a relation between Christ’s 
 death and the sins of men; that our sins made it necessary as 
 
 1 This verse exhibits the sum and substance of the ^epistle, and the purport 
 of the gospel. 
 
 2 <rou Icivrog lavrov. In many passages, the giving of Christ, always to be 
 taken sacrificially, is ascribed to the Father exhibiting His covenant love. 
 Here it is described as Christ’s own priestly act in compliance with the Father’s 
 
 will. 
 
234 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 tlie procuring and meritorious cause of His death. The reason 
 why He gave Himself is here assigned. The same represen¬ 
 tation is given in many passages, whether we turn to the 
 ancient prophecies (Isa. liii. 5), or to the statements explana¬ 
 tory of Christ’s death in the epistles (Bom. iv. 25; 1 Cor. xv. 
 3; 1 Pet. iii. 18). Between the Lord’s priestly oblation and 
 our sins there was a relation so peculiar, that our sins and His 
 death stood connected as cause and consequence. These sins 
 were the cause of His death. 1 
 
 It is necessary to bring out the import of this phraseology, 
 because many explain it away. The expression cannot mean 
 that He was cut off by human violence sinfully exercised. 
 Such a comment cannot be engrafted on the clause: it is 
 descriptive of the Lord’s giving Himself by a spontaneous 
 sacrifice. They were actual sins, which did not first exist or 
 come to light when Christ was violently put to death. Nor 
 were the sins limited to that age, or to violent men in Jeru¬ 
 salem; for the apostle, comprehending himself and the Ga¬ 
 latians, who had nothing to do with these acts of violence, 
 says, “who gave Himself for our sins.” Nor do such phrases 
 allude to the putting away of sin by future amendment; for 
 this very thing, as we shall see, is subjoined as the scope con¬ 
 templated by the sacrifice. To make the clause under our 
 consideration of the same import with the final clause, after¬ 
 wards to he noticed, would he a flat tautology. Not only so: 
 it would fasten on Paul’s reasoning the absurdity of making 
 the means and the end, the cause and effect, identical. 
 
 The expression means that He gave Himself on account of 
 sin; that His death stood in the same relation to sin as death 
 uniformly does,—that is, that death was in His case, too, the 
 wages of sin. And the consequence is as follows : If the Lord 
 died for our sins, they whom He represented do not require to 
 die for their own sins. If, in the moral government of God, 
 our sins were the cause of Christ’s death, there can he no 
 
 1 See Matthies’ ErJclarung, and Windischmann here on mpt and vxtp. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 235 
 
 second exaction of the penal consequences from ns personally. 
 The result of a comparison of these phrases is, that Christ 
 occupied a vicarious position; that He died on our account 
 and for our benefit, hut only so because He was our substitute 
 at the tribunal of God. 
 
 3. All this was done, that He might deliver us from this 
 present evil world. The final particle (ok cog) brings before 
 us the divine purpose, or Christ’s own aim in dying for our 
 sins—that ethical and sanctifying result to which we already 
 alluded. The fruits intended by the death of Christ are very 
 various—as numerous, indeed, as the effects of sin; some bear¬ 
 ing on the acceptance of our persons, others on the renovation 
 of our natures: and the death of Christ stands in causal con¬ 
 nection with both. But it deserves notice, that when life and 
 renewing are referred to as the results of His atonement, the 
 acceptance of the person is always presupposed; that is, the 
 person is accepted, and then the nature is sanctified. Though 
 the atonement stands in causal connection with both, the per¬ 
 sonal standing is first rectified, as the immediate result of the 
 Lord’s death . 1 
 
 This passage shows that, besides the acceptance of the 
 man, as the immediate effect of the Lord’s death, a second 
 effect is by no means to be overlooked. Most expositors view 
 
 A 
 
 the clause as referring to the ethical design of the death of 
 Christ; but it is not the ethical effect in the form of motive, 
 but new spiritual life, or renewing in the spirit of our mind. 
 This is procured by the death of Christ, as well as the pardon 
 of guilt; and that, too, not on the mere ground of moral influ¬ 
 ence, but on a ground immeasurably deeper—on that of the 
 divine rectitude—and according to the deepest principles of 
 the moral government of God. It is the more necessary to 
 
 1 The telic particle ova; is meant to, show the sanctifying result contemplated 
 by Christ’s atoning death, according to His own and His Father’s purpose. 
 And on this it is the more necessary to lay emphasis, as the Schleiermacher 
 theology and the advocates of a moral redemption represent the vicarious sacri¬ 
 fice as outward and cold. 
 
236 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 lay emphasis on tliis, that we may meet the cavil, all too 
 current, that the doctrine of substitution is cold, external, and 
 disconnected from spiritual life and ethical results. 
 
 II. Another passage, descriptive of the relation between 
 Christ and His people in His atoning work, is as follows : I 
 am crucified with Christ; nevertheless [better, ancT | I live; yet 
 not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in 
 the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of Cod [better, in faith 
 which is upon the Son of Cod'], who loved me, and gave Himself 
 for me. I do not frustrate the grace of Cod; for if righteousness 
 come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain [better, died without 
 a cause ] (Gal. ii. 20, 21). The context forms part of that reproof 
 addressed to Peter for his vacillation and timidity. Peter did 
 not as an apostle teach amiss; but his concessions to the zealots, 
 in ceasing to eat with the Gentiles, encouraged them. Paul 
 accordingly exposed the dangerous principle. He shows that 
 its real meaning implied that a Christian was not complete in 
 the atoning death of Christ, but needed something more; that, 
 according to the Judaizing party, men in Christ, and depend¬ 
 ing on nothing beyond His finished work, had so imperfect a 
 ground of acceptance, that they could be viewed only as sin¬ 
 ners, or such as were without a full title (ver. 17); that they 
 made Christ only what Moses had been—a minister of sin and 
 condemnation (ver. 17); in a word, that all who sought right¬ 
 eousness by something supplementary to Christ, avowed that 
 He was not a perfect Saviour. 1 He adds that, in the first in- 
 
 1 These memorable words of Paul are expounded, for the most part, in a 
 far too superficial way ; and this must he so, if we do not take in the element 
 of Christ’s substitution. The apostle argues, that to make anything supple¬ 
 mentary to Christ’s work, is to represent Him as an imperfect Saviour, as a 
 mere Moses or minister of an imperfect dispensation. To superadd anything to 
 Christ’s work, is to subvert His priestly sacrifice, and make His economy like 
 the Sinaitic economy, and Himself a “ minister of sin.” Melancthon ( Apolog. 
 Confess. Art. 3) happily says: “ Paulus ait, si justificatus in Christo opus 
 habet ut postea alibi queerat justitiam, tribui Christo quod sit minister jpeccati 
 id est, quod non plene justificet.” See, too, the old Lutheran commentators, 
 especially Brentius and Hunnius, who apprehend the words more profoundly 
 than the moderns. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 237 
 
 stance, they had sought to he accepted in Christ without the 
 works of the law, believing on Christ as all their title; hut 
 that now they built again what they had destroyed. By seek¬ 
 ing a title through works, they did not stand on the atone¬ 
 ment as the sole ground of acceptance, but viewed themselves 
 as imperfect and guilty if they had not something in addition 
 to the work of Christ. The apostle adds, that by the law he 
 died to the law (ver. 19); and the statement can only mean, 
 that the death to the law was grounded on his being crucified 
 with Christ. The following points here demand notice :— 
 
 1. We are said to be crucified with Christ, because, when 
 one died for all, it was the same as if all died. This expres¬ 
 sion belongs to justification from sin, or to our partaking of 
 the merit of Christ’s death, and does not mean the putting 
 away of sin by inward renovation; for if that were indicated 
 by our being crucified with Christ, what would then be meant 
 by our resurrection with Him ? When the apostle speaks of 
 dying with Christ, or of being crucified with Him, he does not 
 first use it literally, and then metaphorically; nor describe two 
 different acts, resembling each other—one in Christ’s personal 
 experience, and one in ours, some way similar. What is there 
 in us that can bear a comparison with the bitter death of the 
 cross, or be designated by the name ? But it consists with 
 reason and the nature of the thing to designate our partnership 
 with Christ, or participation in His sufferings, by this phrase ; 
 because, when Christ was crucified in our room and stead, it 
 was in the divine account the same as if we ourselves had been 
 crucified for sin. The compound verb co-crucified intimates 
 the partnership of many in the Lord’s action; and the addi¬ 
 tional words, with Christ, imply that it was accomplished in 
 Him, or along with Him. 
 
 A wholly unique relation subsisted between Christ and 
 His people—a relation which can be apprehended only when 
 we call to mind the original constitution given to the human 
 family, according to which one acted for many ; for in the same 
 
238 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 manner one representative man—a God-man—died for His 
 church, and obeyed in stead of many (2 Cor. v. 14; Rom. v. 
 12-18). This expression, and the principle on which it is 
 based, have already been elucidated. Hence God the Father 
 viewed the entire redeemed church as if it were hanging with 
 Him—that is, in Him—upon the cross; for the action of the 
 Surety was regarded as the act of those whom He represented. 
 
 The apostle presupposes, too, what he afterwards brings out, 
 that the curse of the law was executed on Christ crucified; 
 that His crucifixion comprehended His sufferings, as well as 
 all that positive fulfilment of the law by which He became 
 obedient unto death. And when Paul here says that we are 
 crucified with Christ, the sense is : We are viewed as suffering 
 what He suffered, and as doing what He did. And thus, in 
 virtue of His finished work, we enter into His federal reward. 
 
 2. The apostle no sooner mentions his co-crucifixion with 
 Christ, than he subjoins, according to his wont, an allusion to 
 the risen life, or premial life. The two are commonly put 
 together, because it is life considered as the reward of fulfilling 
 the law (Gal. iii. 12); and the meritorious cause of this life is 
 Christ crucified for all whom He represented—the cause of 
 life by His atonement. Had the Son of God not interposed, 
 in the capacity of surety, offering Himself to fulfil the pre¬ 
 cepts and satisfy the penalty of the divine law in our room, 
 this premial life could never have been bestowed on fallen 
 men. But the death and life are put together, on the principle 
 that they must be conjoined in our case not less than in the 
 experience of the Lord Himself; because we were one with 
 Him in both conditions—in Him when suffering, and then as 
 sharing in His reward. 
 
 As we had occasion already to refer to this resurrection- 
 life, it is unnecessary to do more in this place than to point 
 out its inseparable connection with the Lord’s atoning death. 
 It may suffice to say, that the fountain of this life is God, and 
 that union to the Lord by the possession of the Spirit sustains 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 239 
 
 it, as natural life is sustained by tlie union of soul and body. 
 The apostle in this passage connects it so closely with Christ’s 
 own life, that he puts it as if it were a reproduction, or con¬ 
 tinued manifestation, of the life of Christ. It differs from the 
 creation-life, or what may be called the primeval Adamic life, 
 in this respect, that it is secured for ever on the ground of 
 justice; a premial life—a life of confirmation after a period of 
 probation has been successfully fulfilled—a life immutable, to 
 be forfeited no more. This eternal life evinces its presence 
 in the same way as natural life, by the operations, exercises, 
 or activity of its spiritual faculties; and they who possess it 
 hear the voice of the Son of God (John v. 25), understand the 
 word (1 Cor. ii. 10-14), taste that the Lord is gracious (1 Pet. 
 ii.-3), see with enlightened eyes (Epli. i. 18), and will to do 
 good, though not always effecting what they would (Kom. vii. 
 19). In a word, they live as members of Christ, the ever- 
 living Head, to such a degree, that they say, “Not I, but 
 Christ liveth in me,” that is, with a federal unity, but a distinct 
 personality. 
 
 3. Next follows a delineation of the life of faith, that is, 
 of life as exercised in faith upon its proper object. Speaking 
 of life in its activity here below, the apostle says that it pre¬ 
 eminently displays itself in faith on the Eedeemer, as loving 
 His people with a special love, and giving Himself for them 
 by a special atonement. Obviously, that is not the language 
 of faith for attaining justification, but the language of a man 
 already justified, and glorying in a sense of acceptance and the 
 experience of grace. The spiritual life of a Christian finds its 
 activity on the same object to which the anxious inquirer first 
 came for pardon, with this difference, that it is now accepted 
 in its special destination: “ who loved me, and gave Himself 
 for me.” This exhaustless theme has been summed up in three 
 pregnant terms— talis, tanta, tantillis} 
 
 a. The Eedeemer is described as the Son of God; and we 
 
 1 Hooker, of New England, uses this formula with much effect. 
 
240 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 see from this, that the expiation of sin is not the work of a 
 mere man, but the work of the God-man, as He is designated 
 in connection with His atonement, by a relation peculiar to 
 His divine nature. The error of the Church of Home consisted 
 in ascribing the atonement too exclusively to the action of the 
 human nature, and in limiting the mediatorial activity to this 
 side of His person. But the sacerdotal sacrifice was the action 
 of the person, and hence we read that they crucified the Lord 
 of glory (1 Cor. ii. 8). The terrible suffering was not expe¬ 
 rienced by the divine nature, and took effect on the humanity. 
 But it was the Son of God who atoned. The God-man suffered; 
 and the sacrifice consisted in this, that it was the spontaneous 
 act of one more worthy than any creature, and offering what 
 was His own,—an oblation of more value than a whole world 
 of sinners. 
 
 b. As to the love of the Son of God, to which reference is 
 also made, it is described in the past tense, because it cul¬ 
 minated upon the cross. That was displayed by the greatness 
 of His person, the meanness and unworthiness of the objects 
 toward whom it was exercised, and the inconceivable abase¬ 
 ment and suffering to which He descended. It was self- 
 moving, and uncaused by ought without Himself. It was love 
 self-originated: He loved us, because He would love us; and 
 whether we look at His person and offices, or at the fact that 
 it was exercised to a people given Him by the Father, we find 
 much to excite reflection. It was the love of a God-man, at once 
 divine and human,—the love of one who interposed between 
 two disunited parties to reconcile them, who had compassion 
 on the ignorant as a priest, and discharged their obligations as 
 a surety. 
 
 c. The apostle adds, He gave Himself for me. This 
 conveys a sacrificial idea, whether God is described as giving 
 His Son, or the Son is described as giving Himself. When we 
 inquire what He gave, the answer contained in the apostle’s 
 statement is: He gave not some, nor all, the riches of creation, 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 241 
 
 but Himself,—an oblation beyond comparison greater than all 
 the works of His hands. 
 
 d. The love and sacrifice are equally described in their 
 special destination; and the conclusion to be drawn is, that 
 the atonement was provided for a definite class given in the 
 Father’s gift, and specially represented by the Son in the 
 mediatorial capacity in which He condescended to act the 
 part of a substitute and surety. The language would be abso¬ 
 lutely unmeaning if this were not intended. A special love 
 and definite atonement cannot be explained away, if words are 
 to be interpreted in their natural sense. 
 
 The apostle does not speak of the first exercise of faith, or 
 the faith of adherence cleaving to the general declarations of 
 divine love; that is, the faith by which we are accepted. The 
 apostle’s words refer to what is special, and presuppose assur¬ 
 ance. They describe faith on Christ as exercising a special 
 love to us, and offering a special atonement for us, taken from 
 the general mass of men. This appropriation of faith animated 
 Paul through life, and is imbibed by all true Christians sub¬ 
 sequently to the acceptance of their person; though faith first 
 clings to the general invitations indiscriminately addressed to 
 the hearers of the gospel. 
 
 4. Next follows a syllogistic argument to prove that 
 Christ’s death was superfluous,—a thing for which there was 
 no occasion, if righteousness is connected in any measure with 
 the observance of the law (ver. 21). The dispute was not 
 whether men could be saved by the law without Christ, but 
 whether the law was necessary by way of supplement; and 
 the question which the apostle decides in the affirmative is, 
 whether justifying righteousness is to be found in the atoning 
 death of Christ alone. Both parties admitted the sacrificial 
 death of the Lord. But the apostle maintained that the Lord’s 
 death was the truth of all the types of the law, the exclusive 
 ground of acceptance, and the ever-valid righteousness before 
 God. In Paul’s phraseology, Christ’s death comprehends all 
 
 Q 
 
242 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 I 
 
 He did and suffered. The argument, put in syllogistic form, 
 is as follows i 1 If righteousness come by the law, Christ died 
 without cause. But Christ did not die without cause; there¬ 
 fore righteousness is not by the law. 
 
 Such is the syllogism; and if the argument has any 
 cogency, or language any significance, our righteousness, or 
 title to eternal life, is found exclusively in the atoning death 
 of Christ. Attention is principally to be fixed on the minor 
 proposition; and in expounding it, it must be noticed that the 
 word rendered in vain, may be taken either as defining the 
 cause or the effect, but in the present case as defining the 
 cause thus: He died without occasion, or gratuitously, and with¬ 
 out necessity, as the word is elsewhere used (John xv. 25). 2 
 But no one with adequate views of divine wisdom, or know¬ 
 ledge of the prophecies respecting the Messiah, will affirm that 
 His mission, at so great a cost, was without a cause, or super¬ 
 fluous ; for God would not allow His only Son to be abased and 
 suffer a malefactor’s death without a cause. But there was no 
 fit or adequate cause for His atoning work, unless righteous¬ 
 ness come by His death, and by no other channel. If the 
 law could have accomplished ought, the apostle says that 
 righteousness and life would both have been by the law (Gal. 
 iii. 21; Bom. viii. 3). 
 
 The apostle’s argument, if we would correctly apprehend it, 
 is as follows: Either Christ died without an adequate occasion, 
 or the fruit as well as the definite design of His death was to 
 usher in an ever-valid title, or righteousness. This is the 
 positive side of the atonement, considered as a deed. It pre¬ 
 supposes the negative side, or the atonement as the carrying 
 out of the penalty of death originally pronounced against sin. 
 All must die, and God can have no intercourse with sinners 
 
 1 it yap 'btk voftov 'btx.a.totrvvri, apa, etc.—a syllogism of much weight—proves 
 indubitably that our righteousness and Christ’s death are coincident, And that 
 nothing else enters in. 
 
 2 The meaning of 'bupiav is not in vain , as Grotius, Piscator, and Theophylact 
 render it, but gratuitously, or without a reason. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 243 
 
 till the cause of separation is taken out of the way, and death 
 endured as the wages of sin. Ho other cause can he assigned 
 for the Lord’s death and the sufferings through which He 
 passed. His death was indispensably necessary, and inflexibly 
 demanded, if a righteousness was to be brought in. 
 
 The reason is obvious: Had the law been able to contribute 
 any aid in this respect, the Son of God, of whom the apostle 
 has been speaking, would not have come. The Lawgiver 
 would have erected a covenant of works, or been content 
 with the Sinai covenant, and so have dispensed with a new 
 covenant and a new mediator. But as the law availed not, as 
 it only witnessed to a righteousness which it could not intro¬ 
 duce (Bom. iii. 21), the mission of Christ to this world. His 
 incarnation and death, had for their object to bring in the 
 everlasting righteousness which could not otherwise have been 
 attained. But for this, there was no assignable cause for the 
 Lord’s death, which is here viewed as the culmination of His 
 obedience: our sole righteousness is found in His obedience 
 unto death. 
 
 What other cause can be named which does not either pro¬ 
 ceed upon a humanitarian conception of His person, or carry 
 its own refutation with it ? According to the Socinians, there 
 was no necessity for Christ’s death, such as the apostle assumes 
 to be conceded upon all sides, even by those whose additions 
 tended to undermine it. Why did He die according to the 
 text ? Hot to seal and confirm the truth of His doctrine; 
 for His doctrine was confirmed by miracles: not to teach 
 us that we enter heaven by suffering, or to give us an ex¬ 
 ample how to die; for martyrs could have done that without 
 an incarnation: not to present to us, for the sustaining of our 
 hope, a specimen of immortality and resurrection; for the 
 word could hold forth that: but to bring in a justifying 
 righteousness; and on any other supposition, He died without 
 a cause. 
 
 III. We have next a passage .descriptive of Christ made a 
 
244 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 curse for us; and of all the texts hearing on the atonement, there 
 is none more decisive as to its nature : Christ hath redeemed us 
 from the curse of the law , being made a curse for us: for it is 
 written , Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: that the 
 blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus 
 Christ (Gal. iii. 13). The context shows, that far from obtain¬ 
 ing righteousness, the Galatians, by placing themselves on a 
 legal footing (ver. 10), brought themselves under the curse. 
 This is not the Levitical law, because it proposes life to those 
 who fulfil it (ver. 12), and pronounces a curse on non-fulfil¬ 
 ment (ver. 13). The apostle’s object is to bring out that the 
 law awards a curse, not a reward, to those who place them¬ 
 selves on a footing of law; and this is contrasted with eternal 
 life, the promised reward. Tor the correct apprehension of the 
 atonement in its essential elements, we must strictly define 
 this curse. It is the divine sentence pronounced upon trans¬ 
 gressors, comprehending in it the loss of God as its chief 
 ingredient, separation from Him (Isa. lix. 2), and whatever 
 positive infliction is further included. The Old Testament 
 phraseology, from which the language is derived, takes in all 
 that doom and shame which are the consequences of violating 
 the divine law (Gen. iii. 17-19 ; Deut. xxvii. 14-26). 
 
 The text may be compared with another, to which it bears 
 a strong resemblance, where Christ is said to have been made 
 sin (2 Cor. v. 21). The abstract noun in both passages de¬ 
 mands notice; for an abstract noun describes Christ as the 
 sin-bearer, and an abstract noun describes Him as the curse- 
 bearer. The Hebrews were wont to take nouns in the abstract 
 instead of adjectives, when they wished to intimate that a 
 thing was done in the highest conceivable measure or degree. 
 The expression made sin for us is more emphatic and full 
 of meaning than if Paul had said, made Him a sinner. It 
 avoids, moreover, the misconception to which the latter term 
 would have given rise, and allows us, according to the design 
 of the passage, to distinguish between the personal and the 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 245 
 
 official. In like manner, the expression being made a curse 
 for us is more emphatic and significant than if he had said, 
 being made accursed ; while it enables ns to distinguish 
 between personal relation and official suretyship. The simi¬ 
 larity between the two passages is obvious; and the difference 
 is, that the former describes the imputation of sin, while the 
 latter sets forth the actual doom or infliction. The former 
 describes the relation of sin to punishment, the latter the 
 punishment itself. 1 
 
 In this passage four points demand notice, and we shall 
 advert to them as briefly as is compatible with the importance 
 of so conclusive a passage: 1. What is the curse of the law ? 
 2. The liberation from it; whether absolute, or by price. 3. 
 The mode by which the redemption was effected : the ransom. 
 4. The blessing on the Gentiles in room of the curse. 
 
 1. The curse of the law does not mean temporal and 
 civil punishments inflicted on Israel for the transgression of 
 the judicial or ceremonial law. To interpret the expression in 
 that way, is wholly to misapprehend its meaning. That there 
 were such visitations, cannot be questioned by any one who 
 has .acquired a knowledge of the old dispensation (Deut. xxviii. 
 15 ff.). These were evidences or proofs by which the people 
 were trained to apprehend the divine wrath against the trans¬ 
 gressors of His commandments; but it is a far deeper thought 
 that is before the apostle’s mind. 2 As the context indubitably 
 proves, the contrast is between wrath and blessing, between 
 condemnation and justification. Besides, the Galatians to whom 
 he wrote were Gentiles, not Jews; and it would have had no 
 appropriateness, to bring before them an allusion to the dis- 
 pensational peculiarities of Israel. The term curse, here used, 
 comprehends the penal sanction of the moral law, and takes 
 for granted that mankind generally, having the work of the 
 law written on their hearts, and a law to themselves (Rom. 
 
 1 See Cameron, Opera, p. 518 ; Lechler, das apostolische Zeitalter, p. 75. 
 
 2 See Balduin’s Latin Commentary on Paul’s Epistles. 
 
246 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 ii. 14), were not less liable to the curse than the Jews: they 
 were both equally under the curse. 
 
 2. From that curse Christ redeemed us, or, more strictly, 
 bought us out. The word is a compound verb, denoting to 
 buy out from one condition to transfer us into another. 1 The 
 question here arises, In what way, absolutely or by price ? 
 Plainly it is not an absolute deliverance, but one which is the 
 result of purchase. No terms could more explicitly declare 
 this; for the price or ransom is immediately subjoined, as in 
 many other passages where reference is made to redemption 
 (compare 1 Cor. vi. 20; 1 Pet. i. 18, 19). It was a true and 
 real curse to which we were subjected: it is a true and real 
 redemption into which we are ushered; and the price, too, by 
 which it was effected—the intervention of the cross, or Christ 
 made a curse for us—was a true and real price. The curse lay 
 on Jew and Gentile equally; and the ransom which liberated 
 us was the transfer of punishment, and an exchange of places 
 between us and Christ. We could not have been redeemed 
 from this obligation to the curse, involving as it did a refer¬ 
 ence to God as Lawgiver and Judge, had the cross been an 
 expedient of an arbitrary nature, having nothing in common 
 with the burden of the curse. That this is a commutation of 
 persons, or deliverance by substitution, cannot be mistaken 
 or denied. 
 
 3. The price or ransom paid for us was nothing else but the 
 
 % 
 
 personal Eedeemer, the Son of God condescending to be made A 
 curse for us ; a thought so vast and unfathomable, that though 
 our minds grow familiar with the phraseology, we are for ever 
 incapable of comprehending or fully surveying it. The ransom 
 which liberated us was not His divine doctrine, nor His bright 
 example of holiness left us to follow; for that would but throw 
 humanity back upon its own resources, and could never be 
 disjoined from dependence on works, or inner holiness. The 
 
 1 ifyyopafftv. The verb denotes to obtain by price , and the compound verb 
 refers to the misery out of which we were ransomed (Quenstedt). 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 247 
 
 apostle thinks of the ransom in a far other way : he identifies 
 it with the Lord’s abasement and ignominious death as a vica¬ 
 rious satisfaction. He affirms that the price by which He 
 discharged us from temporal and eternal penalty was His being 
 made a curse for us by entering into our position before God. 
 That is the meaning of the participial clause (compare 2 Cor. 
 v. 19): He was made the accumulated curse of His people, as 
 if it were embodied in Him. God treated the sin-bearer as if 
 He had been the sinner: that is, what the law awarded to us 
 was visited upon Him; and by that substitution our redemp¬ 
 tion was secured. 1 
 
 This curse culminated in the wrath of God. And here I 
 must take occasion to expose the unbiblical theory prevalent 
 in a certain school of theologians at present, that the element 
 of wrath did not enter into the atonement, and that Christ was 
 in no sense the object of the wrath of God. It suffices to 
 explode such a notion to direct: attention to this single phrase, 
 which conveys the opposite thought: Were not men under the 
 wrath of God when they were under the curse ? (Gal. iii. 10 ; 
 Eph. ii. 3.) And when Christ was made a curse, was He 
 not, in an official respect, of necessity the object of divine wrath ? 
 The term used in the text has only to be alternated with the 
 equivalent term, to convince any mind that the theory in ques¬ 
 tion is no better than a neutralizing evasion, if not a contra¬ 
 diction, of Scripture. That curse was the penal sanction of the 
 law with which we were burdened, and from which we must 
 needs be redeemed; and the words will bear no other comment. 
 
 1 It would be tedious to refer to all the discussions on the import of this 
 passage. The expositions are numerous, because it is decisive as to the nature 
 of the atonement, and every one is summoned to examine it. Against the 
 Socinians, see Arnold, Calovius, Hoornbeek, Turretin, Quenstedt, Oeder, Pictet, 
 Stapfer. See the remarks of Owen on the Socinian views (vols. ix. x.), and 
 Hurrion on the Necessity of the Atonement; Seiler and Tissel on the atonement, 
 both of the Grotian school; and more recently Lotze, Keiser, and Vinke. The 
 discussions of Weber, vom Zorne Gottes; Keil (see above, p. 27) ; Thomasius 
 (vol. iii. p. 73) ; Philippi, in the course of the discussions excited by Hofmann, 
 deserve perusal. 
 
248 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 This transfer of punishment from us to Him is convincingly 
 established by the context and by the structure of the sentence ; 
 and there is not room for two opinions on the subject. That 
 curse was manifested in the infliction of death in its full extent 
 of meaning, according to the primeval sentence on our race 
 (Gal. iii. 3-19). It consisted especially in the privation of God, 
 and in the desertion, which extorted from Him many agonizing 
 complaints; for the worst ingredient of the curse is the loss of 
 God, or the absence and complete withdrawal of God from a 
 human soul, made to be His habitation. That, in fact, is the 
 bitterest element of eternal death; and through it the Surety was 
 constrained to pass when made a curse for us. None but a divine 
 person, indeed, was equal to the endurance; and none but a divine 
 person could have engaged his heart to appear before God to 
 encounter the curse (Jer. xxx. 21). A God-man was required to 
 bear it, to reverse it, and transform it into a blessing (ver. 14). 
 
 We must notice, before proceeding further, the quotation 
 from the Mosaic law. Paul adduces it to ground what had 
 been said, and to prove that death by crucifixion was not 
 only painful and ignominious, but expressive of a divine curse : 
 “For it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” 
 (Deut. xxi. 22, 23). To understand this quotation grounding 
 the previous statement, it is necessary to consider whether the 
 particular law to which the apostle refers was intended to be 
 symbolical, typical, and prophetical in its import. Exposi¬ 
 tors, following the uniform testimony of rabbinical writers, are 
 mostly of opinion that crucifixion, or the affixing of a living 
 person by nails to a tree, and thus leaving him to expire by 
 a slow and painful death, was a Gentile mode of punishment 
 common among the Eomans, but never in use among the 
 Jewish people, while their institutions remained entire; and 
 that the Mosaic law, in referring to the suspending of a criminal 
 on a tree, had reference not to a living man, but to a dead 
 body thus exposed to view till sunset,—after which the body 
 was to be buried, not remaining all night upon the tree. On 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 249 
 
 the other hand, Lipsius, Baronius, 1 and above all, Albert 
 Schultens, contend with great learning that there is no good 
 ground for the conclusion, that death by crucifixion was not in 
 use in the times of the Hebrew commonwealth; and that the 
 rabbinical writers in this instance, as in many others that 
 might be named, discover a determination to wrest from the 
 Christians such a remarkable type or typical prophecy of the 
 crucified Messiah. Without entering into this controversy, 
 let it suffice to say, that between hanging on a tree as described 
 in the Mosaic law, and death by crucifixion, an obvious point 
 of similarity exists, which no one can mistake. But besides the 
 suspension,—the point of resemblance,—such a mode of death 
 was not only ignominious in the sight of men, but meant to 
 appear accursed in the sight of God: for the terms of the law 
 are express to this effect. God, in His divine purpose, willed 
 it to be so. As it was a positive appointment, it is not neces¬ 
 sary to search for deeper reasons, least of all for fanciful 
 analogies; though the opinion expressed by many eminent 
 divines, that this mode of death recalled the manner in which 
 sin entered into the world, and by which the curse was diffused 
 over the human race, is not unwarrantable. Our first parents 
 sinned by the forbidden tree, and God, it is thought, willed 
 that the reversal of the curse by the second Adam should be 
 by hanging on a tree, that it might suggest the origin of the 
 curse. Whatever ground may exist for this opinion, it was 
 according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of 
 God that the curse should be expiated in no other way but 
 by crucifixion or hanging on a tree. 
 
 But as to the special point, how the person hanging on a tree 
 was accursed, there can be no doubt. It was a symbol, type, or 
 prophecy. They who were thus punished were not accursed 
 because they were hanged on a tree—a shallow comment which 
 reduces it to nothing—but conversely, were hanged on a tree 
 because they were accursed. It is necessary to lay stress on 
 
 1 Casaubon replied to Baronius. 
 
250 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 this, to forestall the notion that Paul, by applying this language 
 to Christ, means nothing more than that there was an outward 
 exposure and shame attaching to that mode of death. That 
 is far from the apostle’s meaning, and far from a right con¬ 
 ception of the symbol. He was not made a curse by the mere 
 fact that He hung on a tree; but conversely, He was sus¬ 
 pended there because He was made a curse for us; and the 
 mode of punishment was first instituted to represent the idea 
 now stated. 
 
 The Lawgiver, when He proclaimed that law by Moses, in¬ 
 tended it to be typical as well as symbolical, or more strictly 
 a typical prophecy. It figured forth a great idea, which had 
 only to be apprehended by the first preachers of Christianity, 
 and has only to be apprehended still, to impel men under 
 the most constraining motive to boast of the cross, to admire 
 the cross, and to commend the cross as the power of God and 
 wisdom of God. In the eyes of men, crucifixion was in the 
 highest degree ignominious,—a servile punishment inflicted on 
 the lowest scum of the people, when they expiated their crimes 
 by death. On freemen it was never inflicted till they were 
 degraded from their rank, and classified with slaves; and then 
 it was awarded only for the worst crimes committed against 
 civil order and law, property, religion, and government. The 
 stigma attaching to such a death, accordingly, was the same as 
 now attaches to one who expiates great crimes upon the gallows. 
 This was the Gentile conception of such a death. But accord¬ 
 ing to the Jewish law, it carried with it the further brand of 
 being accursed in the sight of God; and the fact of dying such 
 a death was doubtless one principal ground why the nation 
 esteemed Christ stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. The 
 law made such a death emphatically an accursed one; and 
 were they not to view it in that light ? Accordingly, the 
 common name for Jesus among the Jews to the present day, 
 the hanged one, sufficiently shows how they think themselves 
 entitled to regard the crucifixion. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 251 
 
 In giving sucli a law by Moses, God meant it to be a 
 typical prophecy, as well as symbolical of curse-bearing. In 
 the same way, the lifting up of the brazen serpent on the pole 
 was meant in the divine purpose to adumbrate the crucifixion, 
 whether many or few saw beyond the figure to the Antitype. 
 Among the forms of punishment mentioned in the law, that 
 of hanging on a tree was pronounced accursed, because it 
 figured forth the cross, and announced that the Messiah should 
 one day hang upon a tree. The question is not, how many 
 could decipher the symbol and the typical prophecy ? but, was 
 that in the divine intention ? And the apostle’s quotation of 
 the passage in this connection is decisive in the affirmative. 
 Both the symbol and the type are equally emphatic. The 
 cross was the expression of an idea,—a sort of fact-painting, 
 an evidence or exhibition that the person suspended on it was 
 already accursed, or a curse in the sight of God. Hot that the 
 tree was the cause of the curse; for the accursed one was sus¬ 
 pended on the tree. This was an outstanding public testimony 
 to a fact, and in this case a testimony that the Lord was bur¬ 
 dened with the world’s curse, and weighed down under its 
 overwhelming load. 1 
 
 4. The curse-bearing paved the way for the blessing (ver. 
 14). These two are directly contrasted, and the one is in order 
 to the other. The curse under which we laboured was removed, 
 that the blessing might be imparted. The curse laid on the 
 Lord opened the channel of communication for the reception 
 of the blessing; out of that redemption from the curse of 
 the law, flows the blessing which comes upon the Gentiles 
 (ver. 14). 
 
 To all this exposition three objections are commonly urged 
 by those who impugn the atonement as a substitution and 
 satisfaction. And we must advert to them, though they are 
 easy of refutation to any one who apprehends the sin-bearing 
 office of the Lord. The same objections were propounded by 
 
 1 See Turretin, de Satisfactione, p. 107. 
 
252 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 the first Socinians three centuries ago, and they are repro¬ 
 duced and repeated by modern writers, with little change of 
 expression. 
 
 (1.) It is objected that the apostle, in speaking of liberation 
 from the curse of the law, had respect only to the Jews. This 
 is groundless. Paul refers to men, of whatever nation, who 
 were under the curse of the law, or under the wrath of God, 
 revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous¬ 
 ness of men (Rom. i. 18). What is the apostle’s object in the 
 Epistle to the Romans but to prove this ? But, to confine our¬ 
 selves to the text before us, he aims to show that they who are 
 redeemed share in the blessing, and that curse-bearing on the 
 part of Christ was with a view to the blessing which comes 
 on the Gentiles also (ver. 14). When the apostle says, “ He 
 hath redeemed us,” nothing can warrant us to conclude, with 
 Socinians and many modern exegetes, that he has in his eye 
 Jews more than Gentiles. ISTo antithesis of nationality is 
 intended when the apostle says, “ He hath redeemed us from 
 the curse of the law, that the blessing of Abraham might come 
 on the Gentiles.” When the apostle, writing to Gentiles, names 
 himself as comprehended in the class of those who are sharers 
 in redemption, the terms us, or we, or our, can never be ap¬ 
 plied to Jews alone. We do not find a single case where the 
 apostle, after his conversion, puts himself into the category of 
 the Jews, except where he alludes to his past; for his nation¬ 
 ality, his Judaism, his former course, are all absorbed in the 
 new relation. And every supposed classification of himself 
 among the Jews should be otherwise explained. We do not 
 hesitate to lay down this canon. Besides, the most rudimentary 
 inquirer into the scope of the epistles is aware that they were 
 written to Christ’s disciples, to redeemed men, or such as 
 professed to be so. Wherever the apostle, then, makes use of 
 this style of language, including himself in the class of men 
 to whom he speaks of doctrine, privilege, or duty, he writes 
 to Christ’s disciples as such, but neither to Jews nor Gen- 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 253 
 
 tiles apart. Moreover, the Galatians to whom he wrote were 
 Gentiles. 1 
 
 It is a low comment of the Rationalists, that we are re¬ 
 deemed from the yoke of the Mosaic law. With that shallow 
 interpretation many satisfy themselves,—supposing Paul to say 
 that, so long as he was a Jew, he was subject to the Mosaic 
 law, from which he was now redeemed ; or, as others expound 
 it, exposed to the constant risk of falling under the terrible 
 penalties of the law, but was now free. In refutation of this 
 comment, it may suffice to say that, however applicable in 
 other connections, it is here out of place ; for the passage does 
 not affirm that Christ redeemed us from all obedience to the 
 law, or from all relation to the law, but from its curse. The 
 language is definite: it refers to the condemning sentence or 
 punishment awarded by the law, whether we have regard to 
 what is temporal or eternal. The meaning is, that Christ 
 bought us out or redeemed us from the penalty; the language 
 having reference to the custom of redeeming a captive or slave 
 by ransom. The figure was peculiarly appropriate. 
 
 (2.) A second objection by the opponents of vicarious satis¬ 
 faction is, that Christ is not said to have borne the same curse, 
 the same elements of penal visitation, under which those lie 
 who are burdened with the curse of the law. They hold that 
 it was different in kind; and, in a word, that so far as Christ 
 was concerned, it had not the nature of a curse, and contained 
 nothing of penal infliction at the hand of God. They allow 
 that He bore the suffering of the cross as inflicted by the hand 
 of man, but admit no deeper element of punitive infliction at 
 the hand of God. Their shallow comment is reduced to this, 
 that, according to the law, the mode of death by crucifixion 
 had a certain brand or stigma attached to it, not as an exponent 
 of a deeper idea, but simply as a name among men or in com¬ 
 mon estimation. Thus the mere name or fact of the crucifixion 
 
 1 See Stillingfleet’s Sermons on Christ's Satisfaction , and Th. Goodwin (v. 
 
 p. 188). 
 
254 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 is, according to them, all the curse. In support of this view, 
 it has been ingeniously argued in modern times 1 that the 
 apostle does not say of Christ, “ being made this curse,” which, 
 it is allowed, would mean the curse of the law ; and they allege 
 that since it is said, “ being made A curse for us,” the inter¬ 
 pretation which explains the clause of substitution and penal 
 suffering must fall to the ground. 
 
 The question whether our curse was removed from us and 
 laid on Christ, must be dealt with in a different way. We 
 cannot but resent this interpretation as unfair—as an exegetical 
 violence which the structure of the sentence will not endure. 
 It is a deliberate attempt to explain away the simple and 
 natural relation of the clauses. The apostle did not need to 
 say, “ being made this curse for us.” Hay, it might have been 
 liable to misapprehension, more especially as the quotation 
 from the Mosaic law was to be immediately subjoined. But 
 the Holy Ghost knows how to use the most appropriate words, 
 and to put them in the clearest setting. First, mention is 
 made of the curse of the law awarded to transgressors; next, 
 it is announced that we were liberated or discharged from that 
 curse; thirdly, putting cause and effect together, the apostle 
 affirms that such a result was brought about by Christ becom¬ 
 ing a curse for us. Words cannot more explicitly teach that 
 He was made our curse, and that the means of redemption 
 was Christ’s intervention as a curse-bearer. That is convinc¬ 
 ingly brought out in the passage; and we may affirm, in the 
 words of Hr. South, who in one of his sallies remarks upon this 
 text: “ Scripture must be crucified as well as Christ, to give 
 any other tolerable sense of the expressions.” 
 
 But might it not be Paul’s intention to say that Christ 
 suffered what made Him appear as accursed ? Might he not 
 mean that Christ was represented to men as a curse, appearing 
 
 1 See Hofmann’s Schriftbeweis : he argues from the text in this way. Keil’s 
 reply to Hofmann (Zeitschrift fur die gesammte Lutherische Theologie, 1857, 
 p. 452) is most conclusive. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 255 
 
 as if He were so, or so reputed in men’s esteem ? Ho: the 
 statement would then be no longer an objective one. We are 
 not so to weaken or reduce the import of the expressions. They 
 set forth A real and not A seeming connection between sin- 
 bearing and curse-bearing. All the menace or penal sanction 
 of the law was discharged on the Lord as our substitute. And 
 the passage brings out what Christ was in God’s account and 
 by God’s appointment, not what He was in man’s repute, and 
 as He was treated by the hands of men. The absence of the 
 definite article, or of the demonstrative pronoun this, does not 
 warrant us to think of any other curse, or any modification or 
 alteration of the specific curse incurred by us, and necessarily 
 inflicted for the violation of the divine law. It is not to be 
 rendered nor interpreted A curse like that which is pro¬ 
 nounced by the law upon transgressors, and conveying merely 
 the idea of similarity or resemblance. That were but another 
 form of the metaphorical or figurative theory of the atonement, 
 with which the Socinianizing opponents of substitution and 
 satisfaction rest content. But we cannot stop short there. 
 The entire connection proves that it is the very curse of the 
 broken LAW, the very infliction impending over us, and struck 
 by God’s own hand, to which Paul refers. We are not to take 
 the words as meaning that His enemies executed Him by a 
 malefactor’s death; for it was God Himself, and not His ene¬ 
 mies, that made Him a curse. 
 
 (3.) The third objection is, that Christ could not be said to 
 be a curse for us in the sense of undergoing the very penalty 
 in our stead, because it was eternal death,—a doom which 
 they allege He could not undergo, as He must rise again. 
 That objection could not be propounded but by men who 
 neither recognised the divine person of the Lord, nor appre¬ 
 hended the infinite value of His sufferings. But in point of 
 dignity and value, the penal sufferings of such a person, though 
 limited in duration, were equivalent to eternal punishment; 
 for His divine nature had an influence on His sufferings, and 
 
256 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 put Him in a position such as no mere man could ever occupy. 
 We find, accordingly, that Scripture in many passages fixes 
 attention on His personal dignity, and deduces from it the 
 unspeakable value of His sufferings (Acts xx. 28 ; 1 Cor. ii. 8 ; 
 1 John i. 7). Finite creatures could give no satisfaction, how¬ 
 ever lasting the duration of their sufferings ; whereas the divine 
 dignity of the Eedeemer counterbalanced the duration of the 
 curse. In intensive merit, it was thus a full equivalent to 
 eternal death. And we may add that the endless punishment 
 of the sinner would not he necessary, were he adequate to en¬ 
 dure infinite wrath in combination with the other conditions 
 which a satisfaction presupposes. 
 
 Christ’s whole career was marked by vicarious curse-bear¬ 
 ing ; and we have to notice what it involved. Properly con¬ 
 sidered, the entire life of the Lord, from the manger to the 
 cross, or rather to the grave, was a course of sinless curse¬ 
 bearing, because a course of sin-bearing. He was visited with 
 the penal consequences of sin, with its curse and wages, from 
 the day when He entered into humanity by incarnation. Al¬ 
 ready we have proved at large that Christ, through His entire 
 earthly history, was conscious of occupying the position of a 
 sin-bearing substitute ; and where sin was, there too the curse 
 was, its inevitable accompaniment. The term curse expresses 
 the penal sanction of the law; and when Christ is so desig¬ 
 nated, the import is, that the curse, following the violation of 
 the law, was executed on Him. It has therefore everything 
 in common with condemnation and wrath. We must, how¬ 
 ever, distinguish several things when we speak of Christ made 
 a curse in our room and stead, lest no definite or correct idea 
 should be formed of the language. 
 
 a. We must distinguish between the personal and the official 
 in this mysterious transaction. Inconsiderate and revolting 
 phraseology has been sometimes here employed by certain ill- 
 balanced minds. God certainly did not view the Eedeemer 
 as the sinner must needs be viewed, when the latter comes 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 257 
 
 under the full infliction of the divine curse. He did not regard 
 Him personally in any other light than as His beloved Son, 
 on whom He looked with infinite complacency, as at once His 
 righteous Servant and His only Son. But as the surety of 
 His people, the Lord descended into the lowest abyss of that 
 curse which we had incurred, and tasted death, the penalty of 
 sin, that we might never taste of it. 
 
 b. Nor was it only in His death that He was made a curse 
 for us, though it culminated upon the cross; for the curse of 
 God, the penal sanction of the divine law, was expressed in 
 Christ’s life as well as in His death. The outline or tenor of 
 the curse, sketched in Genesis in the narrative of the fall and 
 its doom, may be read off in every particular from the earthly 
 history of the Lord. The labour, sorrow, and death denounced 
 on man in that primeval curse, may be seen in Christ in every 
 variety of form in which they could possibly attach to the 
 incarnate Son. In toil and grief, in frailty and fainting, in 
 hunger and thirst, in want and weariness, in bearing the like¬ 
 ness of sinful flesh, we can trace this curse-bearing—the un¬ 
 failing attendant of sin-bearing. His earthly career was, in 
 fact, pervaded by it at every step. Though He saw no corrup¬ 
 tion, either living or dead—for sickness or disease could not, 
 as a personal quality, attach to- the sinless One—He knew by 
 sympathy, and in some mysterious way, too, by the miraculous 
 healing of disease, what that part of the curse comprehended. 
 His death was a curse-bearing death, involving all the elements 
 of the second or eternal death, so far as the privative sense, 
 the loss of God, is concerned—that heaviest part of a God- 
 inflicted curse. Such a death alone could be an adequate 
 equivalent for the curse of the law due to transgressors. 
 
 c. It is evidently identical with the curse awarded to the 
 violators of the law. There is only one divine curse, and it is 
 ours, but transferred to a Substitute who was exempt from it 
 on every ground, whether we think of His divine dignity or 
 sinless perfection. Whether, therefore, we consider the struc- 
 
258 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 ture of this passage, or the nature of the. transaction itself, we 
 find a full proof that it was vicarious curse-hearing; and all 
 the efforts made by the opponents of substitution to wrest this 
 passage from the church—and no means have been left unused 
 —are utterly futile. They are a complete failure if we abide 
 by Scripture, grammatically expounded, as our sole court of 
 appeal. The words can convey no other meaning but this, 
 that the Lord Jesus underwent the penalty we had merited, 
 and was treated as an accursed person in our stead, and so 
 freed us from the curse by vicariously bearing it. 
 
 IY. Another passage, parallel to the former, but with an 
 extension of the idea, is as follows: When the fulness of the 
 time was come , God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made 
 under the law, to redeem them that are under the law, that we 
 might receive the adoption of sons (Gal. iv. 4). Redemption 
 from the curse of the law was the scope of the former passage; 
 redemption from the law itself, considered in its covenant form, 
 or as the condition of life, is the scope of this. 
 
 1. The fulness of time, at which the atonement was accom¬ 
 plished,. is here noticed. It may suffice to say, that though 
 we cannot enumerate all the elements that entered into that 
 fulness, some are on. the surface. A fact so stupendous was not 
 to be ushered in as an abrupt phenomenon, without a pre¬ 
 paratory economy of type and prophecy, by means of which a 
 circle of ideas and a peculiar phraseology might be formed to 
 bring it home to men’s minds, both before the incarnation and 
 after it. A sufficient reason must also appear why such a 
 provision was necessary; and this necessity required to be 
 historically displayed in the failure of human schemes. Not 
 only art and education, culture and civilisation, but divine law 
 itself, must be tried. They were tried, and found inadequate 
 to meet the case. 
 
 2. The sending forth of the Son of God is next mentioned 
 as the presupposition or foundation of the ransom. The ex¬ 
 pressions here used unambiguously affirm that the Son existed 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 259 
 
 as a divine person with God, and very God, before He came 
 to be made of woman. He was sent, in the exercise of love, 
 by the first person of the Godhead; and no one interpreting 
 words as they stand, can permit himself to reduce them to 
 the tame, flat sense that Jesus was but a man. Here He is 
 marked out as divine. His mission, and the possession of the 
 divine nature, were not precisely the ransom, but the presup¬ 
 position of the ransom, giving it infinite value, and rendering 
 it applicable to the wants of millions. But no ingredient of 
 the penal sanction of the law, or of the positive obedience, 
 could be dispensed with on that account. It was of necessity 
 the work of a God-man, but true human suffering and obedience. 
 
 3. The next gradation as here stated was, that Christ was 
 made OF woman. It might pass without challenge on philo¬ 
 logical grounds, were we to translate the clause born of 
 woman ; though it cannot be disguised that the latter is pre¬ 
 ferred by many, in the interest of an erroneous tendency, viz. 
 that they may escape from the doctrine of the supernatural 
 conception of Jesus. The true rendering is, made of woman ; 
 and the language implies, that as the Son He had another 
 mode of existence, but became something that He was not. 
 The divine side of Christ’s person has been already noticed: 
 here Paul teaches with equal clearness His true humanity. 
 The incarnation of the Lord is here presented to us as a divine 
 fact, the deed of God the Father; elsewhere it is spoken of 
 as the Redeemer’s own act (2 Cor. viii. 9). By naming a 
 human mother from whom the Lord derived His human 
 nature, the apostle plainly meant to announce His true and 
 perfect humanity, but in terms which fully coincide with the 
 acknowledged fact of His being virgin-born. Christ’s deriva¬ 
 tion of humanity from Adam through His mother is no small 
 or unimportant matter in connection with His atonement: 
 for His fraternity, as our kinsman Redeemer, absolutely 
 depends upon the fact that He derived His humanity from 
 the substance of His mother; and without this He would 
 
260 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 neither possess the natural nor legal union with His people, 
 which must lie at the foundation of His representative cha¬ 
 racter. To he our Goel or redeeming kinsman, the humanity 
 with which He was invested could neither be brought from 
 heaven, nor be immediately created by the Godhead, but 
 derived, as ours is, from a human mother; with this difference, 
 that the Lord’s humanity never existed in Adam’s covenant, 
 to entail either guilt or taint upon Him personally. He must 
 be within the pale of mankind, yet its second man, or second 
 representative; personally exempt from every charge and from 
 every defilement descending from the first man, but freely 
 assuming guilt by a federal engagement in our stead. In a 
 word, He took of man all that needed redemption, a true 
 body and a reasonable soul, without any personal obligation 
 devolving on Him by mere necessity of nature ; for what obliga¬ 
 tion or responsibility could attach to the God-man, that is, to 
 humanity assumed into personal union with- the Eternal Son ? 
 His was real humanity, but sinless,—a body incorruptible, and 
 a reasonable soul without a taint of imperfection; and this 
 woman-born or virgin-born Redeemer, with no personal respon¬ 
 sibilities derived from the first Adam, spontaneously engaged 
 to assume them by consenting to be the second Adam. 
 
 4. The next thing mentioned in the text, and a further 
 step, is: made under the law. This clause affirms that 
 Christ was made under the law for the sake of those who were 
 under the law, and therefore not on His own account or from 
 any personal obligation. Had He been personally subject to 
 it, then His obedience could only have availed to His personal 
 release or discharge. But there was this difference between 
 Christ and us, that we were born under the law by the con¬ 
 dition of creaturehood, while He was spontaneously made 
 under it for the ends of suretyship. 
 
 This clause demands special notice on another ground. It 
 is affirmed in certain quarters, and especially by those w T ho 
 do not admit the evidence for Christ’s active obedience, that 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 261 
 
 the apostle does not here name the ransom, bnt leaves it to 
 be sought in the previous passage relating to the curse (Gal. iii. 
 13). That is by no means the case; and an analysis of the 
 words may convince any one that the ransom or equivalent 
 is as definitely named as in the other passage. The statement 
 that Christ was made a curse refers to His passive obedience; 
 this statement, that He was made under the law, refers to His 
 active as well as suffering obedience, or to the fulfilling of the 
 law in action and suffering. The price of redemption is there¬ 
 fore named, and it is nothing but His incarnation and subjec¬ 
 tion to the law. The opinion that reconciliation and redemption 
 are effected by the death of Christ, to the exclusion of His 
 active obedience, is thus in collision with this passage, and with 
 many other parts of Scripture (Rom. v. 19). When Christ was 
 made under the law, it was with a view to that meritorious 
 obedience by which we are accounted righteous, and treated as 
 righteous. 1 
 
 The active obedience considered as our ransom, or a con¬ 
 stituent element of the ransom, has encountered many futile 
 objections. Thus some oppose it on the general ground that 
 the law was not applicable to non-Jews, but confined to Israel. 
 But however some portions of the law might be limited to 
 Israel, the moral law, adapted to man as man, and the re¬ 
 flection of the divine nature, was but a republication of the 
 law of nature. It is preposterous to speak of this element, 
 the core and essence of the whole, as limited to Jews, when 
 
 1 The opponents of Christ’s active obedience considered as vicarious in¬ 
 variably shut their eyes to this fact. They call it an ecclesiastical concep¬ 
 tion, like Meyer ; or adduce, like Piscator and his followers, grounds to prove 
 that Christ owed active obedience on His own account; or make faith a right¬ 
 eousness by acceptilation, like the Arminians. But the fact is proved by this 
 and similar texts, that Christ’s subjection to the law was for our redemption. 
 All the great Lutheran divines of the Reformation age maintained without ex¬ 
 ception, that Christ owed no obedience on His own account, and their reasoning 
 cannot be refuted ; for the law was not given to the human nature in the person 
 of the Son, till He spontaneously put Himself under it. See, too, in the 
 Reformed Church, Calvin, Danseus, Pareus, Amesius, Maccovius, who are of the 
 same opinion. 
 
262 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 it was not arbitrary, but eternal, and must needs receive its ful¬ 
 filment as the condition of life (Gal. iii. 12). The obedience 
 to it was necessary alike for Gentiles and for Jews. 
 
 It is further alleged by modern exegetes, that the expression 
 made undek the law means no more than to be born a Jew. 
 That is by no means the idea which the apostle expresses, 
 nor does such an interpretation reach the meaning. Christ’s 
 mission and subjection to the law were in order to redeem us : 
 the one was the way to the other, as appears from the final 
 particle, which connects the last clause of the one verse (ver. 4) 
 with the first clause of the following verse (ver. 5). We cannot 
 translate “born a Jew,” 1 because the relation of the means to 
 the design would be absolutely imperceptible; whereas the 
 apostle, by the repetition of the same words, intends to make 
 it plain. Moreover, it must be noticed, that if we translate 
 the words “born a Jew” in the one verse (ver. 4), we must, on 
 all grounds of consistency, translate the same words in the 
 same way in the next verse (ver. 5). And what sense would 
 be conveyed by the clauses thus rendered, “born a Jew, to 
 redeem them that were born Jews,”—as if He came only to 
 redeem the Jews ? ISTor does the absurdity end there. The 
 next clause, also expressive of design, and introduced by a final 
 particle, introduces a wider reference when it says, “ that we 
 might receive the adoption of sons.” All this is natural and 
 obvious, when we apprehend that redemption by Christ’s 
 atonement and obedience paves the way to the further blessing 
 of adoption. But on the other mode of interpretation, the 
 sequence of thought would be as follows: Christ was born a 
 Jew, to redeem them that were born Jews, that we (the Gentile 
 Galatians as well as Paul) might receive the adoption of sons. 
 The redemption of the Jews is made the cause of the adoption 
 of the Gentiles. That is so absurd, that it needs no remark. 
 But'all is plain and significant when we take the words as 
 
 1 Meyer, Bishop Ellicott, and others, unhappily expound the words in this 
 superficial way. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 263 
 
 already expounded, and remember that the essential elements 
 of the law were written on the conscience of the Gentiles 
 (Rom. ii. 15). 
 
 In the Pauline epistles, where the expression under the 
 law several times occurs, it is always equivalent to being 
 subject to the law (Rom. iii. 19, vi. 14, 15; Gal. iv. 21, v. 18; 
 1 Cor. ix. 20). In all these passages the expression has one 
 uniform sense : it denotes subjection to the law, with the ac¬ 
 cessory idea that it has something burdensome and oppressive. 
 These several passages are not to be mingled and confounded. 
 But one thing is evident: it is not a mete circumlocution for 
 a Jew. The meaning is, that God sent His Son, made under 
 the law, for the redemption of those who were under the law 
 in all its breadth of meaning. How Jews and Gentiles were 
 equally under the law, as the condition of life, by the fact of 
 creaturehood (Rom. ii. 14, iii. 9). 
 
 Two things are comprehended. The first is, that the Lord 
 Jesus, when made under the law for our deliverance, must 
 have fulfilled all its claims, according to the terms. And as 
 we were bound, according to essential human relations, to the 
 strictest obedience on the one hand, and to the endurance of 
 the curse on the other—that is, to the precept and the penalty 
 —the apostle affirms that both were fulfilled by Christ in our 
 room (Gal. iii. 10, 12). That is the fulfilment of the law in 
 the full sense of the term. The second point is, that whatever 
 Christ rendered in this capacity was done as our substitute, 
 and for the benefit of those who were under the law. The 
 objection of those who impugn the element of active obedience 
 as part of the Lord’s atoning work is, that Christ was under 
 obligation as man to obey for Himself, like every rational 
 creature. The answer to this, as it was uniformly given by 
 the Lutheran, and also by the best Reformed divines, on the 
 ground of such passages as the present, was, that humanity 
 was assumed by the Son of God into the unity of His person, 
 to be an instrument or organ in His work; that it existed only 
 
264 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 in the person of the Son, and never apart from Him ; that the 
 law as such had no competent authority over the Son of God, 
 who was Himself the lawgiver; that His human nature, also 
 called the Son of God, was not under the law, but exempt from 
 it in any covenant form; and therefore that He was made 
 under the law, not because He had a human nature, but be¬ 
 cause He willed to be under it, to finish a work of obedience 
 which might be given away to those who had none. This was 
 meritorious obedience, and given to us as a donation. 
 
 5. The fruit or benefit derived from Christ’s subjection to 
 the law is our redemption and, at a second remove, our adop¬ 
 tion. The two final clauses, 1 which refer to these two blessings 
 as the fruit of Christ’s ransom, may be co-ordinate, as some 
 view them, or subordinated in this sense, that one paves the 
 way for the other. Both clauses, however, refer without dis¬ 
 tinction to Jews and Gentiles. By the obedience of Christ 
 both are equally redeemed: then follows the blessing of adop¬ 
 tion, of which the further result is the sending forth of the 
 Spirit of adoption into our hearts (ver. 6). 
 
 Y. The apostle strikingly utters his view of the atonement, 
 when he declares, in contrast to the errorists, who adhered to 
 rites, ceremonies, and legal observances : God forbid that I 
 should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom 
 [better, by which ] the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the 
 world (Gal. vi. 14). From the fulness of his heart, as a man 
 and apostle, he declares his attachment to the cross, that is, 
 to Christ crucified as the only ground of acceptance, discarding 
 all supplementary additions with holy zeal. He elsewhere 
 affirms that boasting is excluded (Rom. iii. 27); but legal boast¬ 
 ing is displaced, that glorying in the Lord, or glorying in Christ 
 crucified, may begin (see 1 Cor. i. 30). Only two things de¬ 
 mand notice here as bearing on our theme. 
 
 1 The first 7va clause in ver. 5 shows that redemption was aimed at as the 
 immediate effect of Christ’s subjection to the law ; the second 7va clause in the 
 verse may be co-ordinated with the former (as Meyer views it), or be taken as 
 a further end contemplated and subordinated to the first. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 265 
 
 1. The cross, viewed as a propitiatory sacrifice, is described 
 as the sole ground of a Christian’s boast or glorying. The 
 antithesis in which the words occur repudiates every other 
 plea hut the finished work of the cross, but also implies that 
 there is a boasting in which the Christian can never go too far 
 or indulge too frequently. He gloried in the cross as the ex¬ 
 piation of sin, the fulfilment of the law, the cause of reconcilia¬ 
 tion, the ransom of the church, the propitiation for our sins, 
 and the sacrificial blood which brings us near and keeps us 
 near to God in worship. 
 
 2. The fruit of the atonement is a twofold crucifixion. The 
 relative clause, commencing with by whom, may either refer 
 to the personal Saviour, according to the rendering of the 
 English version, or to the cross, by which this result is gained. 
 These two clauses denote the dissolution of relations between 
 Paul and the world, effected by the cross. The first clause, 
 the world is crucified to me, means that it became to him 
 unwelcome, distasteful, undesirable, like a crucified person. 
 It was nailed to the cross, whether we suppose the allusion is 
 to the world’s attractions or to its legal righteousness. In both 
 respects it was crucified, and influenced him as little as a dead 
 man or dead thing could do. But it is added, I am crucified 
 to the world. That clause is commonly interpreted, The 
 world has cast me out, as no object of its favour, and as alien 
 to it. 1 The two clauses will thus set forth respectively Paul’s 
 estimate of the world, and the world’s estimate of him. This 
 is the usual interpretation of the clauses, and amounts to this: 
 that Paul looked on the world, from the view-point of the 
 cross, as an object that no more commended itself to him; and 
 that the world, conversely, accounted him as worthy of contempt, 
 because he so strenuously commended and enforced the one 
 grand object of a sinner’s confidence,—namely, Christ crucified, 
 to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness. 
 
 1 See Seidel and Struensee in their Commentaries on Galatians. De Wette 
 makes the two clauses the same in meaning. 
 
266 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 The latter part of this commentary does not seem so ap¬ 
 propriate or adapted to the apostle’s design. His object was 
 not so much to describe what the world thought of him, as 
 how he stood affected to the world. The second clause, and I 
 TO the world, seems rather to intimate that, by the poten¬ 
 tiality inherent in the cross, in so far as it rectified his relation 
 toward God, and brought in new life to his soul, he was dead 
 to the world. If the former clause affirmed that the world, 
 as surveyed from the cross in which he gloried, was as a dead 
 and crucified object in his esteem, the present clause will rather 
 set forth that his heart was dead to it. 1 Another object had 
 so won his heart, that his tastes, desires, and sympathies were, 
 as it were, dead within him, so far as the world was concerned. 
 He drew no confidence from the legal rites, which were but 
 elements of the world in his esteem (Gal. iv. 3), and had no 
 hankering or looking behind in reference to its allurements 
 and attractions. He did not dally with the world, or maintain 
 any relations with it, when he saw how alien it was to the 
 aims and aspirations of one who gloried in Christ crucified, 
 and who was himself crucified with his Lord (Gal. ii. 20). This 
 latter thought, that the apostle was crucified with Christ, and 
 therefore one who no longer sought his life in the world (Col. 
 ii. 20), will enable us to apprehend the force of the expression. 
 It is this : Paul was personally dead to the world, because by 
 the cross he was the property of another,—one of the peculiar 
 people or heritage that Christ had won by His atoning blood. 
 Paul felt that he was objectively crucified with Christ, and 
 his inner feelings corresponded to the change. He no more 
 sought that world, nor lived for it, than a dead man is attracted 
 by its honours, pleasures, or emoluments; and it was the cross 
 that made the great revolution. 
 
 1 See Albert Scbultens’ Dutch exposition of the Heidelberg Catechism. See 
 also Dr. Owen on this passage. 
 
EPloTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 
 
 267 
 
 SEC. XIII.—THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 
 
 The Epistle to the Ephesians and the Epistle to the Colos- 
 sians have a close affinity to each other, as developing the 
 Pauline Christology. 1 They put the atonement in contrast 
 with an incipient Gnosticism, which substituted ideas or mere 
 speculative knowledge for the realities of Christ’s work. In 
 some epistles, as in that to the Eomans, Paul appears as the 
 expounder of divine truth in its wide connections. In others 
 —as in the Epistles to the Corinthians, Timothy, and Titus— 
 he appears as the pastor, issuing counsels, admonitions, and 
 directions. In these Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians 
 there is a certain reference to the oriental speculations then 
 beginning to thrust themselves on the notice of the Christian 
 church; and Paul, in displaying his knowledge in the mystery 
 of Christ (Eph. iii. 4), appears more as the prophet giving 
 abundant fulness of spiritual revelations. The principal thought 
 of these epistles is the personal Christ, the medium of divine 
 communications, Head over all things to the church, uniting 
 Jew and Gentile under Himself as their one Head, and the 
 link connecting all things with God and with one another. 
 On these points we have striking revelations, nowhere else so 
 fully imparted. 
 
 Allusions to the atonement run through the Epistle to the 
 Ephesians, even where no express statements are given as to 
 its nature. Thus, in the reference to Christ’s love, we cannot 
 fail to see an underlying allusion to His atonement (Eph. iii. 18). 
 When the thought is brought in, “ How, that He ascended, 
 what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts 
 of the earth ?” we have an allusion to His atonement as the 
 foundation of His throne (Eph. iv. 9). When mutual forgive¬ 
 ness is enforced by the consideration that God for Christ’s sake 
 
 1 See Lange, Geschichte der Kirche, in reply to Baur’s remarks on Ephesians 
 and Colossians. 
 
268 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 hath forgiven ns, that forgiveness is connected with the work 
 of Christ (iv. 32). But omitting passages which assume the 
 atonement rather than express it, we shall confine ourselves to 
 those which are definite. 
 
 I. The first passage on the subject of the atonement is thus 
 expressed : In whom we have redemption through His blood , the 
 forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His gract (Epli. i. 7). 
 The apostle celebrates God’s praise for spiritual blessings, for 
 election in Christ, and for all contemplated by election (Eph. 
 i. 3). When we analyze the structure of the sentence, he does 
 not say by whom , 1 as he usually does, to denote the meritorious 
 cause, but in whom. The words in Christ sometimes mean 
 union, when the words have an independent position, and can 
 be taken apart (2 Cor. xii. 2). Here, however, the expression 
 in whom denotes in His person objectively, as the surety or 
 ground of our salvation. Eor Christ is a public person, and 
 we have redemption in a way similar and parallel to the con¬ 
 demnation which we have in Adam. In a word, redemption 
 is set forth objectively in Christ’s person, who of God is made 
 to us redemption (1 Cor. i. 30). All the expressions coincide 
 with this interpretation ; for it is not said that we acquire re¬ 
 demption, but that we have it in Him (e^ogusv). The testimony 
 of this passage may be taken up in the following points :— 
 
 1. The apostle not only mentions the redemption, but sub¬ 
 joins the ransom, viz. the blood of Him who had just been 
 called the Beloved. This establishes the reality of both. The 
 language is not a metaphor or similitude, according to the 
 Socinian comment; it means that we are redeemed by blood 
 as a ransom. The original term denotes deliverance by a price ; 
 and the obvious sense is, that we are redeemed from a real 
 captivity, by a real, not a figurative ransom. The theory of a 
 metaphor makes but a metaphorical salvation. 
 
 1 See Harless' Commentary on Ephesians , on the formula here used, iv Z ; 
 and also Stier’s remarks on the same phrase, Auslegung des Briefes an die 
 Epheser , 1848. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 
 
 269 
 
 As to the features of the doctrine as set forth by these 
 expressions. The first and fundamental idea is, that man as 
 a sinner has fallen under punitive justice, which holds him 
 captive. The second thought is, that the ransom is Christ’s 
 vicarious death, or His blood considered as the reality of the 
 ancient sacrifices, and procuring the full redemption which 
 they but figured forth. He gave Himself a ransom to redeem 
 His people (Matt. xx. 28; 1 Cor. vi. 20; 1 Tim. ii. 6); and 
 this He effected by becoming their curse (Gal. iii. 13). A third 
 idea is, that God, to whose justice the price was paid, secured 
 the discharge or liberation of the captive. As the law was an 
 institution for the maintenance of which justice watched, this 
 decides a question more frequently adduced for polemical pur¬ 
 poses than for any other object: To whom was the ransom 
 paid—to God or to Satan ? The answer is, Satan had nothing 
 to do with it, being the mere jailor, nay, criminal himself. The 
 ransom was paid to the punitive justice of God. The state¬ 
 ment then is, that the personal Christ is of God made to us 
 redemption, and that we have redemption IN Him. 
 
 2. Forgiveness of sin is subjoined in an apposition-clause, 
 as a convertible term. The redemption consists essentially in 
 forgiveness; and the latter, in its grammatical connection, sets 
 forth more precisely the import of the former. They are here 
 adduced as equivalent and convertible. It is evident, in the 
 first place, that a direct causal connection is affirmed between 
 the blood of Christ and forgiveness of sins. The passage does 
 not state that Christ’s mission was to reveal an absolute for¬ 
 giveness, and to seal His testimony by His death as a martyr. 
 The two things are put in such connection, that the forgiveness 
 can only be viewed as the direct and immediate result of the 
 atoning death, as the blood of sacrifice in the old economy 
 was the direct cause of forgiveness to the Jewish worshipper. 
 Christ’s blood alone, without any addition of ours, or works of 
 law, had the effect of winning forgiveness or exemption from 
 punishment. 
 
270 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 But how are redemption and forgiveness made convertible 
 terms ? Might we not rather expect to hear that the re¬ 
 demptive act of Christ was the cause of forgiveness ? Un¬ 
 doubtedly a connection of cause and effect is affirmed in the 
 verse, as we have already noticed. But there is a sense in 
 which the redemption of the one clause, and the forgiveness 
 which explains it in the next clause, have an objective reality 
 for us in Christ as a public person; and this is the point of the 
 expression. As was noticed above, there was a non-imputa¬ 
 tion of sin to us at the time when Christ was made sin for 
 us (2 Cor. v. 19-21), and the two things went hand in hand. 
 That non-imputation of sin to us was not a mere subsequent 
 result of Christ’s sacrifice, but in some sense an essential ele¬ 
 ment of the Lord’s redemptive act. It had an application to 
 all for whom He died, and whose person He representatively 
 sustained. 
 
 3. The passage further shows the consistency between 
 Christ’s atoning blood, the price of pardon, and the exercise 
 of free grace. 1 Though it has been much urged that one of 
 these elements must of necessity exclude the other, both are 
 here affirmed, and perfectly consistent. Though not found 
 together in human transactions, they are found in the moral 
 government of God; for the divine administration differs from 
 that of man in this respect, that God’s rights are inalienable. 
 He could not recede from His rights even when He purposed 
 to redeem and pardon, but vindicated them to the full; and 
 this single text meets all cavils against the consistency of 
 these two things—complete satisfaction and free grace. While 
 pardon, therefore, is to us a gratuitous gift, it was procured by 
 the payment of a price. 
 
 II. Another testimony, having reference to the effect of 
 Christ’s death in reconciling Jew and Gentile to each other, 
 because reconciling both to God, is contained in the next 
 
 1 This passage is conclusive against Locke and others, who represent the 
 ransom and the exercise of grace as incompatible. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 
 
 271 
 
 chapter: But now, in Christ Jesus , ye who sometimes [better, 
 once ] were far off are now made nigh by [better, in\ the blood 
 of Christ . For He is our peace, ivho hath made both one, and 
 hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having 
 abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments 
 contained in ordinances; for to make in Himself of twain one 
 new man, so makmg peace; and that He might reconcile both 
 unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby 
 [or, in Himself ] (Eph. ii. 13-16). Throughout this chapter the 
 apostle brings under our notice a twofold alienation and a two¬ 
 fold reconciliation, with a sketch of the method by which the 
 disunion was brought to an end. On the one hand, there was 
 from their birth a deep alienation of mankind from God (vers. 
 3, 12), along with a division between Jews and Gentiles. On 
 the other hand, the apostle refers to the historic fact of Christ’s 
 atonement as a divinely instituted method by which men, dis¬ 
 united by mutual hostility, meet in a higher unity, and become 
 one new man (ver. 15), one city of God (ver. 19), one temple 
 or habitation of God (ver. 21). I shall endeavour, with all 
 brevity, to set forth the testimony here given to the atonement 
 in its nature and effects, omitting such points as do not directly 
 bear upon the theme which engages our attention. 
 
 1. As to the nature of the atonement, the number and 
 variety of expressions here used to connect it with Christ’s 
 person are full of significance, apart from the immediate occa¬ 
 sion which called them forth. But the reason why such phrases 
 are so copiously employed may probably be deduced from the 
 fact, that the Gnostic speculations, the oppositions of science 
 falsely so called, as the apostle elsewhere styles them, looked 
 upon matter, and therefore upon our Lord’s organized human 
 body, with disfavour, and formed presumptuous theories of the 
 divine nature and absolute Godhead apart from the person of 
 the one Mediator between God and man. The apostle shows 
 that reconciliation was effected by an outward fact in the body 
 of Christ’s flesh through death ; whereas the Docetism to which 
 
272 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 we have referred denied the corporeity of Christ, or ascribed 
 to Him a phantom-body. We may enumerate a few of the 
 expressions which the apostle uses, and are full of meaning, 
 apart from any connection with their origin. 
 
 Thus the apostle connects the atonement with the personal 
 Eedeemer when he declares, in the first place, “ He is our 
 peace,” and describes the Lord as “ slaying the enmity in Him¬ 
 self.” Secondly, he shows that the atonement was connected 
 with a true humanity or corporeity, endowed with a capacity 
 of suffering and obedience, when he says, “ that He might 
 reconcile both in one body : ” for the allusion is to the pro¬ 
 curing of redemption, not to its application; and it is more 
 natural to expound the phrase of Christ’s human body, than 
 of His body the church. Thirdly, when the enmity is said to 
 be abolished “ in His flesh,” the language refers, as in other 
 passages/to the condition of abasement and penal curse-bearing, 
 to which the atoning Lord spontaneously subjected Himself. 
 Fourthly, when it is said, “ that He might reconcile both 
 through the cross,” the meaning is that the curse, of which 
 the cross was the exponent, was borne and exhausted on the 
 tree. Fifthly, the blood of Christ, the cause of bringing us 
 near to God, is described as sacrificial blood (ver. 13). All 
 these descriptive terms serve to prove that the atonement was 
 the surrender of Himself to God in a true humanity. 
 
 But a further idea here is, that Christ stood as a public 
 person— as one for many. The representative character of 
 the transaction cannot be mistaken; for the redeemed church 
 is here considered as found in Him who, according to covenant, 
 bore their persons and occupied their place, and, as a respon¬ 
 sible surety, represented them before God. He sustained their 
 persons in His own body on the cross ; that is. He, as a public 
 person, in one body, sustained, through life and in death, the 
 responsibilities of those who are described as His church. In 
 His one humanity, He represented all who had been given 
 Him, and reconciled them on the cross. Thus all is run up to 
 
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 
 
 273 
 
 the person of Christ. The whole person atoned,—the humanity 
 suffering, the deity giving it worth; the action being that of 
 the God-man. The entire person acted in the atonement as in 
 every mediatorial act,—the humanity being obedient, and the 
 deity giving infinite value to all He did. 
 
 2. As to the fruits of the atonement, of which several are 
 mentioned in these verses, the first in order is nearness to 
 God in the blood of Christ (ver. 13). It is by no means 
 necessary to alter the force of the preposition: for the same 
 expression is used by our Lord at the institution of the Supper, 
 “This is the new covenant in my blood” (1 Cor. xi. 25); inti¬ 
 mating that Christ’s atoning blood was the element, sphere, or 
 medium in which the new covenant was formed, and in which, 
 as it is here put, they who were far off are made nigh. The 
 language refers to sacrificial blood, which put men in covenant 
 with God. Thus Israel at Sinai was by the sprinkling of blood 
 made the people of God, near to Him, and from year to year 
 preserved in covenant by the blood sprinkled on the mercy-seat. 
 The expression “ far from God,” or “ far off,” was a phrase in 
 common use to designate the Gentiles (Isa. xlix. 1 ; Acts ii. 39); 
 and the statement is, that the blood of atonement made those 
 nigh who were far off, or put them in covenant relation to God, 
 as members of a spiritual society of which Christ is the head. 
 
 3. As another fruit of the atonement, the title our peace 
 is ascribed to Christ (ver. 14). Some interpret this as mean¬ 
 ing the cause of our peace, or our peacemaker, which gives a 
 competent sense. More precisely, however, the title refers to 
 Christ as our peace or reconciliation objectively considered, 
 and with regard to our relation toward God; the present verse 
 being a grounding statement, with the causal particle for , to 
 show the foundation of our nearness. The primary import, 
 according to the analogy of numerous passages, is, that Christ 
 is objectively our peace, 1 as He is also called our righteousness 
 
 1 So Zanchius in his Commentary on Ephesians. See Harless’ remarks, 
 Commentar uher den Brief Pauli an die Epliesier, 1858. 
 
 S 
 
274 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 and redemption (1 Cor. i. 30). But while He is pre-eminently 
 our peace toward God, He is also the ground and foundation 
 of peace in every other relation; as, for instance, between man 
 and man. 
 
 4. As another fruit of the atonement, an end was put to 
 the Jewish law, considered as A partition-wall between Jew 
 and Gentile. The law was so called, either, as many think, 
 from the wall or fence in the temple which shut out the 
 Gentiles from the access which the Jewish worshippers enjoyed; 
 or, as others think, from the fence by which one city or territory 
 was walled off from another. The ceremonial law given to 
 Israel as a separate people, and of positive appointment, was 
 capable of being removed when its purpose was served; being 
 destined to continue only till the reality or true sacrifice which 
 it foreshadowed should appear. Accordingly the cross, in which 
 the law found its accomplishment, put a period to the cere¬ 
 monies. They were not simply revoked, but fulfilled: the 
 atonement of the cross terminated the ceremonies, the law of 
 commandments contained in ordinances, for ever. 
 
 5. The atonement made Jew and Gentile one (ver. 15). 
 Previously the Jews regarded the Gentiles as unclean, and the 
 Gentiles on their side retaliated by every mark of contumely, 
 branding the Jews as the common enemies of the human race. 
 By means of the cross, they who previously were sundered met 
 in a higher unity, on a platform above and beyond the causes 
 of division; and as they stood on the same level of reconcilia¬ 
 tion, they became one new man in Christ (ver. 15), who re¬ 
 conciled them in one body by the cross (ver. 16). The atone¬ 
 ment terminated the alienation, placing men on a footing of 
 equality before the throne of God; and this was effected really, 
 not typically, by the cross, which gave to all nationalities the 
 position of a people near to God, and made Jews and Gentiles 
 one. 
 
 6. The explicit biblical expression for the effect of the 
 atonement is reconciliation in all relations, as expressed in 
 
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 
 
 275 
 
 these words: “ That He might reconcile both unto God in one 
 body by the cross, having slain the enmity in Himself” (ver. 
 16). This full description may be taken up in four points of 
 inquiry. 
 
 a. Who are the parties reconciled? The answer is, God 
 on the one side; and the twofold nationality, that is, Jews and 
 Gentiles, on the other. Nothing can be more explicit than this 
 declaration that Christ’s coming was intended to reconcile two 
 parties,—the one party being God, and the other party mankind; 
 and the obvious presupposition is, that beforehand disunion 
 existed between God and man. Now, according to Scripture, re¬ 
 conciliation was effected by the removal of sin, so far as it was 
 the cause of arming divine indignation against us. It is often 
 said, that from the very nature of God as love, with friendly 
 sentiments toward men, it becomes us to think of reconcilia¬ 
 tion only on man’s side. That is by no means the case; for 
 God’s procedure and mood of mind in a relative point of view 
 have undergone a change in consequence of a great historical 
 transaction, as is manifest from the fact that it is not simply 
 said, “ God has reconciled us,” but, “ God has reconciled us to 
 Himself by Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. v. 18). The two things 
 there combined are, that the world was reconciled to Himself, 
 and that this was effected by the historic fact of the atone¬ 
 ment ; and reconciliation to Himself implies that anger and 
 punitive justice were removed by the atonement. The same 
 thing is expressed in the verse under consideration. The acting 
 party is Christ, who is said to reconcile both unto God. And 
 when it is added that this was accomplished, not by an absolute 
 pardon, but in one body and by the cross, we have the same 
 allusion to the great historic fact of the atonement, as the 
 ground on which the reconciliation was effected. 
 
 b. In whom was the reconciliation brought about ? In one 
 body, that is, in Christ's body. Some prefer to expound this 
 expression of the church, but it is every way better to explain 
 it of the Lord’s own body, because it is similar to the parallel 
 
276 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 passage in Colossians (Col. i. 22); and the allusion is plainly 
 limited to the way of procuring reconciliation, not to the way 
 of applying it. The reconciliation was effected in one historic 
 person, in one second man, the counterpart of the first man; 
 and the church was reconciled in one for many, and therefore 
 not by works of law or personal deeds which we have done. 1 
 
 c. By what was the reconciliation accomplished ? By the 
 cross, —a great fact in the world’s history, and the culminating 
 point of Christ’s obedience unto death. The question raised is, 
 Was the cross an objective fact for God as well as for us men ? 
 Did it reconcile the church to God, as it weighed with God, or 
 merely as it moves the human heart ? The phrase shows that 
 reconciliation rests on Christ’s work, and consequently on a 
 fact; and this objective fact was reconciling, not as it moved 
 the human heart, or ushered in a new conduct on man’s part, 
 but as it introduced a new relation or standing in which men 
 were placed before God. 
 
 cl. By what method was the reconciliation accomplished ? 
 The answer is, Having slain the enmity in His cross, or 
 in Himself; for the difference between the two modes of 
 rendering the phrase is so small in point of meaning, that we 
 may equally affirm, He slew the enmity in His cross, or, He 
 slew the enmity in Himself as crucified. What enmity ? Hot 
 the alienation between Jews and Gentiles, to which reference 
 had been made in the previous verse, for it would be a mere 
 tautology to repeat it here. Bather we must understand the 
 expression as alluding to the mutual enmity between God and 
 man extinguished by the cross. 
 
 As one passage personifying sin speaks of condemning it in 
 Christ’s flesh (Bom. viii. 3), so the enmity personified in the 
 present passage is said to be slain; and the question is raised, 
 How ? During the days of His flesh, the Lord, by taking on 
 
 1 The commentators are pretty equally divided in opinion, whether this 
 phrase is to he taken for Christ’s human body, that is, His incarnate person, or 
 for His body the church. I decidedly prefer the former. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 
 
 277 
 
 Him the sins of His people, as the cause of disunion and 
 enmity, suffered Himself to he treated as an object of divine 
 wrath, though in reality His beloved Son. On His person, the 
 object of eternal love, the sin of man and the wrath of God 
 came into collision as never had been seen since the world 
 began. The Lord experienced both to the utmost, and by so 
 doing annihilated the enmity for all whom He represented. 
 Whether we look at the one body of the Lord, or at His 
 activity, we see the sphere, the locality, the medium of recon¬ 
 ciliation. 
 
 The substance of this testimony may be thus summed up. 
 The Lord Jesus reconciled Jews and Gentiles to each other, not 
 because He brought a good disposition to the disunited parties, 
 but because He procured for both free access to God (ver. 18): 
 He reconciled both to God by His cross. Did the atonement 
 turn toward men the favour of God, or was it but a manifesta¬ 
 tion of an already existing relation of love ? Scripture uni¬ 
 formly declares, that while the provision emanated from the 
 love of the Father’s heart, the atonement was the great historic 
 fact by which the enmity between God and man was objec¬ 
 tively removed, and men made the objects of favour. Then 
 only was a friendly relation actually cemented. 
 
 III. Another passage is descriptive of the death of Christ 
 as a sacrifice, and enables us to trace His priestly action in 
 offering it: Walk in love , as Christ also hath loved us, and hath 
 given [better, delivered~\ Himself an offering and a sacrifice to 
 God for a sweet-smelling savour [or, a sweet-smelling savour to 
 God ] (Eph. v. 2). In the context the apostle inculcates mutual 
 forgiveness from the example of God (Eph. iv. 32), and then 
 mutual love from that illustrious instance of love which the 
 Lord Jesus gave in His atoning death, represented as the offer¬ 
 ing of a sacrifice. Though the idea of sacrifice is nowhere 
 fully exhibited except in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the 
 expositor would do violence to the import of language were 
 he to deny that we have here an allusion to a priestly offering. 
 
278 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 That Christ was a priest on earth, and offered an oblation 
 before His ascension to His Father, appears from this easy 
 analysis of the text:—Who offered ? Christ. What did He 
 offer ? Not 1 something external, not the blood of others, but 
 Himself. For whom did He offer ? For ns. And in what 
 manner was it accomplished ? As an offering and sacrifice. 
 From these questions, furnishing a simple analysis of the pas¬ 
 sage, we may warrantably collect that Christ offered Himself 
 as the one true, ever-valid sacrifice to which the shadows of the 
 former economy pointed. Nor is it necessary to supply any 
 ellipsis in order to complete the sense; for the apostle’s words 
 explicitly affirm, in the form here presented to us, that the 
 sacrifice was not something apart from the personal Christ, 
 not some action to be imitated, but Christ delivering Himself 
 for us. 
 
 Which class of the sacrifices was before the apostle’s mind ? 
 Without doubt, the propitiatory sacrifices, and not the thank- 
 offerings. When we look at the two terms, it is thought by 
 some that the first denotes an offering or sacrifice in general, 
 and that the second, subjoined as elucidating the first, denotes 
 a bloody sacrifice of a propitiatory character. Others roundly 
 affirm, much in the same way as did the Socinians of a former 
 age, that the apostle had not the idea of an expiatory sacrifice 1 
 before his mind. Partly from the terms descriptive of the 
 sacrifice, partly because of the additional phrase, “ for a sweet¬ 
 smelling savour,” they argue that the apostle refers to the 
 free-will offerings; and the entire passage, thus interpreted, 
 conveys nothing beyond the thought that Christ left us an 
 example. But while he represents the riches of Christ’s love 
 for our imitation, he had also before his mind the idea of an 
 atoning sacrifice. 
 
 1. With regard to the terms here used, the first of the two, 
 rendered offeking, may denote a free-will offering presented to 
 
 1 Riickert on the passage, and Usteri (Paulin Lehrbegrif), make it an allu¬ 
 sion to a free-will offering, not to a propitiatory sacrifice at all. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 
 
 279 
 
 God in token of gratitude and homage, but is also descriptive 
 of propitiatory sacrifices, as will appear from a few passages. 
 Thus, in the Epistle to the Hebrews the term is used in the 
 phrase, “ Where forgiveness of these is, there is no more offering 
 for sin” (y rpotrfiopcc ) (Heb. x. 18). In like manner, the writer 
 avails himself of the same word when he represents the death 
 of Christ as the one offering which perfected for ever them 
 that are sanctified (Heb. x. 14). There is no question, then, as 
 to the application of the term to propitiatory sacrifices and 
 as to the second word, “ an offering and sacrifice” (Qvfffoiv), 
 nothing warrants us to limit the idea underlying it to a free¬ 
 will gift, as the apostle several times uses it for a propitiatory 
 sacrifice. Passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews put this 
 usage beyond all doubt; as, for example, “ who needeth not 
 daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice first for his 
 own sins, and then for the people’s” (Heb. vii. 27). And many 
 other passages might be adduced (Heb. v. 1, viii. 3, ix. 9, 23, 
 26, x. 5, 11, 26). 
 
 2. The additional phrase, “for a sweet-smelling savour,” has 
 been adduced as an argument against the application of the 
 terms to propitiatory sacrifices, because free-will offerings are 
 often represented as a sweet-smelling savour to God; but we 
 have only to examine the ritual, to be convinced that the 
 expression was also applied to atoning sacrifices. It is the 
 expression used in Genesis in connection with the burnt- 
 offerings which Hoah offered when he came out of the ark,— 
 “The Lord smelled a sweet savour” (Gen. viii. 21); and it 
 is used of the burnt-offering on which the worshipper was to 
 put his hand (Lev. i. 4, 9). Hor was it limited to the burnt- 
 offering, though frequently mentioned in that connection in the 
 sacrificial ritual (Lev. i. 13, 17) ; for the expression is also 
 employed in reference to the sin-offering, whether brought to 
 expiate the offences of the individual worshipper (Lev. iv. 31), 
 or offered annually for the collective sins of the nation on the 
 1 See Yinke, Leer van Jesus en de Apostel, p. 371. 1837. 
 
280 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 great day of atonement (Lev. xvi. 25). In the last-mentioned 
 text, the burning of the fat upon the altar was with a view to 
 produce the sweet-smelling savour. 
 
 A further question is, whether the language refers to the 
 burnt-offering or the sin-offering. It may without violence 
 be referred to either: for the argument of Alting, Witsius, and 
 Deyling, against the possibility of referring the passage to the 
 sin-offering, on the ground that the sin-offering is never repre¬ 
 sented as a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour, rests on a 
 mistake. Thus 1 Witsius maintains that only those sacrifices 
 are said to be of a sweet-smelling savour to which the addition 
 of oil and frankincense could be made (Lev. ii. 2-9), and that 
 these additions could not be made to the sin-offering (Lev. v. 
 11). That is not true in point of fact, as has already been 
 proved from Leviticus (Lev. iv. 31, xvi. 25); and there is no¬ 
 thing in the allusion to a sacrifice of sweet-smelling savour 
 that decides the question either way, as it is applied both to 
 the burnt-offering and to the sin-offering. In that respect 
 there was no difference. But the complexion of the language 
 inclines us, if it is duly considered, to refer the terms rather 
 to the burnt-offering than to the sin-offering; for when the 
 New Testament writer more specifically refers to the sin- 
 offering, the additional words, for sin, are commonly sub¬ 
 joined (Bom. viii. 3; Heb. x. 18, 26). The conclusion to 
 which we are disposed to come is, that these terms, descriptive 
 of the Lord’s sacrifice, do not so naturally express the specific 
 idea of the sin-offering, inasmuch as that additional formula 
 is neither appended nor indicated by the context. 
 
 The apostle seems to refer to the burnt-offering when he 
 affirms that Christ loved us, and delivered Himself for us. 
 This is confirmed by the fact that he emphatically alludes to 
 the love of the Offerer, and to the oblation or sacrifice con- 
 
 1 See Witsius, Miscell. i. 410 ; Deyling, Observat. ss. i. 186 ; also Reland, 
 Antiq. p. 310. Riickert and Harless maintain the same reference to the sin- 
 offering. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 
 
 281 
 
 sidered as an action done. Had the apostle been alluding to 
 the sin-offering, the idea of sin would in some way have been 
 prominent. Hence the words comprehend His entire earthly 
 activity, as one uninterrupted continuous sacrifice from first 
 to last, reaching its culmination in His cross. The typical 
 burnt-offering figured forth the dedication of the entire man, 
 with all His powers and faculties, or the perfect fulfilling of 
 the Father’s will, and sanctifying of Himself for our sakes 
 (John xvii. 19), only accomplished when He said, “ It is 
 finished.” The dedication of the Lord during His earthly 
 career, till the obedience reached its climax on the cross, was 
 adumbrated by the burnt-offering as a sacrifice of sweet-smell¬ 
 ing savour. 1 The type found its truth in the Lord’s holy life 
 and obedience unto death; and therein He gave the Hew 
 Testament accomplishment to the Old Testament shadow. 
 
 This fact, that the death of Christ, as an atoning sacrifice, 
 was fragrant and well-pleasing to God, proves two things— 
 that the cross was not only a propitiation of divine wrath, 
 but an acceptable obedience. Hot only did it appease divine 
 wrath, it also converted God’s relation into one of favour. It 
 was merit as well as expiation. The passage is so expressed 
 as to show that the Lord’s death was an infinitely acceptable 
 deed; that sinlessness and sin-bearing were combined in His 
 sacrifice in such way, that while punishment was expiated, the 
 divine claims were all satisfied, and that sin did not in any 
 sense attach to the personal human life of Jesus of Hazareth. 
 The sacrifice was well-pleasing, because without blemish and 
 defect. Personally perfect, but officially the object of the 
 divine wrath by reason of sin-bearing, the Lord, by His 
 vicarious life and death, offered a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling 
 savour,—that is, acceptable to God in the utmost conceivable 
 degree. The cross displays wrath appeased, death endured, 
 punitive justice vindicated, but does not stop there, according 
 
 1 See Keil’s excellent discussion of this passage in this direction, Zeitschrift 
 fur die gesammte Lutherische Theologie , iii. Heft, 1857. 
 
282 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 to the too common representation of the atonement even by 
 its advocates. It was also a law-magnifying obedience, the 
 fulfilment of the condition under which man was originally 
 placed, the purchase of life, the title to the inheritance; and 
 the acceptableness of the Lord’s atoning sacrifice was typified 
 by the fragrance or sweet-smelling savour of the old burnt- 
 offering (Lev. xvi. 17). 
 
 Some points may be established by this text against the 
 long-repeated cavils and objections of the Socinianizing party. 
 To these we shall advert. 
 
 1. This passage proves that Christ’s death was coincident 
 with His sacrifice. When the opponents of the atonement 
 alleged, as they were wont to do, that the death of Christ did 
 not belong to His sacrifice, but preceded it, and that the 
 sacrifice was His action in heaven, their representation did 
 not satisfy the apostle’s testimony, which distinctly affirms 
 that He offered Himself a sacrifice, and that He was a sacrifice 
 when He delivered Himself. But if He was a true sacrifice on 
 earth, He was also a true priest on earth, offering the oblation. 
 We cannot transfer the sacrifice and priesthood to heaven, 
 without flatly contradicting the apostle, or asserting that 
 Christ’s earthly work was but fragmentary, and to be com¬ 
 pleted in heaven. Let them show that Christ twice offered 
 Himself, and that it was but an imperfect sacrifice He offered 
 on earth, or reconcile their position with the explicit declara¬ 
 tion that He was once offered to bear the sins of many (Heb. 
 ix. 28). 
 
 2. There is no discrepancy between this statement and the 
 doctrine of sacrifice contained in the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 The Socinians, accustomed to maintain that the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews describes only a sacrifice offered in heaven, after the 
 death of the cross was accomplished, allowed that the same 
 representation was not given by all the sacred writers. And 
 the answer to this is, that the Spirit of truth is no spirit of 
 contradiction, or of yea and nay. 
 
I 
 
 EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 283 
 
 3. The same parties, by a violence of construction, would 
 evade the evidence of this passage by reading the words, 
 OFFERING AND SACRIFICE FOR A SWEET-SMELLING SAVOUR, apart 
 from the verb GAVE, or delivered. Bending it from the con¬ 
 struction which belongs to it, they read it as an illustration, 
 or commendation, or exclamation: thus, “ What a sacrifice was 
 that to God I” That is not to interpret language, but to twist 
 it to the reader’s purpose and preconceived ideas. There is no 
 warrant but in their own fancy for such a mode of punctua¬ 
 tion. Of necessity, we must construe the verb gave with the 
 word sacrifice: “ who gave Himself an offering and sacrifice.” 
 The passage announces that He delivered Himself, and points 
 out the way by which it was done—by sacrifice. 
 
 4. A fourth objection, emanating from the same parties, 
 is to the effect that the word delivered (vrapefia/xev locvrov) is 
 not the term commonly found in the Old Testament ritual to 
 denote the presentation of the victim. But the reason is 
 obvious: the animal victim was presented on the altar be¬ 
 cause it was passive, and did not spontaneously offer itself, 
 whereas the Lord Jesus willingly offered Himself. And here 
 it is important to remark, that the sacrifice, properly so called, 
 was not the act of giving or delivering, but the thing itself 
 delivered : that was the acceptable sacrifice. This will be 
 evident from a comparison of the passages which speak of 
 money contributions, or of gifts, communicated as an accept¬ 
 able sacrifice (Phil. iv. 18; Heb. xiii. 16). In these instances, 
 it was not the act of sending or communicating, but the thing 
 sent or imparted, that constituted the sacrifice. And in the 
 case before us, it was not the act of delivering, but Christ 
 Himself delivered, that was the acceptable sacrifice. 
 
 In fine, this passage proves that the delivery of Christ as 
 a sacrifice for us much more than compensated for the wrong 
 done, and removed the wrath that had been armed against us : 
 it won for us divine favour. The death of Jesus not only 
 satisfied divine justice, but altered God’s attitude, or, as we 
 
284 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 would say in human relations, His mood of mind, to those 
 who previously had been objects of His just displeasure. The 
 effect of Noah’s sacrifice, the words of which seem here to he 
 recalled, was, that “ God smelled a sweet savour, and said in 
 His heart, I will not again curse the ground any more” (Gen. 
 viii. 21); and, in like manner, the sacrifice of Christ awakened 
 favour in God’s heart, because it magnified the divine law in 
 the most signal way. The purpose for which the apostle 
 adduced this allusion to the atonement was, that we might 
 cherish love like Christ. Not that the Ephesians could follow 
 Christ in such a work as His, which was unique in its nature, 
 and to be shared with none; but we are exhorted to cultivate 
 love in general, after the example of our atoning Lord. 
 
 IY. Another passage, describing the church as the special 
 object of the atonement, and the Lord’s death as containing in 
 it the meritorious element of its own application, is as follows: 
 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, 
 and gave Himself [better, delivered Himself ] for it; that He 
 might sanctify and cleanse it [better, sanctify it, cleansing it] 
 with the washing of water by the word (Eph. v. 25-27). The 
 apostle, while exhorting the Ephesians to the practice of con¬ 
 jugal duties, adduces the love of Christ in His relation to the 
 church as the great example, and takes occasion, as the apostles 
 usually do while enforcing moral duties by His example, to 
 expatiate on His meritorious abasement and death. The testi¬ 
 mony here given to the atonement may be noticed in a few 
 obvious particulars. 
 
 1. The love which the apostle was led by His theme to 
 delineate, is that of the great Bridegroom to the church. It is 
 not a vague, indefinite affection, but special love; that is, a 
 love to real persons, chosen from eternity, and redeemed in 
 time, to be called and put among the children. He did not 
 love the church purified, but for the sake of purifying it, and 
 with an affection so intensely active, that His endeavours never 
 cooled till He had redeemed His church, or bought her to be 
 
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 
 
 285 
 
 His; and tlie love which purchased the church at the most 
 costly price (Acts xx. 28), is as unchanging and inseparable as 
 it is great (Rom. viii. 35). 
 
 2. The love already mentioned is next described as prompt¬ 
 ing Him to deliver Himself for the church. Two parties are 
 mentioned—Christ on the one hand, and the church on the 
 other; and as death confronted us, the Lord became the 
 substitute in such a sense that He delivered Himself, first 
 into the hands of punitive justice at the bar of God, and then 
 into the hands of men, by whom, according to the determinate 
 counsel and foreknowledge of God, the sentence was carried 
 into effect. The expression delivered naturally recalls the 
 Lord’s own saying, that He was delivered into the hands of 
 men as an offering and a sacrifice to God. 1 This is the uni¬ 
 form meaning of the term, whether applied to the Father’s 
 action in giving- up the Son, or to the Son’s action in giving 
 up Himself. And we have the historic fact in the Lord’s 
 action in Gethsemane, as we have the doctrinal delineation of 
 its significance here. His giving of Himself was, in point of 
 fact, the sacrifice for the purchase of the church, His bride. 
 He offered Himself for the church when He gave Himself 
 spontaneously into the hand of God, permitting Himself to be 
 seized and bound, tried and mocked, sentenced and buffeted, at 
 the hand of those whom God appointed to execute His pur¬ 
 pose. It was no vague, uncertain, and accidental transaction, 
 but one according to special covenant and sponsion for the 
 good of that elect company, the church of redeemed men, who 
 were given Him by name and bought with a price. It was a 
 transaction so definite, that it procured the redemption of the 
 church, and carried with it the meritorious element of its own 
 imputation and application. He could not lose one for whom 
 He died: the holy rectitude of the divine moral government 
 absolutely forbade that. His death was the spontaneous sur¬ 
 render of Himself, when He could have warded off all His 
 
 1 See Weber, Vom Zorne Gottes ; also Harless’ commentary on the passage. 
 
286 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 enemies’ attacks against His life; for He had power to lay it 
 down, and power to take it np again. And what did He give 
 as the sacrifice ? Hot an external thing, not something nor all 
 things possessed by Him, hut Himself, His infinitely precious 
 person. And for whom ? For His church, that it might be His 
 blood-bought property, and so belong to the great Bridegroom. 
 
 3. The end contemplated by the Lord’s death was, that He 
 might sanctify the church. This is plainly proved by the 
 particle of design which introduces the clause (ha). As to 
 sanctification here, we must determine whether it means dedi¬ 
 cation to God on the ground of atonement, or inward progres¬ 
 sive purity. The former view must be accepted wherever 
 holiness is immediately connected with the death of Christ. 
 The passage has in it a conjugal reference; and the primary 
 meaning is, that the church was set apart, or consecrated, to 
 Him as His bride,—the uniform meaning of the term when 
 connected with the atonement. This is the use of the word 
 whenever mention is made of the Levitical worship and of 
 sacrifices, which sanctified to the purifying of the flesh (Heb. 
 ix. 13). 1 We are admitted into fellowship with God by means 
 of Christ’s atonement. Whether sufficient ground exists for 
 Michaelis’ remark, that the high priest in Israel was called 
 the bridegroom of his people, is doubtful (Lev. xxi. 4). If 
 well founded, we should fully understand why the sacred 
 writers so frequently employ this figure. 
 
 Two terms are here used, so nearly synonymous, that it is 
 difficult to define the precise shade of difference between them, 
 when they describe the effect of Christ’s atoning blood. I 
 refer to the two verbs sanctify and cleanse, common to all 
 the apostles. It may be proper first to define the relation be¬ 
 tween the two clauses, considered separately, according to the 
 translation which we gave above : “ That He might sanctify 
 it, cleansing it with the washing of water by the word.” We 
 regard the participle (xocOaptcag) as expressing simultaneous 
 1 See above, on the Levitical sacrifices, at p. 52. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 
 
 287 
 
 action ; for this is necessary to the sense, and there is no 
 necessity for translating the participle as intimating previous 
 action, 1 introductory to the action of the verb. They coincide 
 in time, and the participial clause conveys an explanation of a 
 peculiar nature, which it is possible, we think, to apprehend. 
 The first clause seems more especially to denote the objective 
 standing of the worshipper, and his near approach to a holy 
 God by the blood of atonement; whereas the participial clause 
 seems to refer to the subjective consciousness or felt experience 
 of the same privilege (Heb. ix. 14); or, as Winer puts it, the 
 cleansing may denote something negative, and the word 
 sanctify something positive. 
 
 To understand this language, we must carry with us the 
 import of the Jewish worship. The terms on which we are 
 commenting refer to the removal of defilements, which excluded 
 the worshipper from coming into the presence of a holy God, 
 and prevented him from intercourse with his fellow-citizens. 
 When the unclearmess was removed by sacrificial blood, or in 
 the use of sprinkling according to the law, the excluded person 
 was restored to the enjoyment of all the privileges secured to 
 the people of God. In a word, he was holy, or sanctified. 
 With regard to the cleansing added in the participial clause, 
 it is so allied to the former, that the one may be said to in¬ 
 clude the other; and the thought will be, that by means of the 
 cleansing, washing, or sprinkling of Christ’s blood—for all 
 these expressions, borrowed from the sacrificial ritual, are em¬ 
 ployed with little if any difference of meaning—sinners, pre¬ 
 viously excluded from access to a holy God by sin, are restored 
 to fellowship, and consciously nigh (Eph. ii. 13). When it is said 
 that Christ gave Himself for the church, that He might sanctify 
 it, the meaning is, that He gave Himself to deliver us from 
 estrangement, the consequence of sin, and to reinstate us men, 
 once far off by sin, in the favour, friendship, and fellowship of 
 a holy God. 
 
 1 See Winer’s Grammar on aorist participles. 
 
288 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 4. The passage furthermore brings out the special love 
 of the Kedeemer, and the efficacy of His atoning blood. His 
 redeeming love was specially directed to the church as its 
 proper object; for the language is so definite and precise as to 
 leave no doubt that His love finds out all those to whom it is 
 exercised. 1 Hor can the efficacious character of His redemp¬ 
 tion-^work be called in question, if we do justice to the terms 
 of the present passage, and others similar ; for either we must 
 assert that the atonement was efficacious to all for whom it 
 was destined, or concede that Christ has been largely disap¬ 
 pointed of His design. The two clauses of these verses, con¬ 
 nected together by a final particle (5Va), exhibit the scope or 
 design from which the Saviour acted in His whole redemption- 
 work. The first of the verses (ver. 25) is so connected with 
 the following, that they declare the end for which He acted, 
 and the means of attaining it; and no one with reverent con¬ 
 ceptions of the Father’s commission or the Son’s finished work, 
 will admit that He failed of His purpose. It was an atone¬ 
 ment that satisfied all the claims of God. And whether we 
 . look at the divine appointment, or at the intrinsic merit of the 
 redemption, the work was of such a kind as to carry with it 
 the ground of its own imputation and application. He will 
 not lose one for whom He died; for He gave Himself for the 
 church, a surety fulfilling every condition. 
 
 SEC. XIV.—THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 This epistle was written on the occasion of receiving a 
 money contribution sent to the apostle, then a prisoner in 
 Pome. The Philippians had formerly sent once and again 
 to his necessity, and after an interval their care of him 
 flourished again (Phil. iv. 10, 15). To relieve their anxiety 
 
 1 See Ames’ Coronis ad Collationem Hagiensem, 1650 ; and Antisynodalia 
 Scripta. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 289 
 
 about himself, he enters into details as to his history, taking 
 occasion to warn them against the Judaizing party, which 
 sought access to all the new planted churches, and exhorting 
 them to mutual concord, joy in the Lord, and preparation 
 for the Lord’s coming. The scope of the epistle is rather 
 practical than doctrinal. Hence the atonement is less re¬ 
 ferred to than in many other epistles. There are some less 
 direct allusions, as when the apostle designates certain men 
 enemies of the cross of Christ (Phil. iii. 18). This shows 
 the place which the atonement occupies; for the Judaizers 
 were dangerous, because they subverted salvation by the 
 cross. The apostle, now very near his crown, says, too, that 
 he counted all things but loss to win Christ, and to be 
 found in Him, not having his own righteousness (Phil. iii. 8); 
 proving that to the last he clung, as at the beginning, to the 
 atonement or righteousness of God. 
 
 The only text in this epistle to which we shall direct 
 special attention is the following:— Let this mind he in you, 
 which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being [better, existing ] 
 in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be egual with 
 God; but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him 
 [better, emptied Himself, taking ] the form of a servant, and 
 was made [being made ] in the likeness of men; and being 
 found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and be¬ 
 came obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Where¬ 
 fore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a 
 name which is above every name (Phil. ii. 5-9). The apostle, 
 exhorting the Philippians to mutual concord, and bidding 
 them esteem others better than themselves, passes over, in 
 the most natural way, to Christ’s example as displayed in 
 His entire humiliation on earth. Is it true, as some allege, 
 that Paul gives no outline of redemption here, but limits 
 himself to the history of Christ as it furnishes an example ? 
 That is not admissible here, nor in other parallel passages 
 
 which bring out Christ’s abasement. The atonement is often put 
 
 T 
 
290 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 in the bosom of what is properly an ethical context (Eph. v. 2, 
 v. 25 ; 1 Pet. iii. 18). Besides, the connection between the 
 humiliation and exaltation of Christ indubitably points to the 
 atonement and its reward (ver. 9). 
 
 1. The first thing to be determined is, whether the mention 
 of Christ existing in the form of God refers to His divine pre- 
 existence—to a state anterior to the incarnation ? This must 
 be affirmed if we interpret by the force of terms; and this 
 was the general interpretation among the Bathers and the 
 divines of the Beformed Church. 1 Though many Lutheran 
 expositors, after Luther’s example, laboured with all inge¬ 
 nuity to refer the terms to the incarnate Christ,—sometimes 
 appealing to the name “ Christ Jesus ” occurring immediately 
 before, sometimes asserting that the ethical precept of humility 
 which is enforced did not require any allusion to the pre¬ 
 incarnate state,—the comment cannot be made even plausible. 
 The apostle obviously describes Christ in His divine glory, 
 and then in the state of abasement. The expression, being or 
 existing (vTrdpxcov) in the form of God, can be expounded 
 only of divine existence with the manifestation of divine glory. 
 There is no need for debating whether the form of God is 
 an expression denoting essence or nature; for the whole phrase 
 taken together, who being or existing in the form of God, 
 leaves no room for doubt that we must here unite the attri¬ 
 butes and their manifestation. 2 We cannot reduce the expres¬ 
 sion to the mere accidents of the divine; for there is a reference 
 to subsistence, and a thing does not exist in its accidents. We 
 may fitly alternate this phrase, therefore, with another, which 
 fully covers it: “ who, being the brightness of His glory, and 
 express image of His person ” (Heb. i. 3). 
 
 Another clause, equally significant, as exhibiting the con- 
 
 1 The Fathers appeal to this text against the Arians and Sabellians, and the 
 post-Reformation divines against the Unitarians. 
 
 2 See a valuable patristic discussion on the meaning of papyri in Zancliius 
 on Philippians ; also Maestricht’s full exposition in his Theoretico-practica 
 Theologia, lib. v. cap. 9. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE PIIILIPPIANS. 
 
 291 
 
 sciousness or sentiments of the only begotten Son in those 
 relations which subsisted between Him and the Father, is 
 subjoined: who thought it not bobbery to be equal with 
 God. This announces what the Lord frequently declared in 
 His own words, that, without arrogating what was not His 
 own by divine right, He was conscious of entire equality 
 with God, and that He thought this sentiment no transgres¬ 
 sion of His limits, nor invasion of another’s rights. As to 
 the mode of rendering adopted by many expositors in the 
 last age, “ who did not regard His equality with God as an 
 object of solicitous desire,” or “ who did not esteem it an 
 object to he caught at to he on a parity with God,” 1 it has 
 ceased to have much interest, for it is a conjectural mean¬ 
 ing put upon the term bobbery. It is contrary to the ety¬ 
 mology of the word, which denotes the act of seizing; and 
 it loses the emphasis of the clause, which, as descriptive of 
 conscious equality with God, was meant to show spontaneous 
 abasement in the light of that divine relation of which He 
 was fully aware. The former clause is an objective delinea¬ 
 tion of the divine dignity of the Son of God, while this clause 
 is a subjective delineation of the same thing. 
 
 2. A second question to be determined is. Are we to as¬ 
 sume two different gradations of humiliation,—one indicated 
 by the w'ords, He emptied Himself (ver. 7), as we rendered 
 them; and another indicated by the terms, He humbled 
 Himself (ver. 8): that is, Have we two parts of the abase¬ 
 ment of Jesus,—one more particularly referring to the incar¬ 
 nation, the other more expressly alluding to the sufferings 
 which led Him to the cross ? That mode of exposition, 
 
 1 I may specially refer to Dr. Pye Smith’s discussion in favour of this render¬ 
 ing of apwctyiAoi in his Scripture Testimony, vol. ii. pp. 365-406, as he gives 
 the literature up to his day. See, too, Stuart's Letters to Channing. Meyer’s 
 note, however, is conclusive against that sense of kp.rayp'o?. Raebiger, Christo- 
 logia Paulina, p. 77 (1852), contends for the passive sense of the word, against 
 Meyer, and also Usteri, p. 309. (See also Tholuck’s disputatio on this text, 
 1847.) 
 
292 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 adopted by many, conveys the idea of a first and second 
 humiliation: the first consisting in the abasement which led 
 Him to become man; the second consisting in subjecting 
 Himself to the death of the cross. We should thus have 
 two gradations of humiliation delineated objectively; and the 
 two verbs, He emptied Himself, and He humbled Himself, 
 taken with the participial clauses which severally belong to 
 them, the hinges of these two gradations. I have never been 
 satisfied that this has been made good by any ingenuity of ar¬ 
 rangement that has ever been applied to the passage. Another 
 view is to apply to the historic life of Christ the same dis¬ 
 tinction which could be applied to His pre-historic life in the 
 previous clauses. We should, on this principle, take the one 
 as an objective delineation of the condition into which His 
 condescending love brought Him down (ver. 7) ; and the other 
 as descriptive of the conscious aim or subjective feeling with 
 which He entered into that sphere (ver. 8). This latter view, 
 we think, has much to recommend it on the ground of simpli¬ 
 city. The passage, thus viewed, has a remarkable resemblance 
 to the parallel passage, in which Christ is represented as a son, 
 yet learning obedience by the things He suffered (Heb. v. 8, 9). 
 This interpretation fits in, too, most aptly to that lowliness of 
 mind, for the enforcement of which the Lord’s example was 
 adduced. 1 We shall so expound it. 
 
 a. The objective condition of abasement, then, is thus ex¬ 
 pressed : “ But He emptied Himself, taking the form of a 
 servant, being made in the likeness of men.” Of what did 
 He empty Himself? He was emptied by becoming another, 
 not by ceasing to be what He was ; that is, He became man, 
 whereas He was God; a servant, though He was a Lord; of 
 rich, poor; of glorious, abased; of omnipotent, weak; of omni¬ 
 present, limited; not by ceasing to be what He was, but by 
 becoming what He was not. As to the expressions which 
 
 1 See some excellent comments in this direction by Lechler, Apostolisches 
 Zeitalter, 1857, p. 58. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE PIIILIPPIANS. 
 
 293 
 
 follow in the participial clauses, they are highly significant, 
 whether we take them as co-ordinate or subordinate. 
 
 The first clause, which says that He took the form of a 
 servant, sets forth spontaneous abasement as contrasted with 
 the sin of Adam. Humiliation came in to expiate usurpation. 
 If the first man aspired to he as God, the second man, who by 
 inherent right was above all service, descended to a servant’s 
 position that He might expiate their sin who sought to be 
 more than was appointed for them. 1 The expression “ taking 
 the form of a servant” is not synonymous with human nature 
 simply, but takes in the further idea of an abased condition. 
 The second participial clause, in which it is said that He was 
 made in the likeness of men, lends no countenance to anything 
 bordering on Docetic theories, as if He were a phantom form. 
 On the contrary, the clause affirms that, while He is neither 
 a mere man nor a sinful man, He was very man, with a true 
 humanity in all respects like our own; nay, made in the 
 likeness of men in the most abased form—the consequence 
 of that sin-bearing and curse-bearing career through which 
 He passed from His birth (see Rom. viii. 3). When it is 
 added that He was found in fashion as a man—a clause sub¬ 
 joined partly to resume the two previous clauses, partly to 
 prepare for the outline of obedience given in the following 
 statement—the meaning is, that externally, in discourse and 
 action, in behaviour and mode of life, He was found in fashion 
 as a man. 
 
 b. The obedience of Jesus—that is, His subjective disposi¬ 
 tion in the given sphere already mentioned—is thus described : 
 “ He humbled Himself, and became obedient to death, even 
 the death of the cross.” The meaning seems to be, that in this 
 condition He subjected Himself to the service which the sphere 
 imposed upon Him; that He neither assumed any of the glory 
 that properly belonged to Him, nor disdained to move in the 
 
 1 See Ernesti, Studien und Kritiken, 1848 (pp. 858-924), elucidating the 
 passage from Gen. ii. 
 
294 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 restraints, reproach, and pain which were its necessary accom¬ 
 paniments ; and that He adapted Himself, as the meek and 
 lowly One, to His position. The same expression is applied 
 by Luke to denote inward sentiment or disposition : “ He that 
 hum hi e th himself shall be exalted” (Luke xiv. 11). He filled 
 up with humility and obedience His allotted sphere, that is, 
 the position of a servant, with all its obligations, as He had 
 spontaneously assumed it (Matt. xx. 28). The obedience men¬ 
 tioned in this clause has express relation to the form of a 
 servant mentioned in the previous verse. They are counter¬ 
 parts ; the one the outward condition, the other the animating 
 spirit corresponding to it. The form of a servant may be dis¬ 
 tinguished from the obedience of the servant, but they cannot 
 be separated; as the outward and the inward,—the sphere, and 
 the spirit pervading it. 
 
 3. We next notice the features of the obedience; and the 
 first question is, To whom was the obedience rendered ? Not 
 to the Eomans or Jews, as some have put it, but primarily to 
 God, sustaining the character of Lawgiver and Judge. But 
 the capacity in which He obeyed comes out in connection with 
 His person. When this divine person took the form of a ser¬ 
 vant, the language signifies that He took it into the unity of 
 His person; and consequently, as the creator and preserver 
 of His own humanity, He could not but be its master. This 
 decides on the nature of His obedience. It was not personally 
 necessary from any obligations devolving upon Him, but solely 
 undertaken for others, and meant to be laid to their account, 
 according to the covenant by which He acted 1 as the Lord’s 
 servant (Isa. xlii. 1). He disdained not to stoop to the curse 
 as our sin-bearing surety, sinlessly obedient at every step 
 (Matt. xx. 28). 
 
 Of this obedience the first prerequisite was, that it should 
 
 1 See an excellent elucidation of this text by Th. Hall, Norton regis pastore, 
 de activa Christi obedientia, p. 180, Frankf. 1658. Also Walch, de obedientia 
 Christi activa , 1755, p. 16 ; and the old Lutheran divines. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 295 
 
 be voluntary; and this is the point affirmed. A double act was 
 necessary in this transaction : one on God’s side, who, as the 
 world’s ruler, and as the party to be reconciled, appointed the 
 sacrifice; for without His authority the whole atoning work 
 of Christ would have been without a basis: the other on the 
 side of Christ, whose vicarious obedience could be rendered 
 only by free choice. The very notion of involuntary suffering, 
 or inevitable suffering, in a world where all was disordered, 
 had no application to Him for no one could take His life 
 from Him, or inflict suffering without His consent. 
 
 But His abasement is first described as obedience, then 
 as obedience unto death, and then as the death of the cross. 
 The obedience was one from His birth to His death, though 
 consisting of two several parts or elements; in other words, an 
 active and passive obedience, as it is commonly called, or an 
 obedience previous to His sufferings, and during them. 2 No 
 one will exclude the suffering part of the obedience who ponders 
 the words unto death, that is, as far as death inclusive ; and no 
 one will exclude the active obedience, or that of His life, if he 
 does justice to this expression, which describes obedience ex¬ 
 tending to the borders of death, and running through it. Christ 
 is represented as complying with the will of a superior, as 
 descending to death natural and eternal, and as undergoing the 
 ignominious cross, an emblem of the curse, that we might go 
 free (Gal. iii. 13). The apostle comprehends the whole obe¬ 
 dience of life and death: for he does not say that He was 
 obedient in death, as if nothing more were imposed upon Him 
 than to die. He united the obedience of life and death as 
 equally vicarious. 
 
 4. Next follows the reward expressed in the words, “ Where¬ 
 fore God hath highly exalted Him” (ver. 9). The particle 
 wherefore is not a consecutive particle, but causal, defining 
 
 1 This is the crpurov •^iZ'bos of the modern theology on Christ’s sufferings. 
 See, e.g ., Robertson of Brighton. 
 
 ' See Hall’s treatise mentioned above. 
 
296 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 the relation of causality; and here it is the relation between 
 work and reward. It was at one time made a theological 
 question: Did Christ win a reward for Himself by His obe¬ 
 dience, or was He wholly born for us when He was sent on 
 His divine commission and died for us ? Calvin took up the 
 notion, that Christ merited nothing for Himself; but it has 
 always been felt that we cannot do justice to this text unless 
 we maintain that by His atoning sacrifice Christ merited the 
 fulfilment of the conditional promise of the law: “ Do this, and 
 thou shalt live.” 1 We must hold that He merited the reward 
 for His people, and therefore for Himself as the surety-head 
 of His people; and He received a name above every name, 
 which seems to be, as Zanchius puts it, that of Son of God, 
 though he was Son from eternity 2 (Heb. i. 5). And adoration 
 must be paid to Him by all intelligences in heaven, and on 
 earth, and under the earth (ver. 10). 
 
 SEC. XV.—THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 This epistle puts the atonement in a peculiar light. It 
 contains what the other epistles set forth as to the direct 
 connection of the death of Christ with forgiveness, redemption, 
 and reconciliation ; but it introduces a new thought—the bear¬ 
 ing of the atonement on other orders of being. The occasion 
 of it explains this peculiarity. This epistle, written during 
 Paul’s imprisonment, about the same time with the Epistle to 
 the Ephesians, had as its chief design to bring out the positive 
 doctrine of Christ’s person. Therefore it is a Christological 
 epistle in its main contents. Various allusions are made to an 
 
 1 See H. Alting’s Problemata Theologica, where he discusses this point, 
 p. 176. Calvin, Danseus, Pareus, took the negative, in opposition to the scho¬ 
 lastics ; Zanchius, Piscator, and F. Junius held the affirmative. 
 
 2 “Secundum utramque naturam dedisse hoc nomen ; hoc est toti mundo 
 patefecisse quod totus iste Jesus crucifixus est filius Dei unigenitus.”— Zanchi. 
 in loc. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 297 
 
 erratic philosophy threatening to spoil the Colossians in many 
 ways, to a worshipping of angels, an intruding into the unseen 
 world, and an asceticism according to the commandments of 
 men (Col. ii. 18); plain marks of an incipient Gnosticism, with 
 its theory of emanations. The doctrine of angels, or of a spirit- 
 world, was opposed to the sole mediation of Christ, and intro¬ 
 duced an intermediate order of beings between God and man. 
 Paul puts the relation of angels to Christ in its true light, 
 showing how they stood to the Son of God both in creation 
 and redemption; and that the work of creation was effected 
 by the same person who was the cause of redemption (Col. i. 
 15, 16). As the first-born of every creature, or, more strictly, 
 the first-begotten before every creature, all things are said to 
 have been created in Him, by Him, and to Him; the allusion 
 being to the fact that the world owed its origin to Him, and 
 was constituted in Him. The apostle, in short, reverts to the 
 origin of all things, and their standing in the Son, and then 
 directs attention to a new point—the union under one common 
 Head of redeemed men and elect angels (i. 20). By proving 
 that Christ is the one uniting bond of both, he supplanted the 
 Gnostic theories; for there was no place for dependence on a 
 spirit-world or other mediators. We shall omit passages the 
 same in terms with texts in the Epistle to the Ephesians (Col. 
 i. 14, iii. 13), but must consider two passages which, while dis¬ 
 playing the effect of the atonement on men, also set forth its 
 effect on other orders of being. 
 
 I. The first is as follows : It pleased the Father that in Him 
 should all fulness dwell : and, having made peace through the 
 blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; 
 by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in 
 heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated, and enemies in 
 your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the 
 body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and unblame- 
 able, and unreproveable in His sight (Col. i. 19-22). The apostle 
 opens up a view of the atonement as embracing angelic intelli- 
 
298 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 gences as well as men. In the Epistle to the Ephesians the 
 atonement was exhibited as uniting Jews and Gentiles in one 
 family. Here its effect is seen in bringing together into one 
 family and under one Head the entire universe of spiritual 
 beings in earth and heaven. 
 
 To obviate the difficulty that suggests itself on this point, 
 it may be proper to make one or two preliminary remarks. 
 Besides the union which the creatures celestial and terrestrial 
 enjoyed with their Creator in their normal state, they had a 
 relation to each other as fellow-citizens in one vast city of God, 
 however different in federal constitution, capacity, or service. 
 Man’s sin dissolved this union in both respects, separating us 
 from God, and from those who once were fellow-citizens, but 
 who, like loyal subjects at the outbreak of a rebellion, could 
 henceforth have no relations with the rebels. The unfallen 
 angels took part with God, and respected the sovereign rights 
 of God. When man’s relation to God was broken, his relation 
 to the heavenly hosts was also terminated ; and he had as little 
 access to their society as to that of their God, to whom they 
 remained loyal. God’s will was no longer done in earth as it 
 was in heaven, and the union of men and angels under one 
 Monarch was at an end. 
 
 This must be taken into account, when we think of the 
 atonement as restoring the relations of the fellow-citizens, 
 because restoring the throne-rights of God. So wide was the 
 effect of the propitiation, that all intelligences and relations in 
 the empire of God felt its manifold fruits. The abasement of 
 such a person—the Creator and bond of the universe, accord¬ 
 ing to the divine idea—was so meritorious, that it not only 
 brought back a peaceful union to this world, but restored the 
 universe to friendly relations, by bringing all into a new 
 relation to God in Christ. It may be difficult to set forth the 
 relation of the atonement to the angelic world. And hence 
 many, swayed by the unduly pressed parallelism of the Epistle 
 to the Ephesians, explain these words either of the union of 
 
EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 299 
 
 the Jewish church with the Gentile, or of departed saints in 
 heaven and redeemed men on earth,—hut without any colour 
 or warrant. The best interpreters, the Greek Fathers, Calvin, 
 Bengel, and all in every age who have cast the most penetrat¬ 
 ing glance into Scripture, expound the passage of the recon¬ 
 ciliation of rational intelligences in earth and heaven. 1 And 
 notwithstanding the dogmatic difficulty suggested to every 
 mind by the fact that angelic beings were never at enmity 
 with God, this is the correct view. In one sense, the efficacy 
 of the atonement reaches to them, but in a different way from 
 the reconciliation of those alienated by sin. God reconciles 
 all things to Himself, celestial and terrestrial, and the angels 
 seem to have been confirmed by the Son of God. It is not 
 to be affirmed that Christ was the Mediator of angels, for the 
 language of Scripture is, that He is the Mediator between God 
 and men (1 Tim. ii. 5); but He is their Head, the uniting bond 
 of the universe, gathered up anew or recapitulated under Him 
 (Eph. i. 10). In the remarks of Calvin on this text, two 
 reasons are assigned why angels must be reconciled to God: 
 first, that they were creatures never beyond the hazard of falling 
 till confirmed by Christ; next, that their obedience had not 
 such perfection or righteousness as might suffice to a full 
 union with God, and therefore needed a reconciler. Whether 
 we take in the second element or not—for some may think it 
 tantamount to affirming that Christ was the Mediator of angels 
 —certainly the work of Christ had an influence felt through 
 all heaven. The reconciliation of sinful men stands on the 
 foreground; but it must be added, that the rent caused by sin 
 was repaired, and the heavenly hosts united with redeemed 
 men under a new Head and by a new bond, in virtue of that 
 atoning work which called forth wonder, praise, and joy among 
 thrones and dominions, principalities and powers, referred to 
 
 1 See also Zan chius ; Owen, On the Person of Christ , chapter on the recapi¬ 
 tulation of all things; and Goodwin, On Ephesians, ch. i. Ernesti looked with 
 disfavour on this interpretation, Neue Theolog. Bihliothek. 
 
300 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 in the previous context (ver. 16). But let us look more par¬ 
 ticularly at the terms. 
 
 1. The reconciliation is of God’s good pleasure (ver. 19); 
 that is, is traced up to God’s appointment. Though the nomi¬ 
 native to the verb pleased 1 is not expressed in the original, 
 we can supply no other than the term God or Father, as is 
 given in the authorized English version; for in the New Testa¬ 
 ment it is uniformly said, that it pleased the Father to send 
 the Son. The Father formed the purpose of reconciling us, 
 and wished to be reconciled. Hence He prepared what was 
 necessary, and provided for its execution; the ultimate reason 
 being, that God was so pleased. As to the import of recon¬ 
 ciliation, we have had occasion to notice again and again that 
 it intimates a restoration of friendship, the appeasing of divine 
 anger, and a new relation of favour. Hostility lay on God’s 
 side as well as man’s side, whose rebellion provoked it; it was 
 a mutual estrangement; and reconciliation is in like manner 
 a change in the divine relation and mood of mind toward us, 
 as well as a change on our side toward God. 
 
 2. Reconciliation was not absolute, nor without mediation. 
 It was by a historic fact in the moral government of God. 
 Hence it is said: “having made [better, making] peace 
 through the blood of His cross.” As to the relation of 
 these clauses, we must fix attention on the fact, that the 
 scheme of salvation, whether we take account of the incar¬ 
 nation (ver. 19) or of the atonement (ver. 20), emanated from 
 the divine good pleasure as the supreme source of all. Next, 
 reconciliation intimates the removal of all existing estrange¬ 
 ment between God and the world, taken in its widest sense. 
 For we must take the term “reconcile” here, not in a 
 new sense, but with a wider extension of meaning, viz. to 
 unite BY reconciling. 2 That underlying thought cannot be 
 
 1 The natural construction, according to the analogy of other passages, is 
 
 ©so; tvb'oKriffs. 
 
 2 Attempts have been made to deny the proper force of u^oxarockkcctro-siv 
 elsewhere, because of the shade of meaning attaching to it in this connection, 
 
EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 301 
 
 denied; for the atonement refers only to men in the proper 
 acceptation of the term. But the application of the word in 
 this connection is appropriate only when we take in the further 
 idea of uniting the universe to God, and restoring the disturbed 
 harmony. The making of peace referred to in the participial 
 clause is specially noteworthy. The past tense in both clauses 
 in the original shows that reconciliation and peacemaking were 
 contemporaneous, — that they covered each other, and were 
 accomplished once for all. (See Winer, Gr. § 45, d .) 
 
 The apostle next subjoins the material cause or means by 
 which this peacemaking was effected: “by the blood of His 
 cross.” This was added to show that such a relation was not 
 formed without a satisfaction for sins, though it is not more 
 particularly mentioned how the Lord’s death produced that 
 effect. This is obvious from the tenor of Scripture, and from 
 the two terms here used, “blood of the cross:” the first sug¬ 
 gesting a comparison between the Lord’s death and the blood 
 of sacrifice, familiar to all acquainted with the Old Testament 
 worship ; the second recalling the penal character of the death, 
 as that of a curse-bearing substitute. Paul laid such stress on 
 these aspects of Christ’s death—for he repeats the same, or a 
 still more definite allusion, in the two following verses—because 
 the Colossian errorists, in their speculative teaching, appear to 
 have turned men’s minds away from the Lord’s curse-bearing 
 humiliation to a mystic contemplation, and a spirit-world of 
 angelic mediators. 
 
 3. A transition is next made to the case of the Colossians, 
 formerly alienated, but now reconciled (Col. i. 20, 21). It is 
 not necessary to repeat the explanation already given of the 
 word reconcile. Beyond all question, it is used to intimate 
 that men, once at enmity, are now restored to friendly rela¬ 
 tions. As this is the meaning in the reference to the Colos- 
 
 but in vain. That there is a true reconciliation to God on the part of men is 
 beyond ^11 question, however men may explain the further allusion to angelic 
 beings. 
 
302 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 sians, we may affirm that the word has the same signification 
 in both verses, coupled by the particle and (vers. 20, 21). But 
 
 we have specially to notice the means by which it was effected: 
 
 ■*» 
 
 “in the body of His flesh through death;” a remarkable com¬ 
 bination of terms, announcing with singular brevity as many 
 constituent elements in the atonement. First, the atonement 
 was a great historic fact, or objective reality, accomplished in 
 Christ’s person once for all during His earthly sojourn; and the 
 circumstance now mentioned is clearly marked, that no one 
 might conclude it was effected apart from the person of the 
 incarnate Son, described in the previous context, or that it 
 stood in any way connected with what He did after His return 
 to glory. Again, this pregnant passage alludes to His true cor¬ 
 poreity,—an allusion directed against those Gnostic theories in 
 Colosse, which breathed a false spiritualism, and looked un¬ 
 favourably on matter in every form, and therefore on the true 
 corporeity of the incarnate Son. Thirdly, the apostle mentions 
 the body of His flesh, which, as already mentioned, denotes, 
 wherever it occurs in reference to Jesus, 1 that He carried about 
 on earth a sin-bearing humanity, and therefore a weak, abased, 
 and suffering humanity (see Bom. viii. 3). Last of all, the 
 apostle, to complete the outline of the Lord’s atoning sacrifice, 
 mentioned death the wages of sin. When we put together all 
 these elements, the apostle’s testimony here amounts to this, 
 that the atonement was consummated historically and once for 
 all in the person of the incarnate, abased, and dying Surety; 
 and it takes in His life, wound up by His death (vers. 20, 22). 
 
 4. The fruit or effect of the reconciliation is next added: 
 “ to present you holy, and unblameable, and unreproveable in 
 His sight” [better, before Him\. The importance of this decla¬ 
 ration appears on two grounds. We are taught, in the first 
 place, that sanctification does not precede reconciliation, or lay 
 the foundation of reconciliation, but follows it. They who put 
 sanctification first confound everything, and mistake the rela- 
 
 1 See our remarks above, on Rom. viii. 3. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 303 
 
 tions of things as well as the entire aim and scope of Chris¬ 
 tianity : they can never ward off an all-desolating legalism. 
 
 But while the reconciliation is first in order, a second 
 thought of vast importance is, that the atonement gives rise to 
 sanctification at the next remove, and stands in causal con¬ 
 nection with it. This passage, and others similar, prove that 
 the atonement was the purchase not only of the rectified rela¬ 
 tion in which we stand before God, but of that consecration 
 by which we are set apart for God, and also of the inner life 
 and renovation by which we are presented faultless before 
 Him. Such a passage as this proves that we must connect the 
 communications of divine life with the atonement as the pur¬ 
 chase of all. If, in an externalizing way, the atonement is 
 dissociated from life and sanctification, or, on the other hand, 
 if we regard the divine life as first in order, and independent of 
 the blood of the cross, all things are dislocated. Reconciliation 
 is first in order, but the holy and blameless life follows by 
 necessary consequence. 
 
 Attempts have been made to make all these predicates, 
 holy, unblameable, unreproveable, have reference not to 
 outwardly perceptible advances in the divine life, but to the 
 relative standing of the Colossians before God; as the people of 
 Israel, after the offered sacrifice on the day of atonement, were 
 immediately regarded by God as holy. 1 The words, in His 
 sight, or before Him, may, it is alleged, describe an immediate 
 relation to God by the death of Christ. That would have been 
 by no means an unwarrantable interpretation, had the epithet 
 holy stood alone; and we may attach that sense to this 
 epithet. But the other epithets refer to the inner sanctification 
 of the spirit. The whole clause, indeed, bears so close a re¬ 
 semblance to a parallel one in Ephesians (Eph. v. 27), which 
 mentions the presentation of a glorious church, that it seems 
 natural to refer both to what is future. 
 
 II. Another text in this epistle, of a very comprehensive 
 
 1 So Dalmer, in Ins commentary on Colossians, incorrectly. 
 
304 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 character, puts forgiveness, the blotting out of the handwriting 
 that was against us, and victory over Satan, in connection with 
 the atonement: And you, being dead in your sins and the un¬ 
 circumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him , 
 having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting 
 of ordinances [better, contained in ordinances, as at Eph. ii. 15] 
 that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of 
 the way, nailing it to His cross; and having spoiled [or, dis¬ 
 armed'] principalities and powers, He made a show of them 
 openly, triumphing over them in it (Col. ii. 13-15). The 
 apostle, in the previous context, spoke of Christ as having all 
 the fulness of the Godhead (ver. 9), as the Head of all princi¬ 
 pality and power, and as the channel of spiritual life,—views 
 fitted to exclude every rival, and to turn away attention from 
 lower intelligences. Another point demands notice: the 
 apostle first speaks to the Colossians as you (ver. 13), and 
 then adopts a style common to him and them, when he says US 
 (ver. 14). Some, commenting on the passage, conceive a transi¬ 
 tion from the Gentile section to the Jewish Christian section 
 of the church; and in conformity with this, explain the allusion 
 to the handwriting of ordinances as a something that properly 
 applied to them. But for this there is no warrant: no trace of 
 such a design can be discovered. Nor is it in keeping with 
 the apostle’s manner when taking in others with himself; for 
 in such cases the pronoun we, occurring in the apostolic style, 
 expresses the Christian sentiment common to him with others, 
 irrespective of nationality. The following points demand 
 attention in the structure of this passage, and in the arrange¬ 
 ment of these successive participial clauses, which bring out 
 what, in point of order, is previous to the quickening to spiri¬ 
 tual life:— 
 
 1. The acting party, or the nominative in the grammatical 
 structure of the sentence, is God, described as quickening, and 
 on the ground of forgiveness (ver. 13). Spiritual life is con¬ 
 nected with forgiveness, and presupposes forgiveness: the sins 
 
EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 305 
 
 of men must be forgiven before life could properly enter. 1 
 Forgiveness precedes, and premial life takes for granted tbat 
 obstacles have been removed. Nay, applying the same prin¬ 
 ciple to tlie Surety, the Lord could not have been quickened 
 till we, for whom He died, were virtually and potentially dis¬ 
 charged (see Bom. iv. 25). 
 
 2. Another clause shows that forgiveness presupposes the 
 objective fact of blotting out the handwriting of ordinances, 
 and nailing it to the cross (ver. 14). Opinions as to the import 
 of this handwriting are various. 
 
 a. Thus, in the first place, some refer the expression simply 
 to conscience, as containing an indictment against us; the 
 opinion of Luther and Melancthon, and repeated by many with 
 the addition of a more objective element—guilt. According 
 to this comment, the indictment, or, which is the same thing, 
 guilt, was deleted like a bond, and nailed to the cross, when 
 God suspended His Son on the accursed tree. In other words, 
 Christ was so identified with the handwriting, that He was 
 considered as the personal guilt, and His crucifixion as the 
 means of its extinction. 2 The cross annulled the bond or hand¬ 
 writing that was against us. From this and other passages 
 (Gal. iii. 13; 1 Pet. ii. 24) it appears that He took guilt on 
 Himself, and subjected Himself to that to which the hand¬ 
 writing bound us ; that is, He did not subject Himself to what 
 was nominal, and procured a nominal discharge, but offered a 
 full equivalent. This plainly is the substance of the phrase. 
 
 b. Others more particularly refer the whole to the Mosaic 
 law; and here again interpreters go into two divisions. One 
 class refers the phrase to the ceremonial law, arguing that the 
 ritual observances were symbols of deserved punishment, or a 
 confession of guilt. There might be some reason for this limi¬ 
 tation if there was any ground—which there is not—for the 
 
 1 See Thomasius’ remarks, Christi Person und Werlc , iii. p. 109. In a word,, 
 spiritual life (<rvviZ ) uo#oiyiri) presupposes (1) pardon, (2) the blotting out of tlie 
 XtipoypxQov, and (3) the triumph oyer Satan. 
 
 2 See Keil’s remarks, Zeitschrift fur Lutherische Tlieologie, 1857, p. 457. 
 
 U 
 
306 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 supposition that the apostle here distinguished between Jews 
 and Gentiles. But since the apostles, in their use of the pro¬ 
 noun we or us in the course of their epistles, only express the 
 Christian consciousness, it is better to understand the term hand- 
 writing of the Mosaic law generally, 1 that is, of the law as 
 a complete whole, consisting of moral and ceremonial elements. 
 The cross was meant to he the blotting out of the indictment; 
 and the law, in one important aspect of it, because it was never 
 fulfilled, was but the creditor’s bond, the indictment, the charge 
 which was presented against those who were bound to it, but 
 who failed at every point. 
 
 How was the handwriting nailed to the cross when the 
 Lord’s body, and not the law, was nailed to the cross ? Christ’s 
 body was no bond ; but as He was made sin, or bore our sins 
 on His own body to the tree, all was embodied in Him. 2 The 
 handwriting, the curse, the sin of His people, are identified 
 with Him; and the language of exchange can be competently 
 applied to Him in the performance of that great work of pro¬ 
 curing our discharge. And why was the bond nailed to the 
 cross ? The only answer that can be given is, that it might be 
 nullified. Any other interpretation is inadmissible, because out 
 of keeping with Paul’s design. The meaning of the clause, 
 then, may be easily collected : it is simply this, that sin could 
 be forgiven only on the one condition that its guilt was ex¬ 
 piated, and that not by the sinner, but by a surety in his stead. 
 Hence we elsewhere read, that God condemned sin in Christ’s 
 flesh (Rom. viii. 3). The key to these deep thoughts is to be 
 found in the fact that Christ exchanged places with us ; and as 
 the obligations are now discharged, the demands of the law are 
 no longer capable of being presented to us, because they were 
 discharged by the Surety, who nailed them to His cross, and 
 is now far beyond their reach. The sins of Christ’s people 
 
 1 Some of the best expositors and divines take the x il p'°7P a< P 0V for the cere¬ 
 monial law, e.g. Calvin, Turretin, Pictet; but it is a one-sided view. 
 
 2 See Steiger on the passage. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 307 
 
 were annihilated, extinguished, and blotted out, as if they had 
 never been. In short, they are no longer on the Christian, 
 because borne by Christ to the tree; and no longer on Him, 
 because they have been so completely expiated, that the deleted 
 bond may be seen on His crucified humanity as nailed to His 
 cross. 
 
 3. A third clause, grounded at least in thought by what 
 precedes, states that the cross was the victory which God 
 celebrated over principalities and powers of darkness (ver. 
 15). The acting party in this clause, as in the others al¬ 
 ready noticed, is God; and the thought is, that by the atone¬ 
 ment of the cross God stripped satanic principalities of their 
 dominion, or disarmed them, as a victor does in the hour of 
 victory. And as the verb in the original conveys the idea of 
 doing an action for Himself, there is a perceptible allusion to 
 His glory, and to the interests of His kingdom. They who refer 
 the language to Jewish authorities are wide of the mark. Three 
 terms are here used —spoiling, showing openly, triumphing ; 
 all significant, but describing effects contemporaneous with His 
 crucifixion. We do not interpret the clauses as delineating a 
 triumph over the powers of darkness during Christ’s separate 
 or disembodied state, for that comment is excluded by the fact 
 that the agent referred to in this verse is God, as in the 
 previous clauses. Neither are we to suppose a leading of them 
 in triumph through space after His resurrection; for the terms 
 limit the allusion to the expiation effected on the cross. But 
 it may be asked, How did the cross effect the results recounted 
 in the three several clauses ? I answer: Sin was the ground 
 of Satan’s dominion, the sphere of his power, and the secret of 
 his strength; and no sooner was the guilt lying on us extin¬ 
 guished, than his throne was undermined, as Jesus Himself 
 said (John xii. 31). When the guilt of sin was abolished, 
 Satan’s dominion over God’s people was ended; for the ground 
 of his authority was the law which had been violated, and the 
 guilt which had been incurred. This points the way to the 
 
308 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 right interpretation; for all the mistakes have arisen from not 
 perceiving with sufficient clearness how the triumph could be 
 celebrated on His cross. 1 When we reflect that the power of 
 Satan was based on sin and guilt, and that but for sin justice 
 would not have surrendered mankind into his power, we per¬ 
 ceive that the annihilation of man’s guilt annihilated the sway 
 of these powers of darkness over all the elect. Though con¬ 
 fident that the shameful death of crucifixion would undermine 
 Christ’s influence, they found, in the first place, that it over¬ 
 threw their own; for the cross spoiled or disarmed the satanic 
 powers by destroying sin. Moreover, it put them to shame, 
 by making a show of them openly before the universe; for 
 though the men at the cross did not understand the bearings 
 of that stupendous fact, holy angels present at His death, as 
 they had been present at His birth, took in its vast dimensions. 
 Still further, the cross was a scene of triumph on the part 
 of God, because Satan’s empire received a defeat from which 
 there was no recovery: it was on God’s part at once a victory 
 and a display of all God’s attributes, to the irretrievable ruin, 
 dismay, and confusion of satanic powers. 
 
 SEC. XVI.—THE EPISTLES TO THE TIIESSALONIANS. 
 
 These two epistles, the first of the Pauline epistles in order 
 of time, were addressed to a church distinguished for brotherly 
 love and the eager expectation of the Lord’s coming. Cradled 
 in persecution, which first caused the apostle abruptly to de¬ 
 part from their city (Acts xvii. 1-10), and then made several 
 of their number martyrs (1 Thess. ii. 14, iv. 13), they cherished 
 an eager anticipation of the second advent. In consequence 
 of supposing it immediately at hand, some of them, however, 
 neglected the duties of their worldly calling,—a perversion 
 which required a corrective at the hand of Paul. But as a 
 
 1 See Steinliofer on Colossians, and De Moor’s Commentarius perpetuus in 
 J. Marckii compend., expounding this passage. 
 
EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS. 
 
 309 
 
 congregation they stood firm in the truth, and did not, like 
 some others, need anew to receive doctrinal directions as to 
 the sole ground of acceptance. Twice in these epistles Paul 
 directly mentions the death of Christ; and in four passages 
 we discern a distinct allusion to the atonement. 
 
 I. Deliverance from the wrath of God is described as se¬ 
 cured by the atonement in two several passages, which we 
 shall notice one after the other. 
 
 a. The first of these is thus expressed: Ye turned to God 
 from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His 
 Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, 
 which'delivered us from the wrath to come [better, who delivers 
 us from the coming wrath ] (1 Thess. i. 9, 10). Paul, distinguish¬ 
 ing the Christians from the Gentiles, and also from the Jews, 
 names these two features as descriptive of true believers : their 
 serving the living and true God, and their waiting for God’s 
 Son from heaven. Deliverance from wrath, expressed in the 
 present tense, because a present as well as a future possession, 
 is directly ascribed to Jesus, who is also called the Son of God. 
 The death of Jesus is not expressly named, but there is no 
 reason to doubt that this thought underlies the statement. 
 For, in the first place, the clause “whom He raised from the 
 dead” implies both suretyship and the acceptance of His 
 finished work; and, in the second place, the actual deliverance 
 is here mentioned as a present and constant privilege, in terms 
 which obviously imply that it was won or procured for us by 
 His earthly abasement and sacrifice. 
 
 b. A second text, not less express on the same theme, is as 
 follows: For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain 
 salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us (1 Thess. 
 v. 9). The words “ who died for us” are linked to the other 
 expression, “by our Lord Jesus Christ,” according to a well- 
 known rule of Greek grammar, that serves to lay emphasis on 
 the idea connected by an already well-known relation 1 [guippe 
 
 1 XpifTOU, TOU OLTroUaVOVrOi. 
 
310 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 qui). The meaning intended to be conveyed is, that the de¬ 
 liverance was based on the ground of Christ’s vicarious death, 
 and that on this account alone men are not appointed to wrath, 
 their deserved doom, but to obtain salvation. The double 
 privilege is connected with the Lord’s death as the meritorious 
 cause. Language demands that interpretation, and w T ill bear 
 no other (comp. Eom. v. 9). 
 
 The question of divine wrath is at present the great point 
 in debate on the subject of the atonement. It is undermined 
 in a great variety of views, and it seems proper, nay, neces¬ 
 sary, to dwell on it somewhat more at large. 1 A few in¬ 
 quiries may here be raised and answered, that we may arrive 
 at satisfactory conclusions as to this point—on which, in fact, 
 the two schools of theology in our day are divided—whether 
 Christ may competently be described as bearing the wrath of 
 God. 
 
 1. Does a wrath of God exist, and in what does it con¬ 
 sist ? That there is a wrath of God, in respect of sin and 
 against sin, is declared so frequently both in the Old and Hew 
 Testament, that they who call the doctrine in question must 
 deny the authority of a large portion of revelation. "Wrath 
 is the displeasure of the personal God, the moral Governor, 
 against sin, and the moving cause of that punishment which 
 He righteously inflicts. Some, indeed, will have it that the 
 anger of God is but another name for punishment, and main¬ 
 tain that the translators of Scripture would have better ex¬ 
 pressed the meaning of the sacred writers had they rendered 
 the term in this way; for they think of it as the cause put for 
 the effect. But there is no warrant for that conclusion; and 
 we cannot concede that the term wrath is used to express 
 
 1 The voluminous discussion recently excited in Germany, in connection 
 with Hofmann’s Schriftbeweis, turns on the point whether Christ bore the 
 divine wrath, and whether God has wrath (opyv). He denies that Christ bore 
 any wrath from the hand of God ; and so did Menken, Klaiber, Stier, etc., not 
 to mention the Schleiermacher school, much less advanced in evangelical views. 
 See the review of the Hofmann controversy by Weizsacker, Jahrbiicher fur 
 Deutsche Theologie ; and Kraussold’s Theologische Zeitfragen. 
 
EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS. 
 
 311 
 
 only the punishment of sin, or the effect of God’s displeasure 
 (Bom. i. 18, ii. 5, iii. 5). It is no mere effect, apart from the in¬ 
 ward affections of a personal God. Were there nothing further 
 than an impersonal moral constitution of the world, or had 
 God left the world to take its course, indifferent to good or 
 evil in His creatures, according to the Epicurean conception of 
 providence, one might speak of the results of evil irrespective 
 of the moral nature and moral feelings of an intelligent agent. 
 But the world is not ruled by fate, nor by one indifferent to 
 the moral actions of men, hut by the living, personal God, 
 who regards all things in relation to Himself and His moral 
 government, and who has a holy displeasure at moral evil. 
 Without ought of the turbulent emotion found in us, and which 
 betrays human weakness, the supreme Lawgiver, from the per¬ 
 fection of His nature, is angry at sin, because it is a violation 
 of His authority, and a wrong to His inviolable majesty. Though 
 He cannot he injured, as men commonly understand the term 
 injury, He may he wronged by the creature’s refusal to acknow¬ 
 ledge His divine authority. How can any have such mean 
 conceptions of God, as to make Him an indifferent spectator of 
 human affairs and conduct involving His own rights ? Can 
 He look with equal indifference and equal satisfaction on piety 
 and impiety, virtue and vice, wisdom and folly, the morally 
 beautiful and the morally disordered ? 
 
 But may not wrath he in some sense reduced to love, or to 
 a certain modification of divine love, as has often been asserted, 
 and is maintained by a great number of divines in the present 
 day ? We answer most emphatically, Ho. However men may 
 perplex their minds in speculating on the divine attributes, by 
 reducing them to one in their artificial theories, that conclusion 
 to which I have adverted is contrary to the plain teaching of 
 Scripture. Wrath is not to be subsumed under love, nor re¬ 
 presented as either love-sorrow or the fire-zeal of love . 1 It is 
 
 1 While Delitzsch and Weber come in substance to the view of a real exercise 
 of wrath on sinners, and therefore on Christ their substitute, they both have a 
 
312 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 not the feeling of offended love, nor divine sorrow at the crea¬ 
 ture’s froward disobedience. These are poor dreams of the 
 human mind speculating on God, without dependence on the 
 word of revelation, by which alone we can know Him. It is 
 unbiblical to say, that a God who has wrath is not a God who 
 loves; hut it is scarcely less so to affirm that God is angry be¬ 
 cause He loves. Consistently carried out, these speculations 
 run counter to the forensic idea of satisfaction, and are at 
 variance with any due recognition of law, guilt, or punishment. 
 The objective reality of divine wrath, on the supposition of sin, 
 is an axiom or first principle in natural theology (Rom. i. 32), 
 as well as in the theology of revelation. All speculations of an 
 opposite character ignore the fact and criminality of sin. 
 
 Wrath, in biblical phraseology, therefore, is an essential 
 mood of the divine mind in respect of sin; and were we to 
 deny the objective reality of divine wrath, we should be com¬ 
 pelled to weaken and dilute the meaning of all Scripture. The 
 passages in which the term wrath occurs amount to many 
 hundreds, many of which are so definite, that they, beyond all 
 doubt or controversy, bring before us what is essential to the 
 divine nature. Thus, when God swears in His wrath, that 
 is, swears by that essential attribute of His nature which leads 
 Him to hate and punish sin, no doubt can be entertained that 
 this is a quality or property of God (Ps. xcv. 11). It is a per¬ 
 fection having its root in the moral excellence of the living 
 God : it is proportioned to men’s conduct: and, in a word, it is 
 inseparable from the idea which we form, and must form, of 
 the activity of a personal God in regard to moral evil (Heb. iii. 
 11 ; Rom. ix. 22). 1 
 
 Nor is it unworthy of God to represent Him by a phrase- 
 
 philosophy on the subject, drawn from a peculiar view of the attributes, which 
 leads them to speak of divine wrath as an anger of love. See Delitzsch’s preface 
 to Weber’s work, Vom Zorne Gottes. Philippi, Thomasius, and Keil are much 
 more pronounced. 
 
 1 See this admirably established by Bartholomai in an article in the Jahr- 
 biicherfur Deutsche Theologie. See, too, Van Voorst on punitive justice (Dutch). 
 
EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS. 
 
 313 
 
 ology borrowed from human feelings: for this is no mere 
 anthropomorphism, hut a delineation of His real displeasure 
 at sin. Hatred, in like manner, or a real aversion to sinners 
 surrendering themselves to sinful courses, is ascribed to God; 
 and it is not represented as a figure of speech: it is an amiable 
 moral excellency (Eom. ix. 13 ; Eev. ii. 15). And there is no 
 reason to repudiate this biblical idea—because it has its 
 analogue in man—or to call the wrath of God a mere anthropo¬ 
 morphism ; for the Bible always speaks of God’s attributes in 
 words borrowed from human qualities, which indeed, with the 
 due distinctions drawn between the Creator and creatures made 
 in His image, are common to both. What sort of excellence 
 would it be in man, to be morally indifferent, and to have 
 neither aversion nor anger at sin ? In a word, the idea of 
 divine wrath prompting retribution for moral disobedience, is 
 involved in our very idea of God as a personal God and moral 
 governor: it is inseparable from the fact of sin; it is presup¬ 
 posed in the atonement; and it must be carried with us into 
 any conception which is formed of future retribution. 
 
 2. How the great question on which the atonement may 
 be said to depend is, Did Christ bear this wrath of God, the 
 chief element of which is the privation of God ? As this is 
 affirmed or denied—and opinion in modern times has very 
 much come to be divided into two schools upon the point— 
 the real doctrine of the atonement is either maintained or 
 denied. The objective reality of Christ’s atoning work is 
 found to consist in the propitiation of the divine wrath. That 
 is evident from these plain texts of Scripture in Thessalonians, 
 and from the statements that He was made sin (1 Cor. v. 21); 
 that He was made a curse for us (Gal. iii. 13) ; and that we are 
 saved from wrath through Him (Eom. v. 9). 1 This point is 
 undoubted from the evidence of texts, and it is equally certain 
 from the fact of substitution considered as a real transaction. 
 
 1 Schott of Erlangen (liomerbrief) follows Hofmann in the exposition of such 
 texts. 
 
314 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 Either the Lord entered vicariously into our position, responsi¬ 
 bility, and guilt, or He did not. If He did—as all the texts 
 bearing upon the atonement abundantly evince—then He en¬ 
 dured divine wrath, that is, the divine desertion, as the Me¬ 
 diator between God and man, subjecting Himself to all that 
 had devolved upon humanity as the curse of sin. His substi¬ 
 tution was not, indeed, identity. He could therefore be the 
 object of the divine wrath in our place, while still the beloved 
 Son and the sinless man. He was made sin while sinlessly 
 perfect and accepted: He was made a curse while yet the 
 faultless servant: He was the object of true punishment, and 
 of all that goes to constitute true wrath, as He stood in our 
 place to bear what was due to us for sin, while in Himself 
 the Son of His love (Col. i. 13), and the approved and accepted 
 second Adam, and never more the object of His approval than 
 when He offered Himself for others (John x. 17). We draw 
 the distinction between the personal and the official. 
 
 It only remains to add, that He who comes to Christ, and 
 is found in Him, shall never see wrath. The whole divine 
 wrath is legitimately removed by Christ, for Christ’s work of 
 atonement can never be thought of without the wrath of God. 
 Our deliverance, too, is a present deliverance from wrath in¬ 
 curred : for there is no truth in the representation that divine 
 wrath belongs to eschatology alone, 1 and is only for the re¬ 
 jectors of Christ. 
 
 II. A second text, referring to the disarming of death and 
 the removal of its sting by the atonement, is as follows : For if 
 we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also who 
 sleep in Jesus [better, sleep through Jesus ] will God bring with 
 Him (1 Thess. iv. 14). The passage was designed to comfort 
 Christians mourning the loss of fellow-Christians; and in doing 
 
 1 Ritschl, in his Latin tractate de ira Dei, 1859, adopts the eschatological 
 view of wrath. He transfers all wrath to the future, making it light only on 
 the despisers of salvation ; but he will not allow it in connection with past and 
 present sin, or with the atonement. On the other side, see Harless on r'acva, 
 Qutru opyris (Eph. ii. 3), and also Philippi. 
 
EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS. 
 
 315 
 
 this, Paul points to the relation in which they stood to Jesus. 
 Sometimes the words sleeping through Jesus have been 
 viewed as referring to the case of martyrs suffering for the 
 cause of Christ. But that inode of expression is quite unlike 
 the ordinary language of Scripture in speaking of suffering for 
 Christ. The apostle intends to present to the Thessalonians 
 a certain argument based on the atonement, thus : If we believe 
 that Jesus died for His people’s sins, and rose again, then certain 
 results or effects are referred to as standing connected both 
 with His death and resurrection. First, as to the effect derived 
 from His death, they sleep through Jesus : then, as to His 
 resurrection, which means that He rose as the first-fruits of 
 them who sleep, God will bring His people with Him. 
 
 The object we have in view leads us to examine only the 
 first of the two expressions, them that sleep through Jesus ; 
 for w r e must construe the words in this manner. The mode 
 of construing which certain interpreters adopt, of connecting 
 through Jesus with the verb shall bring, labours under the 
 intolerable defect of virtually repeating the same thing a 
 second time: thus, “ God will bring them through Jesus with 
 Him.” 1 But we next inquire what is specially intimated by 
 the terms, “them that sleep through Jesus ?” This has often 
 been interpreted as intimating that believers retain in death 
 the union with Christ which they enjoy. Though that idea 
 underlies the terms, and cannot be separated from the clause, 
 a much closer connection with the atonement may be discerned 
 in the argumentative form with which the verse begins. Plainly, 
 the allusion is to something effected through Jesus, or by the 
 death of Christ, as the medium of redemption. It means that 
 death is to the Christian no longer a penalty, but a falling 
 asleep; and this belongs to the Christian’s death in whatever 
 form it may come, and with whatever accompaniments. The 
 expression “sleep in Jesus,” as it is put elsewhere (1 Cor. xv. 
 18; Rev. xiv. 13), or through Jesus, as it is put here, has 
 
 1 o 05 os rob; xoiy.yit!ivroc$ rov 'Introv «£s/ cbv cciru. 
 
316 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 reference to the body, not to the disembodied soul, which is 
 understood to be with the Lord: it means that death is not 
 accompanied with the curse, but deprived of its sting (1 Cor. 
 xv. 56), and that the redeemed will rise out of it as from a 
 sleep. The comfort which the apostle suggests, and the founda¬ 
 tion of our confidence in the prospect of death, is the vicarious 
 death of Jesus, His suretyship for His people. 
 
 III. Another passage in this epistle brings out in a striking 
 way the life hid with Christ in God, as a further fruit of the 
 atonement: Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we 
 should live together with Him (1 Thess. v. 10). The immediately 
 previous verse, as already noticed, had stated that Christians 
 are not appointed to wrath, but to obtain salvation, that is, 
 are appointed to acceptance on the ground of Christ’s atoning 
 sacrifice. The primary fruit of the atonement, undoubtedly, 
 is the reconciliation of the man, the acceptance of his person. 
 Though that is the direct and immediate consequence of the 
 Lord’s death, it is followed by another; and this second result 
 is the renovation of the nature as well as the rectification of 
 the personal relation. These two, person and nature, though 
 both affected by the atonement—the one immediately, the 
 other mediately — are not to be confounded together, nor 
 opposed to each other. In reality, subordinates neither con¬ 
 flict with each other nor exclude each other. Christ died, in 
 the first place, to deliver us from wrath (1 Thess. v. 9): He 
 died, too, to make us partakers of His life (ver. 10). 
 
 The final clause brings out what the Lord expressly planned 
 and intended by His propitiatory death: “ That (im) we might 
 live together with Him.” In the expression, live together 
 with Him, the thought is, that the life of the church collective, 
 and of individual Christians singly, is so hid with Christ, and 
 bound up with Him, that they are never for a moment 
 sundered from Him, either in their earthly life or in their 
 disembodied state. It is a general statement of which there 
 are elsewhere many echoes or expressions (Col. iii. 3; Eom. 
 
EPISTLES TO TIMOTHY. 
 
 317 
 
 xiv. 9). Several thoughts may be said to be contained in the 
 expression, as follows: He bought them to be His possession, 
 or purchased flock; He died to be their Lord; and He aimed, 
 by so dying, to give them a life like His own—a life together 
 with Him. As to the expressions, whether we wake or 
 sleep, they are very variously interpreted. But we have no 
 doubt that they refer to the Christian’s life in the body, and to 
 the Christian’s life in the separate state (see 1 Thess. iv. 14). 
 They are not here used figuratively for moral or spiritual con¬ 
 ditions, as in the earlier section of the chapter, where waking 
 and sleeping must be so understood (1 Thess. v. 6-8). The 
 whole terms of this clause have generally, but needlessly, been 
 limited to the time of the second advent, as if they merely 
 intimated that at that moment the saints should live together 
 with Christ, whether they were alive or fallen asleep. But 
 there is no need for this limitation: they apply to all times: 
 all this is as true now as it will be then. 
 
 SEC. XVII.—THE EPISTLES TO TIMOTHY. 
 
 The three epistles next in order, from their scope com¬ 
 monly called pastoral epistles, do not contain many testimonies 
 to the atonement. As to the first epistle, it appears that on 
 one occasion Paul left Timothy in Ephesus, to consolidate the 
 doctrine of the large congregation there, when he went into 
 Macedonia (1 Tim. i. 3). He hoped to return shortly, but 
 despatched this epistle to his fellow-labourer, to direct him 
 how to act in the house of God, the church of the living God 
 (iii. 15). There were erratic tendencies already appearing in 
 Ephesus, as we explained above in noticing the epistle to that 
 church: a teaching of the law (i. 7), and a science falsely so 
 called (vi. 20); in opposition to which Paul points out the 
 way of salvation by grace (i. 14-17), and the Lord’s manifesta¬ 
 tion in the flesh,—obvious allusions to the incarnation and 
 atonement (iii. 16). 
 
318 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 The second Epistle to Timothy was plainly written when 
 Paul was on the verge of martyrdom (2 Tim. iv. 6), containing 
 parting words of direction to his son in the faith, whose pre¬ 
 sence he requests in a time of trial. Allusions to the atone¬ 
 ment are to be found in this epistle—obvious enough to any 
 one reading for personal satisfaction, though not such as 
 we would adduce to a gainsayer. Thus Paul speaks of the 
 epiphany, or first advent of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who 
 abolished death (2 Tim. i. 10). Again, the apostle uses lan¬ 
 guage of which we have had many similar specimens already: 
 “ If we be dead with Him [better, died], we shall also live 
 with Him” (Rom. vi. 1-12; 2 Cor. v. 14). 
 
 The only text to be particularly expounded is the following: 
 For there is one Gocl, and one mediator between God and men, the 
 man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be 
 testified [literally, the testimony ] in due time. Whereunto I am 
 ordained a preacher (1 Tim. ii. 5-7). The apostle began with 
 directions as to the church assemblies, directing that Christians 
 in their worship should pray for all men, for kings and all in 
 authority; that is, for all ranks, conditions, and classes of men. 
 The apostle was thus led by a natural transition to speak of 
 the unity of God, and the one mediator between God and man. 
 
 1. As to this designation of Christ, it must be remembered 
 that a mediator is one who comes between two contending 
 parties to remove the cause of contention, and restore them to 
 friendship. In this case, a mediator was one who stepped in 
 between God as an offended Judge, and men as guilty sinners 
 (vers. 3 and 4), to pacify God, and restore men to favour. In 
 this sense, Jesus is called a mediator between God and men; 
 that is, men needing to be saved (ver. 4). And this mediator 
 is not a mere teacher, not a moral reformer, not a mediator of 
 intercession, but of reconciliation, who removes the cause of 
 quarrel by making reparation for the wrong (see 1 John ii. 1,2). 
 That is the meaning in the text before us, as indubitably 
 appears from the appended participial clause in the Greek, 
 
EPISTLES TO TIMOTHY. 
 
 319 
 
 which states that He was mediator, as He gave Himself a 
 ransom for all. 1 The words are so definite, that they will not 
 permit us to explain them, as saying that He became a mediator 
 when He ascended; for the participial clause (relative clause 
 in the English version) means that He was a mediator in 
 giving Himself a ransom. He did not give Himself, and then 
 become a mediator: He was a mediator on earth when He 
 died and gave Himself. 
 
 Christ was a mediator, not as He acted the part of a mes¬ 
 senger, or made known the divine will, but as He ushered in 
 redemption. The nature of the office presupposed the inability 
 of the sinner, and was distinctly announced in many passages 
 (Jer. xxx. 21), The mediator must possess true humanity and 
 true Godhead in one person; and the reason is obvious. He 
 must be true man, according to the obligations of those 
 whom He represented before God, with a compassion for the 
 erring (Heb. iv. 15), and a nature holy and undefiled, to obey 
 and suffer (Heb. vii. 26). He must be true God, not only to 
 sustain the humanity, but to give His work a value equivalent 
 to everlasting punishment, and make His obedience adequate 
 to the wants of millions. Deity and humanity were united in 
 one person for a work to which each nature contributed its 
 part, with a concurrent action at every step. The theory that 
 makes the Lord mediator in one nature, whether in the divine, 
 as Osiander held, or in the human, as the Church of Lome and 
 Stancarus put it, never commended itself to scriptural divines. 
 
 But if so, why does the apostle designate Christ the 
 man Christ Jesus ? In many passages he describes Christ 
 as a divine person; but in this passage, when speaking 
 of the mediator, he appends the designation man, because 
 he is about to speak of His sufferings and death. Another 
 reason was, that among the Ephesians a certain inclination 
 began to discover itself toward the Gnostic errors which 
 sought the root of all evil in matter or corporeity, and 
 
 1 /nairas o hods loovrov a,vriXvrf>ov. 
 
320 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 thus naturally led them to the notion that our Lord had 
 but a phantom body—a semblance of manhood. Paul there¬ 
 fore calls Him the man Christ Jesus. The Apostle John, 
 too, at a later time referred to those who denied that 
 
 Jesus Christ was come in the flesh (1 John iv. 2, 3). 
 
 ■ 
 
 They undermined the death of the Son of God, and, with 
 the death, the atonement as a satisfaction to justice. These 
 theories are here exploded, first by the designation man, de¬ 
 scriptive of the Lord’s person; then by the names Christ 
 Jesus, which prove that He was the Christ, the unique 
 man. This is brought out when He is represented as one 
 mediator between God and man; that is, one who inter¬ 
 posed between two divided parties, and occupied the singular 
 relation in the universe of mediating between God and the 
 human family of all time. While very man, He was thus 
 unique man, having no equal nor parallel. 
 
 2. But it is added, He gave Himself a ransom for all, 
 meaning that the surrender of His life was the price or 
 ransom by which He obtained men’s deliverance from cap¬ 
 tivity. Every expression and word here has a deep signifi¬ 
 cance, and they are nearly a repetition of Christ’s own 
 saying (Matt. xx. 28). The phrase He gave Himself has 
 much force, indicating boundless love to us, and obedience 
 to His Father; in a word, priestly action, the reality of the 
 typical worship. He gave Himself, according to the divine 
 decree, spontaneously or freely. 
 
 3. The word ransom denotes the price by which one is 
 discharged from captivity, with the further thought, as it 
 occurs here, that the Deliverer encounters something similar 
 to the evil impending over him who is delivered, or such 
 a ransom as is made by something given in exchange for 
 another. 1 But are there in this transaction the criteria of a 
 
 1 See Grotius, de Satisfactione; Hoornbeck; Calovius; Quenstedt; Stapfer; 
 De Witte, Voldoening; Mosheim’s Commentary on Timothy; Muntinghe, 
 Geschiedeniss, vol. ix. note 96 ; and Weber, Vom Zorne Gottes. 
 
EPISTLES TO TIMOTHY. 
 
 321 
 
 real ransom, and all its constituent elements ? Yes. 1. We 
 have captives to be redeemed,—men whose guilt or liability 
 to bondage too plainly appears from the fact that they are 
 under sin (Rom. iii. 9), under the curse of the law (Gal. iii. 
 
 13) , in bondage to death, and to the fear of death (Heb. ii. 
 
 14) . 2. The Redeemer is here called the mediator, by whom 
 
 the price was paid. That Christ is so represented, there is 
 no doubt (Rom. xi. 26; Gal. iii. 13). 3. The ransom is an¬ 
 
 nounced in the most unmistakeable terms by our Lord else¬ 
 where (Matt. xx. 28), and by the apostle in this text, as 
 consisting in the priestly action of giving Himself in our 
 room. 4. The party receiving the ransom is God, considered 
 as Lawgiver, Ruler, and Judge, whose property we were by 
 creation-right, and whose property we become anew by re¬ 
 demption-right (Rev. v. 9). When we put these elements 
 together,—the captive, the Redeemer, the ransom, the party 
 who held the sinner till he received the necessary equiva¬ 
 lent to the inflexible claims of His law, and who then takes 
 them into a new endearing relation as His purchased pro¬ 
 perty,—we have all the elements of a real transaction. It 
 was not metaphorical, but real. 
 
 Against the above-mentioned outline of this great fact 
 the most determined opposition has always been evinced by 
 all who stand opposed to our Lord’s vicarious life and suf¬ 
 ferings. They challenge the doctrine on the ground of reason 
 and rectitude; to which the reply is, that we abide by the 
 authority of the divine word. Sometimes they venture to 
 assert that no passage of Scripture can be adduced where 
 it is said that Christ suffered all in our room and stead; 
 and they interpret the words for us as intimating merely 
 that He suffered for our good . 1 Ho one acquainted with 
 the Greek language, and taking into account the composi¬ 
 tion of the word here used ( avrikvrpov ), will assert that it 
 does not naturally and competently convey the idea of a 
 
 1 Stapfer, in his Polemical Theology, admirably meets this challenge. 
 
 X 
 
322 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 ransom in the room of others. It cannot be conceded, that 
 to give Himself to death for others means no more than to die 
 in some vagne, indefinite way for one’s good. On the contrary, 
 the clause contains a double evidence for vicarious atonement. 
 We had, by the transgression of the divine law, become bound 
 to punishment, and must on account of guilt have for ever 
 passed into the captivity of Satan, death, and hell, had not 
 Christ acted the part of mediator, as described in the text. 
 But when one is cast into prison for his sins, and another 
 redeems him from it by repairing the wrong and meeting his 
 obligations, this was not only for his good merely, but also in 
 his stead. 
 
 One principal argument against the death of Christ, viewed 
 as a ransom from captivity, is to the effect that no party can 
 be pointed out to whom the ransom could be paid. The answer 
 to that objection is obvious to any one who rises to the primary 
 source of authority—law and obligation. The ransom or satis¬ 
 faction was paid to God (Eph. v. 2). In commercial matters, 
 and cases involving payment in money, we may hold one style 
 of language, with all its correlative terms and notions. In 
 criminal law another style of thought is necessary : we rise to 
 the fountain of justice. In the great transaction of satisfying 
 God’s punitive justice, and vindicating the divine majesty and 
 the authoritative claims of law, we are brought directly to God 
 Himself, as moral Governor and personal God, having rights 
 from which He cannot recede, because they are inalienable. 
 As sinners, men are guilty before God (Ps. li. 4; Rom. iii. 19) ; 
 and hence the ransom must be primarily viewed as offered to 
 Him, and accepted by Him (Rev. v. 9). 
 
 According to the crude opinion of some of the Bathers, 
 the atonement was too much considered in relation to Satan. 
 Some, following Origen, imagined that the ransom was paid 
 to him because, in the loose mode of thinking which they per¬ 
 mitted themselves to entertain, it was alleged that Satan had 
 acquired a rightful claim to fallen humanity, such as God Him- 
 
EPISTLES TO TIMOTHY. 
 
 323 
 
 self must respect. Tliat groundless notion, though it kept its 
 place for a time, never carried general consent. It was at 
 variance with the Christian sentiment; and the difficulties 
 connected with the idea of offering a ransom to Satan, for a 
 conquest sinfully acquired, were always felt by judicious divines 
 of all centuries. They who perceived the necessity of a dif¬ 
 ferent mode of statement in the early centuries, connected the 
 atonement with the original menace against sin, and represented 
 it as a satisfaction to the divine veracity. 1 
 
 Satan’s relation to men held captive under his dominion 
 was but subordinate. Sinful men were indeed in bondage to 
 Satan, but his power was founded simply on the guilt of that 
 sin in which he involved them, or on the right of conquest 
 which he had effected. He was but the jailor, having no power 
 over his captives except by God’s authority, who left them 
 under a just doom—under sin, death, and hell. But, in the 
 proper acceptation of terms, men are guilty to God: against 
 Him, and Him only, was sin committed (Ps. li. 4). The party 
 to whom the ransom was paid is evident. When we look at 
 the analogy of human law—that is, at man made in the image 
 of God, and acting out his views of right and wrong in a sphere 
 closely resembling the divine procedure—a satisfaction for 
 the infraction of the law is never made to the inferior officer, 
 but to the Supreme Majesty, the fountain of authority. To the 
 jailor or executioner it falls merely to carry out the sentence 
 of imprisonment or death upon the criminal. In this great 
 transaction of which we treat, the ransom was not paid to the 
 inferior officer, but to the fountain of authority—the Judge of 
 all. The ransom or satisfaction was paid to God; for there 
 was none besides Him or beyond Him. And His sovereign 
 plan was to discharge the captives only on receiving the ransom 
 of His Son’s obedience and death. 
 
 One consideration, too much omitted in theories of the 
 atonement, will put this matter in its true light. We must 
 1 Athanasius speaks in this way—a recoil from Oiigen’s theory. 
 
324 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 distinguish between sin itself, and the consequences, temporal 
 and eternal, corporeal and mental, inevitably flowing from it 
 by the connection of cause and effect. The redemption-work 
 of Christ cannot be viewed merely in relation to the conse¬ 
 quences of sin, but in relation to sin itself. And we consider 
 it in a biblical way only when we study it with a full recog¬ 
 nition of the fact that infinite guilt renders an infinite satisfac¬ 
 tion necessary, nay, absolutely indispensable. 
 
 Two things remain to be noticed : first, the sense in which 
 we are to take the apostle’s words, a ransom for all ; secondly, 
 how we are to apprehend Paul’s testimony in connection with it. 
 
 a. As to the expression “ a ransom for all,” the meaning 
 may be collected from the context. It is not all men numeri¬ 
 cally, but all conditions, ranks, classes, and nationalities, with¬ 
 out distinction. This is so evident, that if we follow the rule 
 
 of interpreting by the context, no doubt can remain on any 
 
 \ 
 
 mind. At the commencement of the chapter the apostle men¬ 
 tioned all men; and immediately adds, as an explanation of 
 this use of the expression, “ kings and all in authority,”—a 
 superfluous addition, if we apprehend the terms as denoting- 
 absolute universality. When the apostle directs Christians to 
 pray for all men, the allusion is to be understood as pointing 
 out ranks, conditions, and classes of men. This is evident, 
 partly because they did not know all men numerically; partly 
 because, among men in the wide sense, there are some for whom 
 we are not to pray, viz. those who have sinned unto death 
 (1 John v. 16). That the allusion is not to all men numeri¬ 
 cally, may be proved, too, from the announcement that God 
 will have all men to be saved (ver. 14), which refers to ranks 
 and conditions, not to individuals; for God’s will would be 
 effectual on all men, if the other meaning were intended. Still 
 further to show the sense in which Paul uses the expression 
 all men, we may notice his mode of describing locality: “ I 
 will that men pray everywhere,” literally, in every place (ver. 8); 
 which clearly means wherever they may be. 
 
EPISTLES TO TIMOTHY. 
 
 325 
 
 This examination of the immediate context makes it evi¬ 
 dent how we are to understand the expression “ a ransom for 
 all.” We cannot put a different sense upon the terms than 
 the apostle employs throughout the context; that is, all ranks, 
 conditions, and classes of men. 1 He died for men of all con¬ 
 ditions, high or low; for all nationalities, Jew and Gentile 
 equally. But the text does not affirm that He gave Himself 
 for all men numerically. The allusion is to all classes indis¬ 
 criminately—the elect of . every rank, and tribe, and people. 
 More particularly, the all for whom He gave Himself a ran¬ 
 som, were they for whom He acted as a mediator in atonement 
 and intercession; the all of whom it is said, God will have 
 all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth 
 (ver. 4) ; the class undoubtedly coincident and identical with 
 the elect; the all for whom the ransom was offered—and- it 
 is never ineffectual or inoperative; the all who are ushered 
 into actual liberty, because their sins were borne, their guilt 
 expiated, their curse reversed, and of whom not one shall finally 
 be lost, but all shall be raised up at the last day (John vi. 39). 
 The passage was introduced in connection with prayer, and as 
 a motive to prayer. 
 
 b. The second thing is, how we are to apprehend Paul’s 
 testimony: <f To be testified in due time, to which I was ap¬ 
 pointed a preacher and an apostle.” 2 The connection between 
 the ransom and the testimony, between the atonement and the 
 preaching of it, is most explicit, both here and elsewhere. 
 The preaching is a testimony to the ransom, or to the cross : 
 that is, the atonement was accomplished, and an office was 
 instituted specially charged with the proclamation of this 
 
 1 See Augustine, who expounds the passage in this way: also the anti- 
 Arminian writers—Ames, Coronis and Antisynodalia Scripta; Trigland; Tur- 
 retinHonert, de Gratia; Brakel; De Moor’s Perpetuus Commentarius in 
 Marckium. 
 
 2 to pccfTvpiov is in apposition to the previous statement of Christ’s media¬ 
 torial work of expiation. Then the words us o Irifav denote the destination of 
 his office as a preacher. 
 
326 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 great theme; and preaching has no other foundation or war¬ 
 rant, power or influence. In this passage, with the solemnity 
 of an oath, Paul declares that this was the scope of his mini¬ 
 stry. After speaking of the Eedeemer, who gave Himself a 
 ransom for all, to he testified in due time, he adds, “ to which 
 I was appointed a preacher.” Paul, therefore, not only 
 preached this truth of the vicarious sacrifice, hut was called 
 and commissioned to do so: his office was for this very 
 end. To give the greater confirmation to what he said, he 
 added—doubtless with his eye upon those who undervalued 
 that great theme, the burden of his ministry—“ I speak the 
 truth in Christ, and lie not.” 
 
 SEC. XVIII.—THE EPISTLE TO TITUS. 
 
 This pastoral epistle, in many respects like the Epistles to 
 Timothy, but more condensed, was meant to direct Titus in a 
 difficult service in the island of Crete, where Paul had re¬ 
 cently laboured: churches were to be organized and supplied 
 with elders, and Titus was left behind to set in order what 
 was wanting. The epistle served as his credentials, and as a 
 rule for his guidance. Though it is difficult to fix the date, as 
 the missionary tour to which reference is made is not else¬ 
 where recorded, it bears on its front the immediate purpose 
 for which it was composed; viz. to direct Titus, and give a 
 code of rules for all time as to the qualifications of elders, 
 and the mode of enforcing doctrine and duty. After stating 
 duties incumbent on every age, sex, and condition, the apostle 
 ascends to divine grace as the constraining motive (Tit. ii. 11), 
 referring also to the glorious appearing of our great God and 
 Saviour. From this he passes over to the atonement. The 
 last chapter contains an outline of justification, which doubt¬ 
 less refers to the previous sketch of the expiatory sufferings of 
 the Lord. 
 
EPISTLE TO TITUS. 
 
 327 
 
 Tlie single passage on the atonement demanding notice is 
 this : Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from 
 all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous 
 of good works (Tit. ii. 14). Almost every word in this preg¬ 
 nant passage is significant. 
 
 1. The relative pronoun who has for its antecedent the 
 double title applied to Christ in connection with His second 
 advent: “our great God and Saviour.” Undoubtedly the allu¬ 
 sion is to one and the same person; and every one reading 
 the passage for the first time, in the original, naturally comes 
 to this conclusion. 1 It is the glorious appearing of one 
 person: the article is common to both titles; and the person 
 so described is further pointed out as the same who gave 
 Himself for us. What is intimated by connecting the atone¬ 
 ment with His deity ? It shows the close connection that 
 obtains between them. The true Godhead of Christ was the 
 element which gave infinite value to His sufferings. His 
 atonement, though confined to a brief period, became at the 
 divine tribunal a ransom, or an equivalent, adequate to the 
 wants of millions, because the abasement of such a person 
 had inestimable worth in God’s sight. When He died, it was 
 as if all died; and the sacrifice was so valuable as well as 
 acceptable, that instead of the curse which had been merited, 
 the richest blessings were bestowed. 
 
 2. The simple affirmation, who gave Himself for us, 
 indicates two things—priestly action and vicarious sacrifice. 
 As to the priestly action, we see that He gave Himself spon- 
 
 1 The Fathers, who felt the nicer shades of the Greek language more sensibly 
 than modern scholars, take rou f/,%ya.Xov @zoZ xeti ffurripo; bftZjv as our great God 
 and Saviour: so Matthies and Mack among moderns. Of course Socinianism 
 opposed this ; and as it could he rendered otherwise, it was not urged as it 
 might have been by modern exegetes. See remarks in favour of this render¬ 
 ing by Rambach and Ernesti, Neue Theol. Bibliotliek, though the latter will 
 not press it in controversy. But three arguments for it are conclusive : (1) 
 the i-rnpuvua, which is proper to the second advent alone ; (2) the common 
 article ; (3) the relative os referring to one person. Winer does not allow this ; 
 but he lived in no Trinitarian atmosphere. 
 
328 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 taneously; for the language is really sacrificial, borrowed from 
 the Levitical worship. That defective typical economy, in¬ 
 deed, could not unite what were found in Christ—priest and 
 victim. It is noteworthy that the Father, in many passages, 
 is said to have given His Son; but when Christ is here and 
 elsewhere described as giving Himself, we have priestly action 
 exhibiting boundless love and voluntary obedience, and then 
 a suffering victim,—in His soul forfeiting the joy which was 
 properly His own, and in His body enduring the agony and 
 shame allotted to a public criminal. As to the vicarious 
 character of the action, this comes out in the words for us, 
 implying that when we should have been given up to the 
 wrath of God, the Surety permitted our sins to be charged to 
 Him. The same thing appears from other words of the sen¬ 
 tence, which plainly imply that we were IN all iniquity, and 
 far from being God’s property. 1 We cannot read the words 
 without the impression that they indicate substitution, or the 
 action of one going into another’s place. 
 
 3. This brings us to the twofold aim or design which the 
 Eedeemer had in view when He gave Himself for us. These 
 final particles expressive of intention (fra) give us a glimpse 
 into the Eedeemer’s heart, and discover to us the purpose 
 which He cherished. 
 
 (t. The first of the two ends here mentioned is: “ that He 
 might redeem us from all iniquity.” The verb redeem (Kvrp&f- 
 (ryjroci), derived from the word denoting eansom, signifies a 
 buying from captivity by the payment of a price. This is 
 the primary signification of the word; and that this meaning 
 attaches to it here is clear, because the price is expressed in 
 the phrase, “ who gave Himself for us.” Wherever the price 
 is named, it is impossible to admit a metaphorical use of the 
 term. 
 
 That there are cases where the word is used in the meta- 
 
 1 The kpuv and a,vo/^iccs, put together, imply that they were ccvopoi for 
 
 whom He gave Himself. 
 
EPISTLE TO TITUS. 
 
 329 
 
 pliorical sense, may be admitted; but in such a usage the 
 primary sense is presupposed. The strange argument used 
 by the opponents of the Lord’s ransom is, that we are to take 
 the term in all cases in its secondary or figurative sense ; that 
 is, as intimating deliverance absolutely conferred, and not on 
 the ground of a ransom. In short, they would have the meta¬ 
 phorical sense the uniform usage. That is simply inadmissible 
 when the ransom or price is expressly named. When redemp¬ 
 tion is named in connection with the incarnation, the blood, 
 the death of Christ, it is absurd to say that we must take the 
 word redeem for absolute deliverance. How does the matter 
 stand ? A w~ord primarily denoting deliverance by price is 
 found along with the mention of ransom-price. It is impossible 
 in such a case to say that this is the figurative or secondary 
 signification: for that is contradicted by the words appended, 
 indicating the ground on which the deliverance is effected. In 
 short, we have cause and effect together in too many cases to 
 allow the least shade of doubt as to the causal connection be¬ 
 tween Christ’s blood as the ransom-price and the redemption 
 (1 Pet. i. 18 ; Eev. v. 9 ; Gal. iff. 13). 
 
 The question is not, whether the term “ redemption” may 
 be taken in the general sense of deliverance, but whether, 
 when connected with the blood of Christ, it can be so taken. 
 The words so placed naturally suggest the ransom-price on the 
 ground of which redemption is effected. It is asked, Is not the 
 word used for absolute deliverance in the case of the national 
 deliverance of Israel from Egypt and Babylon (Mic. vi. 4), and 
 in the case of corporeal deliverance where nothing touches the 
 element of justice ? (Heb. xi. 35.) It may seem so. But even 
 in such cases, according to the laws of language, more or less of 
 the idea of compensation will be found (Eph. v. 16). Wherever 
 allusion is made to the work of Christ, however, as the ransom 
 which is taken into account, and which of necessity intervenes, 
 the word occurs in its strictly philological import. The modern 
 opponents of Christ’s propitiatory death, after the example of 
 
330 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 the old Socinian, maintain that even in this case the word is 
 to be accepted as denoting absolute deliverance; but they argue 
 from foregone conclusions, without regard to the thought before 
 them. 
 
 What does the apostle mean by all iniquity ? When he 
 says all, he excludes nothing: he comprehends sin, original 
 and actual, and announces that we are redeemed from the 
 penalty and guilt of all sin, considered as transgression of the 
 divine law. The meaning is, that Christ redeemed us from 
 sin, considered as guilt and entailing the curse of the law. Our 
 great God and Saviour transferred the curse to Himself. Free 
 from personal guilt, He entered into the place of the guilty, 
 and transferred their guilt to Himself, that we, in virtue of His 
 sufferings, might be pronounced free of further obligation. His 
 sufferings had the quality of a compensation, price, or ransom 
 paid for a captive; and this bloody ransom dissolved all con¬ 
 nection between sin and our obligation to punishment, giving 
 a right to liberty. 
 
 b. The second thing contemplated by the Lord in His 
 death, was to purify to Himself a peculiar people. The 
 two clauses, introduced by the same final particle (ha), contain 
 two different thoughts. The benefits expressed are equally 
 connected with the cross. The idea conveyed by the term 
 purify is sacrificial. There are no fewer than six cognate 
 terms — viz. purify, sanctify, sprinkle, sanctify, wash, 
 cleanse — used by the apostles to point out the effect 
 produced by sacrifice on those who were defiled by sin. The 
 general sense attaching to them is this, that sinners, ex¬ 
 cluded by sin from a holy God, are freed from impurity and 
 readmitted to fellowship with God by blood. That is the 
 meaning of the term purify in the passage now under con¬ 
 sideration. 
 
 The counterpart of these things—redemption and purifica¬ 
 tion—we find in Israel’s typical history. Redemption from 
 Egypt was followed by the Sinaitic covenant, where the same 
 
EPISTLE TO TITUS. 
 
 331 
 
 people were taken into a new standing, as a kingdom of priests, 
 to be a peculiar people to Himself 1 (Deut. vii. 6). There is 
 little doubt that Paul had his eye on that fact, and on the 
 passages descriptive of it (Ex. xix. 5, 6). Christ’s people, re¬ 
 deemed by the true paschal lamb, and then admitted to a new 
 covenant, are a true counterpart of the figurative covenant 
 people. The apostle finely alludes to the redemption from 
 Egypt, and then to the entering into covenant with God at 
 Sinai as a people sprinkled with blood, and henceforth near to 
 Israel’s holy God (Ex. xxiv. 8). The design of that redemption 
 was the consecration or setting apart of the nation to be a 
 people near to Him; and the immediate effect of Christ’s 
 redemption is to separate a people from the world, for holy 
 service, or for priestly worship. And the designations here 
 applied to them are striking. They are called A peculiar 
 people, which means His own people, with the accessory idea 
 of being a peculiar treasure, precious, and kept with care 2 
 (Deut. xiv. 2, xxvi. 18). They are His treasure, held to be 
 most precious. 
 
 Hext, the additional designation, zealous of good works, 
 assumes that they are partakers of the spirit of holiness (Rom. 
 i. 4), and of the sanctification of the Spirit (1 Pet. i. 2). This 
 comprehends the sober, righteous, and godly life already men¬ 
 tioned (ver. 12), as becomes men inhabited by the Spirit of 
 God. They bear fruit, and zealously labour to bear it, as the 
 end of their redemption, and as is worthy of a dedicated 
 people. 
 
 1 See Yitringa’s posthumous commentary on Titus (Dutch). 
 
 2 See Witsius’ interpretation of -xipiovino;, and the references which he makes 
 to the literature on it {de Feedere, pp. 358, 410). 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY TO THE ATONEMENT CONTAINED IN THE 
 
 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 W E arrange tlie testimony of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 under a separate chapter, because we deem it best to 
 leave the inquiry open, whether the epistle is of Pauline origin. 
 The difficult and much canvassed question as to the author¬ 
 ship of the epistle we leave untouched, whatever weight may 
 attach to the arguments adduced by many eminent expositors 
 for the opinion that it must he assigned to another writer than 
 Paul—to Apollos, Barnabas, or Luke. This much is admitted 
 on all sides, that it breathes the spirit of Paul, and corre¬ 
 sponds with his well-known mode of putting truth. If it did 
 not emanate direct from Paul, which we for our part have 
 never seen cause to doubt, it emanated from one of his com¬ 
 panions, as the statements on the jDerson, offices, and sufferings 
 of Christ, and on the effects of His atonement, are identical 
 with what we find in Paul; with this difference, that we have 
 a new nomenclature borrowed from the priesthood. 
 
 SEC. XIX.—THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 As supplying materials for defining the doctrine of the 
 atonement, this epistle is perhaps the most important of all, 
 not excepting those to the Romans and Galatians. It has 
 this peculiarity, that it brings out the doctrine under figures 
 or types borrowed from the Jewish worship. The epistle 
 brings before us a typical and preparatory institution, having 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 333 
 
 a spiritual element under that which appealed to the senses, a 
 heavenly underlying the earthly, an eternal under the transitory. 
 The typical worship lost its standing significance with Christ’s 
 coming in the flesh, hut the comparison was most important. 
 
 This epistle was manifestly written while the temple ser¬ 
 vices were still standing, and to a class of Jewish Christians 
 who were in the habit of attending them. From several causes, 
 the Christian Jews in Palestine were exposed to the danger of 
 falling away from the faith, and the writer arms them to resist 
 the temptation, and hold fast their profession. One danger 
 arose from the persecutions to which they were exposed; a 
 second was owing to the attractions of an imposing ritual, and 
 to the perpetual depreciation of Christianity, as compared with 
 Judaism, which they were obliged to hear. The epistle accord¬ 
 ingly sets forth the superiority of Christianity to Judaism in 
 every respect, and especially in its priesthood. It sets forth 
 the insufficiency of the old economy by a comparison of the 
 two, and shows that Christianity had far greater and enduring 
 blessings. 1 Against Christianity the common Jewish objec¬ 
 tion was, that the life of its founder terminated in an igno¬ 
 minious death; and the apostle shows that this was the way 
 of bringing many sons to glory (Heb. ii. 10). 
 
 If we would apprehend the scope of the epistle, and its 
 reasoning, it must be borne in mind that the demonstration 
 is based on ideas current among those to whom it was written, 
 as to the function of the high priest, and the nature of the 
 sacrifices. The epistle gives us a continuous parallel between 
 the shadow and the substance. Christ is not compared to every 
 Jewish priest accomplishing the service of God in the daily 
 ministration, but to the high priest in his call, his qualifica¬ 
 tions, and peculiar ministry, as he entered the holiest of all 
 
 1 The literature on the Epistle to the Hebrews is very ample, and recently 
 has been largely augmented. I may refer to Riehm’s Lehrbegriff des Hebraer- 
 brief es; Ebrard’s, Delitzsch’s, and Kurtz’s commentaries ; Thiersch’s academical 
 prelection ; Reuss’ translation and abridged outline ; Van den Ham (Latin) ; 
 Wieseler, etc. 
 
334 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 on the great day of atonement; the object being to prove that 
 the new economy is in all respects superior. To put this in 
 the clearest light, the epistle runs a parallel between the 
 peculiarities of the two dispensations. In what sense is the 
 title High Priest applied to Christ ? 
 
 1. Many divines, especially during the three last genera¬ 
 tions, have maintained that the doctrine of the threefold office 
 of Christ is without warrant; that the titles Prophet, Priest, 
 and King, heretofore understood as descriptive of distinct works 
 of Christ, express but one and the same thing under a variety 
 of nomenclature. That attempt to obliterate distinctions 
 founded in the nature of things, as well as in the marked 
 peculiarities of the old economy, is quite unwarrantable. The 
 titles are never confounded as terms of the same import. They 
 are not only distinct, but indicate a different work on the part 
 of the Saviour. When Christ is represented as a prophet, He 
 is compared to Moses; as a priest, He is compared to Aaron. 
 The arguments used by eminent men, like Ernesti, Tittmann, 
 Doederlein, and Schleiermacher, to efface the distinction, have 
 by no means carried conviction. 1 The distinction is one that 
 takes for granted a threefold want in humanity to which the 
 offices correspond—ignorance, guilt, depravity. And the ar¬ 
 rangements in Israel, as positive institutions before the eyes 
 of men, corresponded to this threefold necessity. Thus the 
 prophet was commissioned to speak in God’s name to men; 
 and Christ was so called, because He announced the way of 
 salvation (Acts iii. 22; John iv. 19; John ix. 17). The king 
 had authority to rule; and Christ was so called, because He 
 was set over a kingdom, and ruling all for His church (John 
 xviii. 37 ; Eph. i. 21). The priest was one who could approach 
 God on behalf of man; and Christ was so called, because, 
 
 1 This theory, to which Ernesti, Tittmann, and Doederlein unhappily lent 
 their influence, is scarcely a legitimate growth of Protestantism, and more akin 
 to Socinianism. A good refutation of it is furnished by Lotze in his Hooge- 
 priesterschap van J. C. 1800. See also an admirable discussion of the point by 
 Rev. Edward Irving, and Halyburton in his Man’s Recovery. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 335 
 
 according to tlie Father’s appointment, He underwent death to 
 atone for sin. The priesthood of Christ was the foundation of 
 His other offices; without which, indeed, the other two offices 
 could not possibly have existed. They presuppose the priest¬ 
 hood, and proceed upon it. When Christ is called a priest for 
 ever, the expression does not mean that He perpetually offers 
 sacrifice, but that His sacrifice, once offered, has perjDetual 
 efficacy, value, and validity. There are many objections, how¬ 
 ever, which it may here be proper to obviate. 
 
 a. Thus, it is alleged that the term priest may be under¬ 
 stood as denoting minister ; and attempts have been made to 
 establish this from the etymology of the Hebrew word (2 Sam. 
 iii. 18, xx. 26). But in this case all does not depend on 
 etymology, but on the acceptation in which the word is found. 
 And when Christ is compared to the Aaronic high priest, there 
 cannot be room for two opinions that the term is appropriated 
 to a function which contains the two elements of oblation and 
 intercession. 
 
 b. But it is argued, that when Jesus is compared with the 
 Jewish high priest, this is on account of the disparity between 
 the two; and that where a correspondence is intimated, the 
 terms “ blood ” and “ sacrifice ” are metaphorically used. There 
 is no warrant for this; on the contrary, we cannot-read the 
 fifth chapter (Heb. v. 4-7) without discovering a regular com¬ 
 parison between Aaron and Christ. The apostle’s discussion 
 of Christ’s priesthood was as much fitted as it was intended 
 to convince the Jewish Christians held under the spell of the 
 ancient stately ritual, that Christ’s priesthood was immensely 
 superior. But that object could not have been attained unless 
 he also established that it was similar and parallel—the truth 
 of the shadow. 
 
 c. It is further argued, that when Paul represents Jesus as 
 a high priest, he contemplates Him not in His state of humilia¬ 
 tion, but in His present glorified state, as the procurer and dis¬ 
 penser of salvation. That Jesus was a high priest in the days 
 
336 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 of His flesh, and offered the required sin-offering in His state 
 of humiliation, is a point brought out in the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews with such convincing evidence, that one must do 
 violence to language to escape this conclusion. Thus, He is 
 said to be a merciful and faithful High Pbiest in things per¬ 
 taining to God, to make atonement —for so the word should 
 be rendered 1 —for the sins of the people (Heb. ii. 17). Hay, 
 the passage to which an appeal is sometimes made in proof of 
 His becoming a priest only on entering the heavenly sanctuary 
 after His resurrection (Heb. ix. 12-15), is, when correctly under¬ 
 stood, a speaking proof of the fact that He was already a priest 
 when He offered Himself on earth as the atoning sacrifice for 
 sins. He is contemplated by the apostle as the High Priest 
 after the order of Melchizedek, when He is set forth as dis¬ 
 pensing salvation. 
 
 d. Again, it is argued that we are not to ascribe the im- 
 petration or procuring of salvation to the high-priestliood 
 alone. To this it is enough to say, that the three offices of 
 the Lord were closely connected together, and that we cannot 
 in our minds consider one without immediately recalling the 
 others; but we are not on that account to confound them. 
 They are to be distinguished: they each designate a separate 
 work: they were titles of persons who were known in Israel 
 to be invested with different offices, involving different works. 
 This threefold distinction must be maintained in all biblical 
 dogmatics on the work of Christ; for it is founded in Scripture, 
 and the three designations are expressly named in the divine 
 word. Nor are they ever confounded. 
 
 This doctrine of Christ’s priesthood and sacrifice is every¬ 
 where admitted on the ground of Scripture evidence, wherever 
 men do not argue in the interest of a theory or tendency ad¬ 
 verse to Christ’s suretyship and substitution. Erom explicit 
 language contained in this epistle, w r e are warranted to con¬ 
 clude that the Lord Jesus was a high priest on earth; that 
 
 * th ro IXourxiffSou ccf^xpr'ia;. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 337 
 
 He offered the sacrifice oh earth; and that the exercise of His 
 priestly functions in heaven is not to win redemption, hut only 
 to apply it. Throughout the entire epistle the principal aim is 
 to establish this fact, to point out the agreement between type 
 and antitype, and to set forth the infinite superiority of Christ 
 to the shadowy priesthood of the old economy. Several times 
 it is affirmed that He is a priest, and obviously in a real, not in 
 a figurative sense (Heb. ii. 17, viii. 1, iv. 14). 
 
 2. At the beginning of his discussion on this subject, the 
 apostle intimates that Christ possessed all the necessary quali¬ 
 fications 1 of a priest. These are chiefly the following:— 
 
 (1.) Divine appointment (Heb. v. 5, 6). He did not assume 
 it, or take it to Himself, without a divine commission or call. 
 The passage which makes Christ similar to Aaron, on this 
 ground, that He glorified not Himself to be made an high 
 priest, is very emphatic. The quotation of the second Psalm, 
 too, reminds us of the divine dignity and excellence of Christ 
 as the ground of His everlasting priesthood; and this discovers 
 the force of the allusion to the Son (ver. 8). The meaning is, 
 that Jesus had a divine commission; that He was appointed 
 by the Pather because He was the Son; and that He was thus 
 possessed of all requisite qualifications for His office. The 
 high-priesthood of Christ was based in the divine decree; and 
 He was invested with the dignity by the will and appointment 
 of the Father, the fountain of all authority and law. 
 
 (2.) He must be able to sympathize with the condition of 
 sinners (Heb. v. 1-8). The Lord, who was rich, having come 
 within the circle of human experience, was made a merciful 
 and faithful high priest, and qualified by personal experience 
 for compassionately guiding our highest interests, as well as 
 conducting our cause. The bond of brotherhood, the identity 
 of suffering and sorrow, fitted Him to be touched with the feel¬ 
 ing of our infirmities. He was made like unto His brethren 
 (Heb. ii. 17); He suffered, that He might be in a position to 
 
 1 See Riehm’s Lehrbegriff des Heb. 
 
 Y 
 
338 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 succour them that are tempted (Heb. ii. 18); He was made in 
 all respects like us, with the single exception of personal sinful¬ 
 ness (iv. 15); and He learned obedience by what He suffered 
 (v. 8). The design of all this was, that He might be a com¬ 
 passionate and sympathizing high priest. 
 
 (3.) He must lay to heart the interests of His people, 
 and maintain the cause of those for whom He acted the part 
 of a priest. With this theme the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 is occupied; and the writer proves that Christ during His 
 life thus fulfilled the duties of a priest (Heb. v. 7-9). The 
 priests were required faithfully to fulfil the task committed to 
 them, offering gifts and sacrifices for sins, and interceding 
 for the people by prayer; and in general, they actively pro¬ 
 moted the interests and affairs of the covenant people before 
 God. All this the Lord discharged, practising obedience, and 
 faithfully executing the charge committed to Him. The obe¬ 
 dience of the Lord consisted in undergoing death for the 
 sins of humanity, as the apostle explains it (Heb. x. 5-10); 
 and He was made perfect, that is, perfected for the media¬ 
 torial work and the Melchizedek-priesthood, by His acceptance 
 and confirmation as the surety. Thus the everlasting High 
 Priest, made King and Priest, can evermore promote man’s 
 cause with God; and all who obey Him are warranted to 
 expect eternal salvation from Him, whereas the Levitical 
 priesthood advanced the interests of the people only for a 
 time. 
 
 3. As we noticed the qualifications of the high priest, we 
 next consider his ministry on the great day of atonement—the 
 culminating point of his service. This is at large explained 
 in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. ix. 1-7). Two divisions 
 were marked out in the ancient sanctuary: one called the 
 holy place, allotted to the daily ministrations of the priests 
 as they accomplished the service of God; the other called the 
 holiest of all, into which the high priest alone entered once 
 every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 339 
 
 and for tlie errors of the people (ver. 7). The arrangement 
 announced that the time then present was a time of imperfect 
 atonement; that the Jewish sacrifices could not fully atone, hut 
 effected a certain external deliverance from temporal punish¬ 
 ment, and confirmed their religious privileges to the Jewish 
 nation. The reason why the holiest of all remained constantly 
 shut, and the high priest entered alone for a little time once 
 every year, is to be sought in the insufficiency of the Old Tes¬ 
 tament sacrifices. The way was not yet open—that is, open 
 without impediment—while the first tabernacle and the Old 
 Testament worship still stood (vers. 8, 24). 
 
 The high priest entering on the great day of atonement 
 with the blood of sacrifice, and sprinkling it on the mercy-seat 
 or covering of the ark, was the representative of the people, 
 appearing before God in their name, and presenting blood for 
 their atonement. By that solemn act the protection of God 
 was sought and secured for the nation; for the most important 
 actions of the Jewish high priest consisted in slaying the 
 victim, and carrying the blood into the holy of holies once 
 every year. Now the question is raised, Was that entrance 
 typical of Christ’s entrance into heaven ? That action of 
 sprinkling the mercy-seat was undoubtedly atoning; and many 
 too precipitately think we are driven to the conclusion that 
 Christ was not a priest on earth, and that His oblation, pro¬ 
 perly so called, commenced in heaven after His ascension. 
 The Socinians deny, on doctrinal grounds, the sacrifice on earth, 
 transferring it to heaven; and the principal argument by which 
 they maintain that Christ never was a priest on earth, is based 
 on a misunderstood text of the epistle (Heb. viii. 4). We 
 allow that the death of the victim, taken by itself, and apart 
 from the priestly action of bringing in the blood to sprinkle 
 the mercy-seat, was not considered as the full act of expia¬ 
 tion. 
 
 But this leads me to ask, When did Christ, our High 
 Priest, enter with His own blood ? It may, we think, be 
 
340 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 convincingly proved 1 that the entrance of our High Priest 
 to sprinkle the mercy-seat took place at the moment of His 
 death; that no moment of time intervened; and that the 
 rending of the veil indicated His entry. In pouring out His 
 blood on the cross, and surrendering His spirit into the 
 Father’s hands, the. Lord must be considered as sprinkling 
 the mercy-seat and expiating sin. While His lifeless body 
 was hanging on the cross, the mercy-seat was sprinkled; for 
 He was still acting as a high priest, even when the lifeless, 
 inanimate body was on the cross and in the tomb. Even 
 then the personal union was not dissolved. If the question 
 were, whether Christ could be regarded as sprinkling the 
 mercy-seat before He bowed His head and gave up the ghost, 
 we should certainly deny it. But as the inquiry is, When did 
 the true High Priest sprinkle the mercy-seat ?—which was a 
 propitiatory act in the course of averting wrath—we must em¬ 
 phatically answer, At the moment of death. His resurrection 
 was a reward for service done; not expiation, not propitiation, 
 in any sense of the word. 
 
 This may conclusively be established. The heavenly taber¬ 
 nacle or temple was, so to speak, erected over the ark of the 
 covenant. That throne, or mercy-seat, must be viewed as for 
 ever wet or moistened with atoning blood, sprinkled once for 
 all. The common notion that our Lord’s entry into the holiest 
 of all with the propitiatory blood corresponds to His triumphal 
 entry into heaven, however plausible it may seem to those 
 who read the ninth chapter of this epistle in a cursory way, 
 is burdened with insoluble difficulties. Without adducing the 
 grounds already given at the beginning of this volume, let it 
 suffice to say that the entry was immediately subsequent to 
 the death of the sacrifice; that the action was still expiatory; 
 and that all Christ’s appearances to the disciples during His 
 
 1 See our remarks at p. 48, on the temple services. Witsius seems to have 
 been the first who threw out this exposition ; Schultens and Lotze contend for 
 it earnestly. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 341 
 
 forty days’ sojourn, were so far from entering into tlie work 
 of expiation, that they presupposed it. His salutations to 
 the disciples, announcing peace accomplished and brought in, 
 presuppose it. It is incongruous and absurd to hold, then, 
 that the sprinkling of the mercy-seat and the purifying of 
 the heavenly things (ver. 23) took place only after His ascen¬ 
 sion. We distinguish between the acts of abasement and the 
 state of reward on which He entered at His resurrection; be¬ 
 tween the priesthood as such, and the Melcliizedek or royal 
 priesthood. 
 
 If we want a proof that the atonement was accepted, and 
 procured forgiveness of sins, this was proved by the Lord’s 
 resurrection from the dead, corresponding as it did to the com¬ 
 ing out of the high priest from the holiest of all to give the 
 priestly benediction to the people. From what has all that 
 confusion to which we have adverted arisen ? Plainly from 
 the fact that the expositors we have been refuting did not suf¬ 
 ficiently distinguish the peculiarities connected with the High 
 Priest after the order of Melchizedek. He was the Priest 
 after the order of Melchizedek when He ascended to His 
 mediatorial throne, and that is always distinguished in the 
 epistle from His appearing before God with His own blood. 
 But it will be asked, Does not the debated text already 
 mentioned (Heb. viii. 4) conflict with the above interpreta¬ 
 tion ? By no means. Christ must needs bring His sacrifice 
 into the true tabernacle, the reality of the figure; and if He 
 were on earth—that is, if He were a common priest of the 
 visible Jewish order—He would be no priest of the true taber¬ 
 nacle. 
 
 4. Points of contrast as well as similarity may be traced in 
 the whole analogy here instituted between the Jewish high 
 priest and the great High Priest of our profession, and between 
 the sacrifices offered by both respectively; and to these we shall 
 refer in a few words. 
 
 (1.) To begin with the contrasted high priests, the law 
 
342 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 made men high priests who had infirmity, whereas the word of 
 the oath made the Son (Heb. ix. 28). The Jewish high priests, 
 moreover, were required to offer for their own sins as well as 
 for the sins of the people (Heb. v. 3); whereas our High Priest 
 was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinnerS, and 
 needed not but to offer for the sins of others (vii. 27). The 
 Jewish high priest could not exercise his ministry in any other 
 but a standing attitude, and as became a servant, on the annual 
 return of the great day of atonement; whereas our great High 
 Priest, after His one all-perfect sacrifice, sat down on the right 
 hand of God ,, from henceforth expecting till His enemies be 
 made His footstool (Heb. x. 11-13). 
 
 (2.) Next, as to the sacrifices offered respectively, the weak¬ 
 ness and unprofitableness of the one stood vividly contrasted 
 with the enduring efficacy of the other. The Jewish high 
 priest was under the necessity of constantly repeating the same 
 sacrifice year by year continually; whereas the Lord Jesus, by 
 one sacrifice needing no repetition, perfectly atoned for sin, and 
 brought salvation to all who obey Him (Heb. ix. 25). Another 
 point deserving notice is : The Jewish sacrifices effected only 
 an external purity and the removal of corporeal punishments, 
 but did nothing, and could do nothing, to remove the burden of 
 guilt, or still an accusing conscience (Heb. x. 1-3); whereas 
 the one sacrifice of Christ effectually secured a full deliverance 
 from punishment and from an evil conscience (Heb. x. 19-22). 
 Nor, from the nature of the case, could the Jewish sacrifices 
 accomplish more : for they consisted of the blood of calves and 
 goats; whereas our High Priest offered Himself to God a sin¬ 
 less and perfect sacrifice 1 (Heb. ix. 14). 
 
 (3.) Another point of contrast is, that the Jewish sacrifices 
 were only for men then living, and for cases of ceremonial de- 
 
 1 I cannot too strongly object to the position of Hengstenberg, Kurtz, 
 Kliefoth, and others, that the sacrifices were, in a certain sense, the means of 
 imparting a true forgiveness. See Philippi’s refutation of this in his Kirchliche 
 Glaubenslehre, iv. pp. 260-290. This borders too closely on the old Socinian 
 doctrine to be tolerable. See Calovius’ Socinismus froflhjatus. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 343 
 
 filement, procuring temporary and corporeal deliverance, but 
 without any retrospective or prospective influence beyond the 
 case for which they were offered; whereas Christ’s sacrifice, 
 intended for all time, effected the expiation of all sin, whether 
 we have respect to those who looked forward to it from the old 
 economy, or to those who now look back to it as an accom¬ 
 plished fact (Heb. ix. 26). In a word, the Jewish sacrifices 
 were limited in their range, whether we take into account the 
 class of men to whom they were applicable, or the nature of 
 the trespass for which they could be offered. The offences for 
 which they were available were all ceremonial (Heb. ix. 10). 
 The sacrifice of Christ, on the contrary, procured the forgive¬ 
 ness of all sins, being divinely adapted to all sins. Besides, it 
 gave free access, well-grounded confidence, and liberty ; whereas 
 the Jewish sacrifices neither cancelled sin properly so called, 
 nor gave boldness of access into the divine presence; for the 
 throne of grace was still unopened to sinners after all that the 
 Jewish sacrifices effected. 
 
 One design of the Epistle to the Hebrews was, to point out 
 the inseparable connection between the atonement and the 
 remission of sins, or the sprinkling of conscience (Heb. ix. 14, 
 x. 2, x. 22). The epistle does not deny forgiveness to Old 
 Testament saints who lived before the incarnation. It cer¬ 
 tainly denies that efficacy to animal sacrifices, and connects 
 the actual redemption which the Old Testament saints received 
 with the death of Christ; for the apostle speaks of the effect 
 of the atonement in cancelling sins under the old covenant 
 (Heb. ix. 15). A theory was propounded, indeed, by Cocceius 
 and his school, to the effect that the privilege enjoyed by the 
 Old Testament saints did not amount to full forgiveness, and 
 that it was but the condition of non-punishment, as the atone¬ 
 ment had not been offered, and the effect cannot be without 
 the cause. There is no warrant for such a supposition in the 
 peculiarities of the dispensations. But the apostle declares 
 again and again that forgiveness was not by the type, and that 
 
344 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sins (Heb. x. 
 4) or purge the conscience (x. 2). 
 
 The comparison instituted between the Aaronic and Christ’s 
 priesthood, between the animal sacrifices and the sacrifice of the 
 cross, had for its object to convince those Hebrew Christians 
 that the Lord Jesus accomplished all that was figured forth 
 by the Jewish high priest; that the old economy was de¬ 
 fective (Heb. viii. 8); and that the ancient sacrifices could 
 not make the worshipper perfect as pertaining to the con¬ 
 science. They were therefore replaced by a better. When 
 the epistle was written, the sacrificial rites, the priesthood, 
 and the Sinaitic economy itself waxed old, and was ready to 
 vanish away (Heb. viii. 13). It was, in fact, superseded and 
 abandoned; and the Hebrew Christians were to see that they 
 possessed infinitely more in Christ. Ho one need be surprised 
 at the abrogation of the old economy, when we remember that 
 it was but preparatory to the fulfilment, typical or shadowy, 
 and inadequate to promote man’s highest interests: it was but 
 the scaffolding round the building. 
 
 The difference between the two high priests was immense. 
 In the former, or superseded economy, the high priest was but 
 a sinful mortal man, who offered first for his own sins and then 
 for the sins of the people ; and after accomplishing the sacrifice, 
 he entered into the earthly tabernacle as a servant. In the 
 former economy, too, the perpetually recurring sacrifices could 
 effect no remission of sins: they brought no purification or 
 pacification to the conscience; all being external, procuring 
 social advantages, but not pleasing God. The everlasting High 
 Priest offered Himself for all nations; a sacrifice that effected 
 remission, that pacified the conscience, and required no repeti¬ 
 tion. Ho one having once confessed the Saviour should enter¬ 
 tain a doubt as to the privilege and duty of holding fast his 
 profession. 
 
 5. Before particularly examining the several texts bearing 
 on the atonement, a few remarks seem necessary on the 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 345 
 
 peculiar nomenclature and phraseology in the epistle, borrowed 
 from the Mosaic worship. The epistle, couched in the Old 
 Testament style, assumes that the accomplishment of the types 
 had arrived, and that the shadows had been merged in the 
 reality. We have forensic terms in the Epistles to the Eomans 
 and Galatians; but in this epistle we have terms which relate 
 to worship, and describe the ground of confidence before a 
 holy God. The latter stands connected with the former, and 
 presupposes the former. Acts of worship, or the priestly ele¬ 
 ment, take for granted the acceptance of the person, and are 
 the natural outcome of that state of acceptance before God. 
 The germ of all, found in this epistle, may be traced in the 
 language of the Mosaic ritual, and also in our Lord’s own 
 words. Thus we read of coming not to Mount Sinai, but to 
 Mount Zion, with the distinctive features of the two economies 
 (Heb. xii. 18-24); of the blood of the covenant, or, as it is also 
 called, the everlasting covenant, recalling the transitory cove¬ 
 nant which had passed away (Heb. x. 29, xiii. 20). The blood 
 so often mentioned is sacrificial, as is evident to any one who 
 considers the import of the expression, “ The blood of sprink¬ 
 ling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Heb. xii. 
 24). That sacrificial blood cries for mercy, warranting us to 
 come before God’s throne with confidence; and that one pas¬ 
 sage is singly conclusive against current theories adverse to the 
 vicarious sacrifice. Eor if Christ died only a martyr’s death, 
 as Abel died under the operation of the world’s wickedness 
 and by the hand of violence, His blood could only cry, like 
 Abel’s, for vengeance; whereas it cries with a far other voice. 
 The one cried for judgment, the other cries for pardon and 
 deliverance because a vicarious atonement. There are some 
 terms, however, which demand more particular notice, such as 
 the following: 1 — 
 
 a. The apostle uses the words purify or purge in several 
 
 1 The reader may here consult Zecharia’s Biblical Theology, Lotze on the 
 Priesthood of Jesus Christ, and Eiehm’s Lehrbegriff. 
 
346 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 passages (Heb. i. 3, ix. 14, x. 2). To apprehend their meaning, 
 it must he borne in mind that they are borrowed from the Old 
 Testament worship, and presuppose the relation of a sinner 
 stained by defilement and excluded from fellowship, but re¬ 
 admitted into fellowship with God and His people when de¬ 
 livered from the stain. Thus, at the beginning of the epistle, 
 we read that the S<pn, having by Himself purged, that is, 
 having made a purification of, OUR sins, sat down on the right 
 hand of God (Heb. i. 3); language emphatically declaring that 
 the atonement was Christ’s own personal act, and a completed 
 act before He ascended. It is sacrificial language: it points 
 out the objective effect of Christ’s atonement. It cannot be 
 referred to inner renewing, because, as the past participle here 
 shows, it was consummated before His ascension. He did not 
 merely announce the purification in word; He effected it, as 
 the terms of the expression prove, by His sole activity,—that 
 is, within the sphere of His own personal action. In other 
 words, the apostle declares that Christ effected a purification of 
 sin by Himself; or, according to Levitical nomenclature, that 
 He was at once priest and victim—priest to offer the • sacrifice, 
 and victim to bear the sin, here considered as a defilement that 
 must be purged away. 
 
 Without entering into an elucidation of the various pas¬ 
 sages in the epistle which mention purification, let it suffice 
 to say that this term is sometimes used in a purely objective 
 sense. Thus, in the Mosaic worship, the vessels of the sanc¬ 
 tuary, and the tabernacle itself, were purified by sacrifices 
 (Heb. ix. 22). In like manner, when the heavenly things 
 themselves are said to have been purified by better sacrifices, 
 the meaning is, that the Lord’s death was a satisfaction to the 
 divine justice and holiness, cancelling human sin (ver. 23). 
 But there is a subjective side of this same truth : the purging 
 of the conscience follows as the certain and necessary conse¬ 
 quence of pardon by Christ’s blood. It is the taking away of 
 the sense of sin. But how ? The meaning is, that the con- 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 347 
 
 science, once purged, no more feels that burdensome and 
 oppressive consciousness of sin constantly carried about with 
 us, till the mind apprehended the sin-bearing substitute. Not 
 that the knowledge of ill-desert is taken away or forgotten, but 
 the gnawing burden of uncancelled guilt ceases. This is the 
 subjective side. We may say, then, that purification of sins by 
 Christ’s sacrifice consists objectively in the removal of accumu¬ 
 lated guilt, and subjectively in the purging of conscience. 
 
 b. A second term is sanctify, having the same sacrificial 
 reference. We find it in our Lord’s sayings, and in other 
 books of Scripture (John xvii. 19 ; Eph. v. 26), and it is much 
 allied to the term purify ; nay, the one may be said to include 
 the other. They agree in this, that sinners defiled by sin, and 
 thus disqualified for fellowship with God in any act of worship, 
 are restored to nearness and to the service of God as a royal 
 priesthood. It is the more necessary to vindicate the sacri¬ 
 ficial reference, or the setting apart of the redeemed as a dedi¬ 
 cated people, because, in the ordinary use of religious terms, 
 the idea of sanctification has unduly been limited to renovation 
 by the Spirit. The term is borrowed from the Mosaic ritual, 
 and the privilege which it indicates is based on the sacrifice of 
 the cross. 
 
 It may seem that the two terms purify and sanctify are 
 simply coincident, and cover each other at all points, because 
 they refer to the temple service, and are equally based on the 
 blood of sacrifice. But they have their peculiar shade of 
 meaning. The primary meaning of the term sanctify, is to 
 set apart to God for a sacred use, to consecrate or dedicate, as 
 Israel was separated from other people to serve Jehovah, and 
 called holy, as they were set apart by the blood of sacrifice to 
 be in covenant, a kingdom of priests; and as such they dwelt 
 apart, the Lord being in the midst of them. But other things, 
 such as the altar, the temple, the feast-days, were also said to 
 be sanctified, or consecrated things. In short, separation from 
 the world and consecration to God, as results brought about by 
 
348 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 the blood of atonement, is the meaning of the word. Thus 
 we understand the words, “ Both He that sanctifieth, and they 
 who are sanctified, are all of one” (Heb. ii. 11). There is thus 
 a negative and positive idea attaching to the term. Hence it 
 is wider and more comprehensive than the term purify, which 
 has more the negative signification. The sacrifice of Christ 
 was the great redemption-act by which the people of God were 
 at once and for ever emancipated from a life of estrangement, 
 and brought into fellowship as a holy priesthood (Heb. x. 29). 
 Of course, the Spirit of sanctification follows as the natural 
 and necessary consequence. 
 
 c. A third term is to make perfect, repeated in a consider¬ 
 able number of passages (Heb. vii. 11, 19, ix. 9, x. 1, x. 14, 
 xi. 40, xii. 23). This word forms a marked feature in the 
 scheme of thought propounded to us in the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews. This is distinctive of the epistle. If the term 
 righteousness may be regarded as the distinctive feature of 
 the Epistle to the Romans, and the essential element in the 
 forensic aspect of the atonement, the term making perfect 
 may be taken as the equally marked feature in the priestly 
 element peculiar to the Epistle to the Hebrews. The one 
 epistle brings out justification, and the other our priestly 
 standing and priestly service; and the two terms above men¬ 
 tioned are the distinctive feature of each respectively. 
 
 Thus several passages, making special allusion to the in¬ 
 adequacy of the Levitical priesthood and Old Testament sacri¬ 
 fices, affirm that they did not give perfection to the worshipper 
 (Heb. vii. 19, x. 1). All was unprofitable in this respect. On 
 the contrary, the one sacrifice of Christ had this effect, as it 
 was offered once for all, that it perfected for ever them 
 THAT ARE sanctified (Heb. x. 14). What does that convey? 
 It plainly carries with it a negative and positive, an objective 
 and subjective idea, as to the priestly relation in which the 
 worshippers of the new economy appear before God. 
 
 The primary and proper meaning of the term is to com- 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 349 
 
 plete a work; and the idea of perfecting a work, of course, 
 varies according to the design or end of the work that has 
 been undertaken. In connection with the atonement of Christ, 
 it means to attain the end contemplated by the sacrifice; 
 and in this peculiar application of the term to make the 
 holy priesthood, the peculiar people, perfect for the purposes 
 on account of which they were sanctified or set apart (Heb. 
 x. 14). That was accomplished once for all by the cross (Heb. 
 vii. 19, ix. 9, x. 1-4). The meaning therefore is, that Christ’s 
 atoning death effected what was necessary to bring us to per¬ 
 fection, or to the goal designed for us as a royal priesthood. 
 It removed guilt, and made us, as a priesthood, positively ac¬ 
 ceptable in the sight of a holy God, who not only regards our 
 persons in His Son, but considers our services, notwithstand¬ 
 ing all our personal imperfection, as well-pleasing on His Son’s 
 account. The one offering of Christ puts us into perfect fel¬ 
 lowship with God as a people near to Him. And, subjectively, 
 we are made perfect as pertaining to the conscience, and begin 
 on earth to serve the living God (Heb. ix. 14). 
 
 We come now to the examination of passages which con¬ 
 tain more particular reference to the atonement. These are 
 numerous and various. 
 
 I. One explicit passage as to the nature and necessity of 
 Christ’s atoning work is thus expressed: But we see Jesus, who 
 was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, 
 crowned with glory and honour; that He by the grace of God 
 might taste death for every one [better, But Him who was for a 
 little while made lower than the angels, even Jesus, we see crowned 
 with glory and honour on account of the suffering of death, that 
 He by the grace of God might taste death for every one\. For it 
 became Him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, 
 in bringing momy sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their 
 salvation perfect through sufferings (Heb. ii. 9,10). The epistle, 
 in meeting the objections to a suffering Messiah, proves from 
 prophecy and the divine perfections that Jesus must needs be 
 
350 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 made lower than the angels, and perfected through sufferings. 
 The final clause, that He might taste death, may either lean 
 on the statement, He was made lower than the angels, or 
 depend, as we have put it, on the previous words, “ on account 
 of the suffering of death.” If we take the latter construction, 
 it will mean that the scope of Christ’s sufferings was to taste 
 death for every one. The final clause will thus* bring out the 
 fact that the sufferings of Christ were in the divine purpose 
 vicarious. The following points must here be noticed:— 
 
 1. The source of the atonement was divine grace: “that 
 He by the grace of God (^ap/r/ 0 so*j) might taste death.” The 
 meaning of this clause is, that the grace of God was the reason 
 why the Lord tasted death, being the source or origin from 
 which salvation emanated. It was grace to us, in whose behalf 
 the ransom was provided, but penal infliction so far as Christ 
 was officially concerned. This intimates that unmerited grace 
 prompted God to give His Son, and to transfer guilt to Him. 
 In short, whatever was vicarious was of grace in a special 
 sense. A penal death was the effect of justice; but to admit 
 a Surety-substitution was of grace. 
 
 2. The death was vicarious. The expression “to die for 
 one” carries with it the notion of substitution, as has already 
 been established (Rom. v. 6, 7). Though ingenious arguments 
 have been used to evade this conclusion, and though the Greek 
 preposition has been forced to speak in favour of the anti- 
 substitution theory, all is of no avail so long as the nature of 
 the transaction implies the opposite. The sufferings and death 
 of the Lord are everywhere represented to us as the sufferings 
 of an innocent person in the room of the guilty. To show that 
 the Lord’s sufferings had a near connection with the doom of 
 the guilty, it is said in express terms that He died for the 
 ungodly (Rom. v. 6), the just for the unjust (1 Pet. iii. 18)*. 
 For whom was this vicarious death undergone ? For every 
 one. What does this imply ? The Greek expositors, for the 
 most part, referred the phrase to the entire creation,—extend- 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 351 
 
 ing the influence of Christ’s death beyond the pale of humanity 
 to angelic intelligences. That, however, would be otherwise 
 expressed, and would scarcely be in the singular neuter, as 
 this interpretation assumes. The limitation must be first to 
 humanity, and next to that totality which was given to Christ, 
 —the same persons who are designated “the many sons” to 
 be brought to glory (ver. 10), and the all who are sanctified 
 (ver. 11). This cannot be adduced in favour of the supposed 
 universal atonement, as the reference in the context is most 
 express to those who were actually to be saved by Christ. 1 
 
 3. This expression, to taste death, is a style of speech 
 common to all languages, and found in classical as well as 
 Hebrew writers, in the sense of undergoing the experience of 
 a thing (Ps. xxxiv. 9 ; 1 Pet. ii. 3). Here the expression means 
 to experience the bitter ingredients of death in their utmost 
 intensity. 2 When the Lord is said to have tasted death for 
 every one of the many sons whom He was bringing to glory, 
 the meaning is, that He experienced what constituted eternal 
 death. 
 
 Were there sufficient evidence to warrant the reading with¬ 
 out God, which occurs in some of the Fathers, and is preferred 
 by certain modern writers, 8 it would give the idea of death 
 without God, or as forsaken by God. It has not, however, 
 sufficient warrant. But separation from God in consequence 
 of sin constitutes the penal element of death. The sting of 
 death is sin (1 Cor. xv. 56); and as sin separated between man 
 and God (Isa. lix. 2), death in the^ proper sense of the term is 
 the separation of God from the soul. And in Christ’s case we 
 see the expression of His feelings under penal death or deser¬ 
 tion by God, when He complained of soul-trouble, agony, and 
 exceeding sorrow. We can trace in many portions of the 
 
 1 SeeD’Outrein on Hebrews; and Honert, de gratia universali an particular^ 
 
 2 See Steinhofer on Hebrews. 
 
 3 %wp)s is Origen’s reading; and Tliomasius, Christi Person und Werlc, 
 iii., looks on it with favour : so do several recent exegetes and editors. But it 
 wants outward authority. 
 
352 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 Lord’s historic life how He wrestled with the terrors and bitter¬ 
 ness of penal death, that is, God’s withdrawal from the human 
 soul created for God, and incapable of finding happiness or 
 rest hut in Him. This is plainly perceptible in that unfathom¬ 
 able cry, “ Why hast Thou forsaken me?” To taste death is 
 to experience the loss of God, in itself an overwhelming visita¬ 
 tion, apart from positive outward punishment. To the Lord 
 Jesus death did not come by accident or permission, or mere 
 violence at the hand of man, but as the divine condemnation 
 striking the Surety for human guilt. In Gethsemane, where we 
 see Him tasting the second death, no human hand was near, and 
 all came direct from the hand of God. But His essential filial 
 relation was not dissolved, nor the Father’s eternal love removed. 
 
 4. The apostle adverts to the fact that Christ was per¬ 
 fected through sufferings, and to the divine fitness in God’s 
 moral government that it should be so. We shall briefly 
 notice both these points (ver. 10). 
 
 a. As to the fact that Christ was perfected through suffer¬ 
 ings, this is represented as the sole way of bringing many sons 
 to glory. The older commentators were wont to interpret the 
 verb perfected as equivalent to consecrated, and in one pas¬ 
 sage it is so rendered in the English Bible (Heb. vii. 28). The 
 inaccuracy, however, is apparent, because Christ was already 
 a priest on earth when He offered Himself. The word is, in 
 its primary import, to perfect, contrasting commencement 
 with consummation, feebleness and maturity. All the pas¬ 
 sages in which the term is applied to Christ, describe Him 
 after His humiliation, or finished labour (Heb. ii. 10, v. 9). In 
 the present passage it refers to His state of glory, but with a 
 certain modification of idea. The two verses we quoted are 
 so linked together, that the former (ver. 9), describing the 
 Mediator as crowned with glory, is grounded by the latter 1 
 
 1 The force of the grounding yap must by no means he omitted if we would 
 correctly apprehend the connection, and yet difference, between rzXuovv and 
 
 ffrupavouv. 
 
4 
 
 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 353 
 
 (ver. 10), which represents Him as perfected. What can this 
 mean, but that Christ was crowned after His finished work, as 
 Adam would have been on standing his probation ? It is the 
 state of perfection on the ground of accepted obedience, or of 
 confirmation as the Head of a new humanity, the second 
 Adam; and the title Captain of salvation— that is, cause 
 and primary possessor of salvation—is an additional proof 
 of this. 
 
 But how does the bringing of many sons to glory stand 
 connected with this perfecting of the second Adam, the leader 
 of salvation ? The many sons were IN and with the Lord 
 brought objectively to His perfection. The participle, as here 
 used, denotes simultaneous action (ocyayav), that the many 
 sons were brought to glory in and with Him; for as it is said 
 that we sinned in Adam (Rom. v. 12), and were crucified and 
 died with Christ (Rom. vi. 6), so we obtained, or won with 
 Christ, all that enters into His perfection and glory. He 
 objectively introduced us to glory with Himself, and we are 
 represented as objectively sitting on the throne with Him, 
 or sitting in heavenly places (Eph. i. 3, ii. 6). Though some 
 regard the participial clause as portraying the Son’s action, 
 it is better to view it as the Lather’s action, in bringing many 
 sons to glory along with the suffering surety. They were 
 given to Him, represented by Him, and introduced at the 
 same time with Him, when He reached the goal. 
 
 b. We have also to notice the divine fitness of such a 
 method of salvation (gVpgsrs). It might simply have been said, 
 “ It became God.” But we have a circumlocution full of em¬ 
 phasis, describing God’s relation to the universe in terms 
 which speak of Him as the ultimate end, as well as the great 
 first cause of all things. Why is this introduced ? It is an 
 adaptation to the Hebrew Christians, embarrassed by the 
 taunts of unbelieving Jew T s, pointing with scorn to the igno¬ 
 minious execution of Jesus as incompatible with His Messiah - 
 
 ship, according to the glowing terms of prophecy. Prophecy 
 
 z 
 
354 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 is quoted to establish the fact of His abasement lower than the 
 angels. Next, this humiliation is represented as worthy of 
 God, and as becoming God. That divine fitness is based on 
 God’s moral perfections, authority, and law; and this em¬ 
 phatically shows that there is no salvation without atone¬ 
 ment, and that the expiation does not rest on God’s absolute 
 dominion or arbitrary good-pleasure. On the one hand, it 
 would not have been becoming to abase His Son as a surety 
 in our place, and to subject Him to ignominious treatment by 
 men, and to the endurance of the second death at the hand of 
 God, had salvation been possible in the exercise of absolute 
 dominion or by absolute forgiveness. But it became God to 
 act thus, since there was no salvation without atonement. As 
 it was necessary to vindicate justice and maintain law, to 
 punish sin, and assert the inalienable rights of God, it became 
 God, or was worthy of God, to perfect the Lord by suffering; 
 for He acts according to His attributes, which, indeed, could 
 not be contravened, obscured, or ignored, without denying 
 Himself. 
 
 II. The death of Christ is described as liberating us from 
 the power of Satan and the fear of death: Forasmuch then as 
 the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself 
 likewise [or, equally ] took part of the same; that through death 
 He might destroy [better, bring to nought ] him that had the 
 power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through 
 fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Heb. ii. 
 14, 15). This passage shows that the scope of the incarnation 
 and atonement was- to deliver the children from the power of 
 Satan and the fear of death. A few points here demand con¬ 
 sideration. 
 
 1. When Christ is said to have become partaker of our 
 nature, the expression carries with it the idea that He assumed 
 humanity, with feelings, affections, and mental constitution 
 every way the same as ours; without sin, indeed,—for that 
 was no part of human nature in its normal state,—but in 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 355 
 
 nothing differing from the likeness of the flesh of sin so far 
 as this approximation to ns was consistent with sinlessness. 
 Though not in Adam’s covenant, nor personally subject to its 
 responsibilities apart from His spontaneous undertaking, there 
 was a divine fitness, or necessity, in putting on humanity like 
 ours,—a humanity not mortal by the necessity of its being, but 
 mortal 1 because of the free assumption of our guilt and obli¬ 
 gations. He must have a suffering mortal nature for His 
 official task. The language not obscurely shows that He 
 possessed another mode of existence. Hot to recall the proof 
 furnished by the previous context, and by the title Son (Heb. 
 i. 1-8), the fact that He took our flesh and blood implies His 
 possession of a higher nature. A person is introduced mightier 
 than the adversary who already overcame the human race and 
 held them captive; for no mortal could vanquish one armed 
 with the sting of death and the curse of the law. 
 
 The passage reminds us of the first promise (Gen. iii. 15). 
 Hay, there seems to be an express parallel: the terms of the 
 one seem to be a paraphrase or exposition of the other. The 
 object in both is Satan, who by sin acquired the power of in¬ 
 flicting death on soul and body. The seed of the woman was 
 mentioned in the one; the participator of flesh and blood is 
 mentioned in the other. In the one, allusion is made to the 
 head of the serpent; and in the other, to the devil as having 
 the power of death. The first promise represents the Lord as 
 bruising the serpent; the text before us represents Christ as 
 destroying Satan, or bringing him to nought. 2 The one text is 
 thus a paraphrase of the other, substituting the language of ful¬ 
 filment for that of prediction. 
 
 2. The meritorious cause of victory, or the weapon used 
 by Christ, was His vicarious death. The apostle does not use 
 the expression His death ; but from this no argument can be 
 
 1 This is the sense of 6vr,ros , as Athanasius and other fathers used’it in refer¬ 
 ence to Christ : and Pearson also. 
 
 2 See the older commentaries on the passage : Steinhofer on Hebrews ; Ram- 
 Dach’s, D’Outrein, etc. 
 
356 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 drawn against His substitution. Tlie pronoun was not re¬ 
 quired, as the apostle’s object was to show that Christ over¬ 
 threw the adversary by turning his weapons against himself, 
 defeating him by that death which was the sphere and element 
 of his power. How Christ’s death was the means of victory 
 is not formally expressed, but it can be gathered from other 
 parts of the epistle. Two modes of explanation have been 
 propounded,—that by the modern theology, a highly objec¬ 
 tionable one, and that given with a general consent in the 
 Church. 
 
 a. The explanation given by the modern theology is, that 
 the death of Christ was the termination of that portion of His 
 life subject to Satan’s power, and was succeeded by an indis¬ 
 soluble life (Heb. vii. 16). The theory is, that Christ, the ap¬ 
 pointed source of spiritual life to the human race, sustained the 
 utmost enmity of Satan in His death, which, however, formed 
 but the transition to a higher life, the commencement of a new 
 life to mankind. To this comment the obvious objection is 
 that it contradicts the text. It ascribes the victory not to the 
 atoning death, but to the resurrection-life of Christ. It does no 
 justice to the words through death. 
 
 b. The other comment, currently adopted in the Church 
 of all times, is, that Christ through death—that is, through 
 death as the expiation of sin— annulled Satan’s power. The 
 dominion of Satan owed its origin to sin, because offended 
 justice adjudged the guilty to a captivity of which Satan was 
 but the subordinate executioner or gaoler. In like manner, 
 Satan’s dominion was overthrown by the expiation of the 
 cross, because the satisfaction of justice and the vindication 
 of the divine rights effected man’s deliverance, and made those 
 who were slaves of Satan the property of a new master. 
 
 3. Next we notice the twofold end contemplated by the 
 Lord’s death, as brought out in the two final clauses,—the 
 annulling of Satan’s power, and the deliverance of believers 
 from the fear of death. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 357 
 
 (1) As to the annulling of Satan’s power, this is in plain 
 terms announced as the scope of Christ’s death, for the cross 
 decided the great question who should he the world’s Lord. 
 The final adjudication was then given; the judicial process as 
 to the proprietory right was conclusively determined (John 
 xii. 31 ; Col. ii. 15). The word rendered destroy (zarapyeTv), 
 which occurs twenty-five times in Paul’s epistles, meaning to 
 annul or to make void, intimates that Satan was denuded of 
 his authority, not destroyed as to his being. Hot without 
 reason did Christ suffer death, since the victory to be achieved 
 could not be won by mere power. But the question is raised, 
 How had Satan the power of death ? Hot in the sense that 
 he tempted men to sin, which was followed by death as its 
 wages; not in the sense that Satan is the immediate execu¬ 
 tioner of death, inflicting it as it is a physical evil by his 
 hand; for though this is a received Jewish doctrine, it is 
 nowhere affirmed by our Lord or His apostles. 1 The devil is 
 said to have had the power of death, as he wielded it to men’s 
 eternal ruin, and thus obtained entire possession of them. To 
 fall under the power of death was to fall under the power of 
 Satan, which extends to all who live without Christ, and die in 
 sin. By death he gets them into his possession; and the an¬ 
 nulling of Satan’s power by means of death consisted especially 
 in this, that such a power was taken away, death being no more 
 at the devil’s service, nor a weapon at his command against any 
 for whom Christ died. 
 
 (2) A further deliverance naturally flowing from the death 
 of Christ, and secured by it, is, that Christians are delivered 
 from the fear of death. The apostle treats of the fear of death 
 connected with an evil conscience, or that sense of the wrath of 
 God from which Christians were delivered by the satisfaction 
 of Christ; and it shows how miserable is life when the sting is 
 not taken out of death by the blood of atonement. 
 
 This enables us to rebut the comment of the Cocceian 
 
 1 See Eiehm’s Lehrbegriff, Tholuck and Delitzsch on Hebrews. 
 
358 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 school, and for two centuries repeated in many quarters, that 
 this language, describing bondage and the fear of death, is 
 properly applicable to Jewish believers living under the Mosaic 
 covenant. The words of the apostle, however, have their true 
 significance when understood in general of liberation from the 
 fear of penal death; and there is no warrant for limiting the 
 terms to Israelites, as they are spoken generally, nor to tem¬ 
 poral death, as they naturally comprehend whatever is included 
 in the primeval curse on sin. It is a one-sided theory which 
 refers the language to believers under the Old Testament; 1 for 
 though they had not the same clear views which the Christian 
 economy discloses, we cannot warrantably represent them as 
 oppressed by the fear of death, as if still unforgiven and under 
 the curse. The apostle, speaking generally, first of a condition 
 without Christ, and then of a condition in Christ, affirms that 
 through His death is removed whatever is formidable in death. 
 The fear which arose from an accusing conscience was removed 
 by the Lord’s death. 
 
 III. Another passage in the same context thus introduces 
 us to the priesthood of Christ: Wherefore in all things it behoved 
 Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a 
 merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, 
 to make reconciliation for [better, to atone for, or to make propi¬ 
 tiation for] the sins of the people (Heb. ii. 17). The principal 
 object of the epistle is to enforce the priesthood of Christ, and 
 this is the first announcement of it. We may take up this 
 testimony in these few points. 
 
 1. It behoved Him to be made like His brethren in order 
 to atone for sin. The terms of the passage are so constructed 
 as to show beyond dispute that the atonement was the ulterior 
 object for which Christ was prepared by this previous discipline. 
 The priestly sentiment which prompted the atonement was 
 nourished by all the objective elements of His call and unction, 
 
 1 See a full refutation of the Cocceian theory by Leidekker in his Vis Veri- . 
 tails , and Witsius’ De Feedere. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 359 
 
 and also subjectively developed by the sympathy imbibed 
 through life from the personal experience of living amid the 
 sufferings and temptations of the human family subjected to 
 the captivity of sin and Satan. He entered into this state of 
 things, holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, but 
 so surrounded by the atmosphere of darkness and defilement, 
 trial and temptations, that the true priestly disposition—com¬ 
 passion and the purpose to deliver mankind—was fostered at 
 every step. That undoubtedly is the thought. It refers to 
 what went before the atonement, and spurred Him to com¬ 
 plete it. As He learned obedience by suffering (Heb. v. 8), so 
 He learned priestly sympathy; fitted for the priestly action by 
 having an identity of nature and temptation, sorrow and trial. 
 The mercy and faithfulness thus acquired are everlastingly 
 retained on high, but they are here mentioned in their origin 
 as preparatory to the sacrifice which pacified God. 
 
 2. Christ was a priest on earth making atonement. The 
 strictly grammatical force of the terms intimates 1 that He was 
 a priest to atone for sins, or to propitiate God for sins. The 
 apostle does hot speak of what was done after the ascension, 
 but of what was done during the entire period of His earthly 
 life; and the import of the words allows no other interpreta¬ 
 tion. Ho one without a foregone conclusion could deduce from 
 this, as the Socinians and others following them have done, 
 that the priesthood of Christ commenced only after the ascen¬ 
 sion. While they argue that Christ suffered and died that He 
 might be made a priest, who that reads with any attention 
 does not see that the apostle affirms a different thing ? It is 
 
 1 The priest us to !\K<rxto-0ca. See some excellent comments of Streso, in his 
 Latin condones on Hebrews, on the preparation of Christ as the priest. Modem 
 commentators for the most part surrender this text to those who, in a semi-socini- 
 anizing way, transfer Christ’s priesthood to heaven, and they are swayed by 
 the words iXiyipuv and -r'urros. But these predicates belonged to Him on earth as 
 well,as in heaven ; and the us to \’ka.mtur@ai puts it beyond doubt that He was a 
 priest in atoning. Neither Turretin nor Quenstedt have done full justice to this 
 emphatic phrase, up%npiv; . . . u$ to ixucrxttrtleci, which is to my mind one of the 
 most conclusive proofs of Christ being a priest in His death. 
 
360 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 not said that He was made like His brethren that He might 
 be made a priest, but that He might be a merciful and faithful 1 
 High Priest; for the experience of our sorrows, temptations, 
 and. sufferings formed Him to sympathy, and prompted Him 
 to pursue His atoning work. The entire language of the Hew 
 Testament writers- proceeds on the supposition that Christ 
 acted on earth as a priest. Thus He gave Himself a ransom 
 (Matt. xx. 28). He gave Himself for us an offering and a 
 sacrifice (Eph. v. 2). The death of Christ is represented as the 
 passover sacrifice for us (1 Cor. v. 7). The purification of our 
 sins was effected by sacrifice, as a past act before He ascended 
 (Heb. i. 3). That Christ acted as a priest during His earthly 
 career, and that He once for all consummated the sacrifice on 
 the cross, because it required no addition or supplement, is, 
 as we shall see, repeatedly affirmed in this epistle. 
 
 The confusion in the mind of those who call this in ques¬ 
 tion may be traced to the way in which they interpret the 
 types on the great day of atonement, and especially the import 
 of carrying the blood into the holy of holies, as already ex¬ 
 plained. We only add here, that the action in the holy of 
 holies depended for its efficacy not on the bare fact of the 
 priest appearing before God, but on his presenting the blood 
 of sacrifice offered for the sins of the people. Some colour 
 might have existed for the theory of a priesthood begun in 
 heaven, and a sacrifice in heaven, had the priest been directed 
 merely to present himself in the holiest of all without any 
 further provision for expiating sin ; but we have only to 
 recall the action of the Jewish high priest at the door of the 
 tabernacle of the congregation (Lev. xvi. 7), to see evidence 
 that the blood of sacrifice was indispensably necessary to the 
 validity of the priestly action within the vail; that he could 
 not have entered without it; and that it was presupposed in 
 all that was subsequently done. 
 
 1 The old anti-Socinian champions, Calovius, Arnold, Maresius, Hoornbeek, 
 (Eder, correctly lay the emphasis here. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 361 
 
 3. The apostle mentions the people : who were they ? 
 Since the language of the epistle partakes of a Jewish tincture, 
 and the parties to whom it was addressed were Christian Jews, 
 are we to hold that those objects of the propitiation designated 
 “the people” were men of Jewish descent? By no means. 
 The phraseology is varied, but they are the same persons who 
 are called in the context many sons (ver. 10), the seed of 
 Abraham (ver. 16), His brethren (ver. 17). By far the most 
 natural and appropriate exposition is that which regards them 
 as those who form the one family of God, irrespective of 
 Jewish or Gentile descent. They are such as have the faith 
 of Abraham without reference to nationality. 
 
 4. The last point to be noticed is, that the Lord Jesus, in 
 His capacity as our High Priest, propitiated God, or atoned 
 for sin. He was the priest of His own sacrifice. The proper 
 import of the term here rendered, to make reconciliation, is 
 to propitiate, to pacify an offended party, or to turn away 
 wrath. This is the uniform use of the term in all the Greek 
 poets, historians, and writers generally; and no classical scholar 
 will doubt this. The Greek verb is construed with the accusa¬ 
 tive of the person whose anger is turned away, and it may 
 appear anomalous that no person is here named whose wrath 
 is pacified. The phrase “ to propitiate sin” w T ould be uncouth 
 and devoid of meaning. The mode of resolving the phrase 
 adopted by all the most eminent philologists who acknowledge 
 the laws of language and the authority of usage is, that the 
 expression must be used as meaning that Christ propitiated 
 God for our sins . 1 This makes all plain ; and it is according 
 to the fixed meaning of the term. The Septuagint translators 
 
 1 The best philological commentators—Grotius, Meyer, Kurtz (so too Philippi 
 and Weber)—construe the phrase with a ®iov understood: tXa,(rxi<r6a.i (©sov). Then 
 the rccs ouiKpria; is either construed with a supplied mp), or made the object clause: 
 “ as to sin.” Some have proposed that l\a.trxi<r0cct should govern a^a^r/a?, but 
 it is absurd. Delitzsch, after Hofmann, makes this attempt, and brings in an 
 argument from another language ; but Philippi’s answer to Delitzsch is conclu¬ 
 sive : Kirchliche Glaubenslehre , iv. pp. 267-278. 
 
362 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 adapted tlie term to revealed ideas, but could not change its 
 import. 
 
 This leads me to notice a theory propounded by certain 
 modern writers, to the effect that the Septuagint impressed a 
 new meaning upon the word, and that from this source it 
 passed over into the New Testament phraseology with an 
 altered acceptation. We must deny both positions. The 
 Alexandrine translators found terms ready to their hand, 
 fixed and settled in their import, and they could not at dis¬ 
 cretion alter them if they wished to be intelligible. That they 
 used the word under consideration in the sense of propitiating 
 or appeasing an angry party, is evident from their translation 
 of the passage where Jacob is said to have appeased Esau 
 (Gen. xxxii. 20), and from the text where a wise man is said 
 to pacify the king’s wrath (Prov. xvi. 14). The term did not 
 pass into the Septuagint with an altered meaning; and hence 
 we dismiss as groundless the double theory, that the word 
 does not occur in the New Testament in its proper Greek 
 significance, and that the apostles needed no classical Greek 
 vocabulary, as suitable words for the ideas which they de¬ 
 veloped from the Old Testament were already fixed by the 
 peculiar style of the Septuagint. The Septuagint did much 
 to fix the usage for the Greek-speaking Jews, but not to alter 
 the meaning of Greek terms, which would have defeated the 
 end of translation altogether. Hence they who would make 
 this phrase mean no more than “ to cover sin,” and allege that 
 it is a Hebrew thought expressed in Greek, are liable to the 
 charge of altering the meaning of terms, or of bringing the 
 primary or etymological meaning of a word in one language to 
 control the fixed usage of another without either warrant or 
 probability. That is all the more hazardous when carried out, 
 as is generally done in this case, under the spell of a dogmatic 
 bias,—that is, to lend countenance to the theory that the Scrip¬ 
 tures do not predicate wrath of God. 
 
 The phrase should have been rendered here, to atone for, 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 363 
 
 or to make propitiation EOR sins. And the noun, used 
 several times by John, strictly rendered, denotes “propitia¬ 
 tion” (1 John ii. 2, iv. 10). The expression here used brings 
 before us the idea of the great High Priest and the sacrifice,— 
 that is, the reality of that sacrifice which was offered for the 
 Jewish people on the great day of atonement presupposing 
 divine anger on account of the sins of the people, and inti¬ 
 mating that our High Priest, by the intervention of His sacri¬ 
 fice, pacified the wrath of God. The propitiation presupposes 
 wrath, and would not have been propitiation without it; it 
 would have been but semblance or appearance. Hot that 
 mankind, as God’s workmanship, ceased to be the object of 
 divine benevolence and affection; but the Scriptures abound 
 in proofs of a wrath of God, by which He not only stood aloof 
 from sin, but was prompted by His holy nature to act against 
 it, till a change was effected in our relation toward God, and in 
 God’s relation towmrd us, by the great historic fact of atonement. 
 The propitiation came in between human sin and divine wrath, 
 appeasing that wrath, and winning for us the favour of God. 
 
 It may be noticed that the term here used in the original 
 is different from the word elsewhere used by the Apostle Paul 
 for reconcile 1 (Rom. v. 10; 2 Cor. v. 18). The difference be¬ 
 tween the two may be described as follows:—The term com¬ 
 monly used for reconcile has no reference to the old law, or 
 to the priestly institute; it is taken from ordinary life, pre¬ 
 supposing the existence of a quarrel or controversy, and inti¬ 
 mating that friendship has been restored by putting the cause 
 of quarrel out of the way. The Bible term intimates that 
 those hindrances were removed which had obstructed friendly 
 union between God and man; bnt there is no allusion to 
 sacrifice as the means by which the reunion was effected. On 
 the other hand, the term propitiate here used puts the new 
 
 1 Ka.ra.'kXa.criruv and i\a.(rx,t<r6a.i must be distinguished : the former is used of 
 the Father, the latter of Christ. See Moms’ remarks ; also Lotze, Muntinghe, 
 Geschiedeniss. 
 
364 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 relation cemented in direct causal connection with the priesff 
 hood and sacrifice. It is never applied to God as the acting 
 party, hut to Christ in His high-priestly function. Though 
 God is commonly described as the Beconciler,—that is, as the 
 author of the remedial economy or scheme of reconciliation 
 (2 Cor. y. 18), — He is never said to propitiate, for the obvious 
 reason that that would imply a third party. God Himself was 
 the party whose anger was to be averted, and whose favourable 
 regard was to be restored by the intervention of the priestly 
 sacrifice. The difference between the two modes of expression, 
 which at first sight seem to have much in common, mainly 
 consists in this, that propitiation was the work of a priest 
 coming in between man and God; whereas the act of re¬ 
 conciliation, as affirmed of God, is the more general term, 
 setting forth that God not only was the source of the restored 
 friendship, but also planned and carried into execution the 
 propitiation, or great intermediate provision by which the 
 reconciliation was effected. 
 
 When we sum up the force of this memorable testimony, 
 it affirms that Christ made a propitiation for the sins of the 
 people, or, as it is also put, His people (Matt. i. 21), not by 
 delivering them from intellectual error, not by merely con¬ 
 verting them from evil ways for the future, but by a fact in 
 history once for all, having a potentiality for all time. His 
 work effected much more than the abolition of the typical 
 economy, or the introduction of a new economy of truth con¬ 
 firmed by His death. As the Jewish high priest brought the 
 atonement for the people of the old economy once every year, 
 so Christ, once for all, satisfied divine justice, and removed the 
 penalty of sin by His historic oblation at Jerusalem as Priest 
 and Sacrifice in one person. The term propitiate means to 
 appease God, or to avert His wrath by sacrifice; and the pas¬ 
 sage is not to be interpreted of intercession in heaven, though 
 that follows and leans on the sacrifice, but of the one propitia¬ 
 tion or atonement of the cross. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 365 
 
 IV. Another passage bearing on the High Priest’s suffering 
 obedience is in these terms : Who in the days of His flesh, when 
 He had offered up [better, taking in the last words of the verse, 
 when He had from godly fear offered up] prayers and suppli¬ 
 cations, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to 
 save Him from death, and was heard (in that He feared), though 
 He were a Son [better, though He was the Son], yet learned He 
 obedience by the things which He suffered; and being made per¬ 
 fect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them 
 that obey Him (Heb. v. 7-9). In the context we have several 
 points of comparison between Christ and the Aaronic priest¬ 
 hood : His divine call to the priesthood; His sympathy learned 
 in a career of trial. A divine commission was so necessary for 
 one who should act between God and man, that apart from 
 other questions bearing on His ability for the task, the sove¬ 
 reign rights of God stood in the way of any one taking the 
 office uncalled. The salient points of the passage are these : 
 
 1. The days of His flesh mean the whole time of His 
 humiliation,—that period when He came among men as one 
 of them, but still the Son of God, whose majesty was hid. As 
 applied to Christ, the term flesh intimates that He put on a 
 true humanity, but a humanity under the weight of imputed 
 guilt, with the curse that followed in its train,—a sinless, but 
 sin-bearing humanity. It has everything in common with 
 the Lord’s own expression, “The Son of Man” (compare Eom. 
 viii. 3, 1 Pet. iii. 18). The Lord felt the weakness of the flesh 
 in His whole vicarious work, and though personally spotless, 
 was, in virtue of taking our place, subjected to all that we 
 are heir to. We do not, indeed, find in Him the personal 
 consequences of sin, such as sickness and disease, but the 
 consequences which could competently fall to the sinless sub¬ 
 stitute ; for He never was in Adam’s covenant, but was Himself 
 the second Adam. As He took flesh for an official purpose, 
 He submitted to the consequences following in the train of 
 sin-bearing—hunger and thirst, toil and fatigue in the sweat of 
 
366 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 His brow, fear and sorrow, persecution and injustice, arrest and 
 suffering, wounds and death: this period is called “the days 
 of His flesh." 
 
 2. We must examine the phrase “in that He feared." 
 Two modes of interpretation have divided commentators: the 
 one rendering the term fear of consternation; the other render¬ 
 ing it the fear of reverence, “ piety," or “ godliness.” 
 
 a . The first interpretation, which renders it the fear of con¬ 
 sternation, or amazement, became current in the Eeformed 
 Church under the influence of Calvin, who adduced it as a 
 proof of the doctrine that Christ endured in His soul the wrath 
 of God for our soul’s redemption. The Eomanists, who limited 
 Christ’s sufferings to corporeal pains, exclaimed against this ex¬ 
 position as subversive of His deity, and called it blasphemous. 1 
 Beza, in an important note, replete with erudition and sound 
 doctrine, on the great truth impugned, endeavours to prove 
 that the term means fear in the sense of dread, adducing pas¬ 
 sages from the classics and the Hew Testament (Acts xxiii. 
 16). He declares that he will be hard to persuade that the 
 Greek preposition allows the rendering “was heard for His 
 reverence," as in the Vulgate. Bellarmine, while discussing 
 the doctrinal question of Christ’s soul-agony, renewed the 
 grammatical as well as doctrinal objections against that ex¬ 
 position; and he was answered by Junius, Ames, Turretin, 2 
 and others. On account of the important doctrine which was 
 raised, this interpretation came to prevail among Eeformed 
 divines. The peculiar and anomalous expression, “ was heard 
 from fear," as it literally means, was construed to signify the 
 terminus from which He was rescued. And they were wont 
 to defend this exposition by an appeal to the words of the 
 psalm : “ Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns," 
 —that is, hast heard and delivered me (Ps. xxii. 21). But that 
 
 1 See an interesting statement of opinions on ki <rns rikufh'ix$ in Fulke’s 
 Defence of the English Translations of the Bible, p. 322. 
 
 2 F. Junius, Animadvers. in Bellarm. vol. ii. p. 585. Ames’ Bellarm. Ener- 
 vatus , tom i. p. 100. Turretin, De Satisfactions, p. 153. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 367 
 
 is artificial, and a supplement put in by the interpreters. The 
 passages, indeed, by which they proved that the term denotes 
 consternation and amazement, only show that it was used for 
 the cautious avoidance of evil, physical or religious,—a sense 
 that naturally passes into that of reverence. 
 
 b. The other interpretation, viz. the fear of reverence, is 
 every way preferable. As the noun elsewhere means godly 
 fear (Heb. xii. 28), and as the adjective is commonly used for 
 devout (Luke ii. 25; Acts ii. 5, viii. 2), usage, as well as ety¬ 
 mology, is certainly in its favour. Besides, the general consent 
 of patristic expositors and the best modern exegetes may be 
 mentioned as all in the same direction. There is one point 
 urged by Beza and Turretin which has not been satisfactorily 
 obviated,—viz., that the Greek preposition here used does not 
 commonly mean “ by reason of,” and that where it is so used, 
 as it is in several passages (Matt. xiii. 44; Luke xxi. 26, xxiv. 
 41; Acts xii. 14; John xxi. 6), it denotes the inner influence 
 or motive by which an agent is actuated. So much does this 
 seem to have weighed with Chrysostom, with his delicate 
 appreciation of the Greek language, that while retaining the 
 sense for which we contend, he strangely ascribed the reverence 
 to the Bather. The whole difficulty, however, on this score- 
 vanishes, when, as I have proposed, we construe the godly 
 fear with both the preceding participles; for it then means 
 that He poured out prayers in godly fear and was heard: 
 “ having from godly fear offered up prayers and supplications, 
 and being heard.” 
 
 3. The offering up of agonizing prayers is next mentioned. 
 Here we notice at the outset the peculiar expression offering 
 up prayers, which a century ago was commonly expounded as 
 a sacrificial term, and as meaning that the Lord’s priestly 
 prayers in some peculiar sense belonged to His sacrifice. 1 
 But prayers are not the satisfaction: the sacrifice was Him- 
 
 1 So D’Outrein, Rambach, and many of the older commentators, without 
 cause, expound <7rpoaivtyx.a.s. 
 
368 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 self; and we have never been able to see any force in this 
 exposition, whether the idea is taken singly or conjoined. Be¬ 
 sides, to offer prayer was a familiar Jewish phrase. We dis¬ 
 miss this comment as a groundless piece of overdoing. 
 
 These prayers, accompanied with strong crying and tears, 
 to Him who was able to save Him from death, imply the 
 endurance of penal death. Did He fear the mere corporeal 
 suffering which many a martyr has met with fortitude ? Sin¬ 
 less nature no doubt shrinks from death, but it was something 
 of a far other quality which gave rise to the agony and amaze¬ 
 ment which weighed so heavily on the Son of God,—viz., the 
 second death, the full infliction of wrath at the hand of God 
 for the sins, not of one man, but of the whole company of the 
 elect. The curse of the law under which He spontaneously 
 placed Himself struck the soul as well as the body (Gal. iii. 
 13). More was comprehended than bodily pain, as might be 
 argued from the horror and recoil of the Redeemer from the cup 
 which was to be drunk. Besides, corporeal sufferings would 
 not have sufficed for men’s redemption, for He redeemed the 
 soul as well as the body (1 Cor. vi. 20): He assumed both soul 
 and body; and He offered both in our room, as was necessary 
 to expiate guilt incurred in both and by both. As the sin was 
 principally committed by the soul, and the body was used as 
 but its instrument, it will not suffice to say that the suffering 
 was in the soul merely by sympathy: the converse was rather 
 true. 
 
 Hence, while the Lord Jesus continued amid all His agony 
 the object of divine love as the only-begotten of the Father, 
 He endured all the curse, wrath, and infliction justly to be 
 awarded to the sin He bore on His own body. Had He not 
 experienced that God was angry, not indeed at Himself, but 
 at our sins, He could not have been a deliverer; for there was 
 no relaxation of the law, nor could be; nor was there any re¬ 
 laxation of the penalty. The agony of Christ read of from His 
 human life in many scenes before He reached Gethsemane 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 369 
 
 and the cross, consisted primarily in the loss of God,—a priva¬ 
 tion which removed from Him the vision of God and the sense 
 of His presence: the subject of suffering was the entire human 
 nature of the Lord. Hot that He ceased to be the beloved 
 Son, and actually loved. Hot that the Lord, in His own con¬ 
 sciousness, ceased to draw the distinction between His personal 
 and official relation to His Lather; for His whole language 
 virtually avows His innocence and Sonship, and proceeds upon 
 the plea that the Lather would either remove the cup or up¬ 
 hold Him: there was no despair and no distrust for an instant. 
 But though His trust was never for a moment interrupted, nor 
 succeeded by despair, He was wholly without that sensible 
 enjoyment which commonly flows from trust, and was sub¬ 
 jected to an overwhelming pressure of heaviness and sorrow, 
 caused by the divine anger at sin, which the Surety must 
 necessarily undergo. Though the Surety was in Himself the 
 beloved Son, He was, as the sin-bearer, under the hiding of 
 His Lather’s face when He poured out these prayers with 
 strong crying and tears. 
 
 And the apostle adds, He was heard. But the inquiry 
 arises, How ? When ? Did He not undergo death ? How was 
 He heard, when He appealed to Him who was able to save Him 
 from death, and yet was given up to death ? The solution 
 is easy. Whatever the Lord absolutely and unconditionally 
 asked, was absolutely and unconditionally granted. But what 
 He conditionally asked—that is, asked from natural affection, 
 or from a sensitive recoil from what seemed to His human 
 feelings overwhelming and intolerable, and rather a wish than 
 a definite volition—was answered in the way most necessary in 
 the circumstances. We are warranted to say, when we com¬ 
 pare this passage with the scene of the soul-trouble and Geth- 
 semane, that God heard Him, either by mitigating the terror, 
 or by nerving Him to bear it, or by strengthening Him by 
 means of the angel. His fear was lest He should sink and 
 
 be swallowed up of death, and He was heard and rescued. 
 
 2 A 
 
370 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 4. The next statement requiring notice is, that Christ, 
 notwithstanding His Sonship, learned obedience by suffering. 
 The clause is properly participial, and literally rendered, 
 though being the Son d it takes for granted the divine Son- 
 ship as anterior to His obedience, and not the fruit of His 
 obedience. The language would otherwise be unmeaning; for 
 it assumes that He who personally was above all obedience, 
 was put in the position of learning obedience. This shows 
 what was required to the right discharge of that active and 
 suffering obedience which must needs be vicariously rendered 
 to fulfil the task of Suretyship, and the greatness of Christ’s 
 redeeming love in obliging Himself to render obedience in the 
 midst of such suffering. The following elements constituted 
 that obedience:— 
 
 It was developed from a sinless nature, beginning with His 
 birth and pervading His life, till He bowed His head upon the 
 cross. Though taking flesh from Adam, His humanity was, 
 by the overshadowing power of the Holy Ghost, generated 
 pure in the act of personal union to the only begotten Son, 
 and never existed apart. He was sinless in His nature, and 
 in His history; holy for the unholy, pure to occupy the place 
 of the impure; the realization of the divine law at every mo¬ 
 ment, and in every scene; the ideal of the law. When He 
 learned obedience by suffering, the meaning is, that the obe¬ 
 dience grew in extent, intensity, and force, by the pressure put 
 upon it: the hotter the conflict, the more did inward sub¬ 
 mission unfold itself. Hot that this argues previous defect, 
 for in sinless creaturehood there is progress. Even in that 
 which claims to be perfect there are degrees of advancement; 
 and in Christ’s case the obedience, always perfect, was not at 
 first in its full development. We see in all living things 
 growth, progress to maturity. In Gethsemane, and in His 
 soul-desertion, His will was never turned aside from the 
 
 1 X.tt.lrfzp COV vl'oi. See a good discussion on the proper force of this expres¬ 
 sion, in De Moor’s Comment, perpet. i. p. 756. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 371 
 
 straight path of prompt obedience even by superhuman trials, 
 but held on its course, still learning obedience. Not suffering 
 alone, but obedience in suffering the most overwhelming and 
 unparalleled, constituted the second Adam’s task. 
 
 5. The reward follows: “ Being made perfect, He became 
 the author of eternal salvation.” The import of perfecting, as 
 applied to Christ in this epistle, has already been explained 
 (Heb. ii. 10). But we must rescue the expression from the 
 superficial gloss that makSs it exaltation as contrasted with 
 humiliation. The seeming antithesis between the days of His 
 flesh and this ulterior stage, may seem at first sight to give 
 countenance to that idea; but there is something deeper in the 
 connection,—viz. the link between learning obedience in the 
 days of His flesh, and being perfected as the second man for 
 the purposes of the mediatorial economy. The language takes 
 for granted a period of probation assigned to the second Adam, 
 followed by a state of confirmation, or state of mediatorial 
 fitness for securing the final welfare of His people: it is the 
 reward of an approved obedience. This is the deeper connec¬ 
 tion and the true meaning, as is evident from the fact that the 
 perfecting stands related to His being the author of eternal 
 salvation, the same link that we noticed above 1 (Heb. ii. 10). 
 He was officially perfected for all the ends of His mediatorial 
 undertaking. A further proof may be adduced. It was 
 through this perfecting of the Surety that we are said to be 
 perfected; that is, we are partakers of Him and one with 
 Him in His approved obedience and accepted sacrifice (Heb. 
 x. 14). 
 
 Thus perfected, Christ became the author of eternal sal¬ 
 vation. The humiliation ended with the weakness, tempta¬ 
 tion, suffering, and death peculiar to the days of His flesh. 
 The Representative, acting in the name of a chosen people, 
 
 1 I may refer to Riehm’s Lehrbegriff, and Van den Ham’s Dissertatio Theo- 
 logica, 1847 ; also to Morns’ remarks on the passage. The reference, however, 
 to the Mediator as second Adam must he added to give completeness to the view. 
 
372 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 * % 
 
 not only reached the goal, hut became the author of eternal 
 salvation. This passage has almost everything in common 
 with the passage already noticed (Heb. ii. 10): it well-nigh 
 repeats it. The chief difference is, that in the former passage 
 He is called the captain or leader of salvation, the first in the 
 order of possession; whereas in this passage He is called the 
 meritorious cause, the author of salvation. It remains only to 
 notice that the salvation is limited to a particular class who 
 hear the designation of those who obey Christ. This may 
 primarily refer to the obedience of faith,—that is, to the obe¬ 
 dience which is apparent in the very act of believing (Rom. 
 i. 5), but also takes in the obedience of life. 
 
 Y. The next passage is specially important, as showing that 
 the Lord Jesus on earth was at once priest and sacrifice : Such 
 an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless [better, such a 
 high priest befitted us,—one holy, innocent ], undefiled, separate 
 from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth 
 not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for His 
 own sins, and then for the peoples: for this He diet once, when 
 He offered up Himself (Heb. vii. 26, 27). Melchizedek’s priest¬ 
 hood, according to the outline in Genesis, is represented in this 
 chapter as typical; next, a passage in the Psalms, written long 
 after the institution of the Aaronic priesthood, promised a 
 priest of another order (Ps. cx. 4); and the apostle argues 
 that perfection could not he by the law, because the replacing 
 of its priesthood was a plain proof of imperfection. The irre¬ 
 vocable oath was also a proof of a better covenant (Heb. vii. 
 20-22). Christ’s priesthood was everlasting and unchange¬ 
 able, while the other constantly passed from one dying man to 
 another (ver. 24). 
 
 The words have the same meaning as the previous passage, 
 which set forth the necessity of the atonement on the ground 
 of justice (Heb. ii. 10). The expression such (roiovrog) an 
 high priest is referred by sonie to what precedes (vers. 
 1—25); hut far more naturally it refers, as we have rendered 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 373 
 
 it, to the following clause, “ one holy, harmless, undefiled, and 
 separate from sinners,”—the same expression that we have 
 below (Heb. viii. 1). The various predicates of the high 
 priest, immediately subjoined, are by no means to be inter¬ 
 preted as properties that belonged to Him exclusively after 
 His ascension. The first four are descriptive of what He was 
 on earth, when brought into contact, during the discharge of 
 His office, with sin and sinners; and only because all this 
 belonged to Him on earth, does He continue to be all this in 
 heaven. When taken together, they affirm moral perfection in 
 all its parts and degrees, describing it negatively as well as 
 positively. 1 The epithet holy might seem at first sight to 
 intimate the consecration by which He was set apart to God; 
 and the suggestion has been made, May it not recall the title 
 “ Holiness to the Lord” on the mitre of the Aaronic high 
 priest ? But an examination of the Greek word here used at 
 once satisfies us that not the holiness of dedication is inti¬ 
 mated, but the holiness of inward conformity to the divine 
 will—of moral and religious conduct. The second epithet, 
 harmless, or innocent, was understood by the translators of 
 the English version, as it is by many modern expositors, as 
 intimating that He was, in His intercourse among men, free 
 from evil, malice, or injury. But according to its etymology 
 it has a more extensive meaning: it means a nature free from 
 every taint of evil or original sin. The third epithet, unde- 
 eiled, signifies that He contracted no defilement amid temp¬ 
 tations which solicited Him on every side, and that, while 
 always in contact with sin, He continued sinless, for the infec¬ 
 tion never spread to Him. The fourth epithet, or descriptive 
 predicate, separate from sinners, means that He was the true 
 Nazarite: His soul was as a star, and dwelt apart. Several 
 modern interpreters, following in the wake of the old Socinians, 
 who interpreted these predicates of Christ in heaven, suppose 
 that it means separated from sinners by His exaltation,—that 
 
 * omoi, kuchkos, uftlavros, %&%wpi<r{x-lvo$ u.'Xo touv ufAKpraXuv. 
 
374 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 is, by local distance; a low and one-sided view. The expres¬ 
 sion means that Christ, while living among sinners, and sup¬ 
 posed to he of the common order of men, was infinitely apart 
 from them in nature and character, in thought and deed, in 
 words and principles, in motive and conduct. He was among 
 them, not of them; nay, in a moral respect, infinitely separate. 
 The fifth predicate, made higher than the heavens, un¬ 
 doubtedly differs from the previous four in this, that it refers 
 to His exaltation. The design is to show that our great High 
 Priest must needs be made higher than the heavens, infinitely 
 exalted above all, in order to bestow as well as win salvation. 
 But no one, with any colour of reason, can allege that He was 
 then only made a priest, or that He then only performed the 
 principal part of the priestly function—the offering of sacrifice. 
 The previous predicates of the high priest, as well as the sub¬ 
 sequent verse, indisputably prove that He was acting as a 
 priest on earth. And the design of the apostle in naming 
 these predicates of our High Priest, was to prove that He was 
 infinitely pleasing to God, that He was under no necessity to 
 offer sacrifice for Himself, and that His offering had everlasting 
 validity. 
 
 Next follows a comparison between the Jewish high priest 
 in the annual sacrifice on the day of atonement, and our great 
 High Priest in His sacrifice once offered (ver. 27). There is a 
 point of similarity, such as obtains between type and antitype, 
 but also a point of disparity, in as far as Christ’s sacrifice was 
 infinitely superior in validity and value. On the great day of 
 atonement the Jewish high priest offered sacrifice first for his 
 own sins, and then for the people’s. The expression daily, 
 applied to the Jewish high priest, has been variously ex¬ 
 pounded ; some referring it to the annual return of the great 
 day of atonement, when this part of the ritual was ever re¬ 
 peated ; others referring it to the morning and evening sacrifice. 
 As the latter was offered, not for the high priest nor the priests 
 in general, but for the people, it is better to understand it as 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 375 
 
 intimating that, on every occasion of offering for the sins of the 
 people, he offered also for his own sins. 
 
 On the contrary, the sacrifice of Christ was unique. What, 
 from the necessity of the case, was always separated in the 
 Jewish ritual, was combined in Him. When He gave His life 
 a ransom for many, He was the priest of His own sacrifice— 
 priest and sacrifice in one. This is the first time in the course 
 of the epistle that we find express mention of Christ as at once 
 priest and victim, but it is repeated again and again. This 
 distinguishes the sacrifice of Christ from the Old Testament 
 sacrifices. They were external to the high priest, the blood 
 being foreign to him, or, as it is rendered, the blood of others 
 (Heb. ix. 25): they had no relation to his person, for the two 
 were not identified. But Christ offered Himself; and He could 
 do so as the Son of God, the possessor of a higher nature, who 
 united a humanity to Himself, and was competent to dispose 
 of it, as no mere creature could dispose of himself, because 
 it had been assumed as an instrument for working out the 
 eternal redemption of His people. In this our High Priest 
 was absolutely unique. But what is the import of the clause, 
 a Por this He did once, when He offered up Himself?” As 
 to the demonstrative pronoun this, it cannot refer to both 
 the previous clauses, as setting forth that our High Priest 
 offered a sacrifice for His own sins and then for the people’s. - 
 It can refer only to the latter, as the strictly grammatical 
 import of the singular this properly intimates. Besides, in 
 no sense of the terms could Christ be said to offer for 
 Himself. The whole predicates above noticed were specially 
 adduced to show that no such thing existed, or was possible; 
 and the attempts to maintain the opposite, in the interest of 
 overthrowing the vicarious sacrifice in ancient or modern times, 
 are reckless assertions bordering upon the impious. 1 
 
 It only remains that we notice that important word once, 
 
 1 Hofmann takes up this Socinian evasion, and asserts that the prayer in 
 Gethsemane was in some sense a sacrifice offered for His own weakness. The 
 
376 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 so often reiterated. The word, as applied to the sacrifice of 
 Christ, intimates that this great sacrifice was offered once for 
 all, and that it required, and indeed allows, no repetition (Heb. 
 ix. 26, x. 10). Thus, as high priest, Christ had something to 
 offer: He offered Himself as the perfect high priest, and the 
 perfect sin-offering, tasting death for every one in such a way 
 that henceforth there was no need of further sacrifice for sin. 1 
 
 Before passing from this text, two questions canvassed by 
 theological writers demand an answer: 1. Was the Lord Jesus 
 in reality a priest on earth ? and, 2. Was He acting as a priest 
 on the cross, and previously ? We answer : The entire epistle 
 affirms both, and assumes both. So obvious is this to un¬ 
 biassed readers, that it might seem an extraordinary incon¬ 
 sistency to admit the canonical authority of the epistle, and 
 explain away its testimony to both truths. But from the 
 days of the first Socinians to our own time, many attempts 
 have been made to establish this on two grounds: first, that 
 the term priest, as applied to Christ, is metaphorical; next, 
 that His priesthood began with His exaltation, and not before. 
 These views tend to overthrow the vicarious sacrifice of the 
 cross. 
 
 1. The allegation that Christ is called a priest metapho¬ 
 rically, without being a true and proper priest, is easily an- 
 . swered, if we admit that biblical terms and analogies must 
 be taken in their natural meaning. When we find a regular 
 comparison between Christ’s priesthood and the Aaronic high- 
 priesthood, in regard to qualifications, the necessary call by 
 God, and sympathy to be exercised (Heb. v. 1-7), it is pre¬ 
 posterous to allege that all this is compatible with the sup¬ 
 position of a mere metaphor. 2 When the Messiah is described 
 
 opponents of the vicarious sacrifice are indeed reduced to straits when it comes 
 to this ! Christ’s sinless nature is incompatible with every shade of such ideas. 
 
 1 See Allinga on the Satisfaction of Christ. 
 
 2 See Stillingfleet on the Sufferings of Christ, and the appended remarks in 
 reply to Crellius ; Leslie, agt. Socinianism; and Chapman’s Defence, vol. ii. ; also 
 Harmsen, Over de Gencegdoening van J. C., 1806, pp. 315-327. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 377 
 
 as invested with, a priesthood according to a peculiar order, 
 different from that of Aaron, and superseding it, this estab¬ 
 lishes the same fact. And it further appears, when it is 
 announced that every priest was ordained to offer gifts and 
 sacrifices, and that this man must have somewhat also to offer 
 (Heb. viii. 3). Christ is thus a priest in the real acceptation 
 of the term—the truth of what was typical. In a word, He is 
 spoken of as a priest when raised up among men (Heb. vii. 
 11); when He came out of Judah (ver. 14); during the whole 
 period comprehended in the days of His flesh (v. 7); during 
 His contact with human society, when He was holy, harmless, 
 undefiled, and separate from sinners. 
 
 2. The allegation that His priesthood began not on earth, 
 but at His ascension, has only to be placed in the light of this 
 epistle to be fully refuted. Its entire teaching proves that 
 He acted as a priest during His whole humiliation, and that 
 His death was a sacrifice (Eph. v. 2; Heb. ii. 17, v. 7). A few 
 arguments may suffice to put this truth in its proper light, 
 without anticipating what will come before us in the sequel. 
 
 a. The high priest under the law was not first constituted 
 a priest when he entered the holiest of all: he had already, 
 in his capacity as high priest, slain the sacrifice, the blood 
 of which was carried within the veil. And, in like manner, 
 Christ was already a priest when He gave Himself for His 
 people. It was not, and could not be, a new sacrifice within 
 the veil, when one part, and the principal part of it, was per¬ 
 formed previous to His entry. 
 
 b. The passages which make mention of Christ’s one obla¬ 
 tion, or of His offering Himself once, are conclusive as to the 
 fact of His being a priest on earth; for that w^ord once cannot 
 be understood of what is done in heaven. It must refer to 
 His death as a historic fact, completed and finished here below. 
 It is against all reason to affirm that the sacrifice was offered 
 once, if it still continues; for the expression once, or ONE 
 offering, plainly contrasts the completed sacrifice with the 
 
378 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 continuous intercession which evermore proceeds upon it. Nor 
 does the epistle stop there: the analogy instituted between the 
 fact that it was appointed to all men once to die, and the one 
 atoning death of Christ (ix. 27), leaves us in no doubt that we 
 must view that sacrifice as completed on the cross. 
 
 c. The priestly sacrifice which Christ offered is emphati¬ 
 cally described as coincident with the Lord’s death. The 
 clearest proof of this is furnished in this epistle (Heb. ix. 26), 
 when it is noticed that the Lord was under no necessity to 
 offer Himself often, like the Jewish high priest, who had to 
 offer a new sacrifice with every annual return of the great day 
 of atonement, and enter with the blood of others. It declares 
 that to offer Himself often would have been equivalent to a 
 repeated suffering on the part of Christ; and therefore there 
 can be no more conclusive proof that Christ was a priest 1 on 
 earth, and that His sacrifice was consummated by His suffering 
 during His humiliation. 
 
 VI. We come now to a section of considerable extent, 
 treating copiously of the sacrifice of Christ, and of His priestly 
 action as the truth of all that was done by the Jewish high 
 priest on the great day of atonement (Heb. ix. 10-x. 22). To 
 this passage a greater amount of attention is deservedly due, 
 because the high priest’s entrance into the holiest of all de¬ 
 mands a fresh consideration. A general misapprehension as 
 to its meaning has given an appearance of probability to the 
 notion of a sacrifice or offering in heaven. 
 
 To bring out the outline of the apostle’s thought, let it be 
 noticed that the priestly function of Christ falls into two divi¬ 
 sions, the earthly and the heavenly. The priestly function in 
 heaven begins with His ascension; and the apostle lays special 
 emphasis upon His work in heaven, for the obvious reason that 
 He was refuting the current objection of the Jews at the time 
 when the epistle was written—viz. that Christianity, as con- 
 
 1 See Calovius, Socinismus profligatus; Turretin, de Satisfactione; Maresius, 
 Hydra Socinianismi. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 379 
 
 trasted with the still standing Jewish worship, had no visibly 
 officiating high priest. The apostle reiterates, in many ways, 
 that we have a great High Priest, who has passed through 
 space into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God (Heb. iv. 14); 
 that the ministration of our High Priest was in the true taber- 
 nacle (viii. 3); that this ministry was preceded by a sacrifice 
 of atonement before He ascended; that He offered Himself 
 once; and that this one offering was accomplished in His state 
 of abasement here below (Heb. vii. 27, viii. 3, ix. 14, ix. 28, 
 x. 14). 
 
 A. At the beginning of the ninth chapter reference is made 
 to the two compartments of the ancient tabernacle, and to the 
 fact that the high priest entered the holy of holies once a 
 year, not without blood. This arrangement, while it lasted, 
 intimated a time of imperfect expiation. His entering not 
 without blood on the day of atonement is called his offering 
 (ver. 7); but this did not attain the proper end of sacrifice, 
 which is to pacify the conscience (ver. 9). Only by forgive¬ 
 ness was the worshipper made perfect as pertaining to the 
 conscience, and into this condition the Jewish rites could not 
 transplant him. But Christ being come as an high priest, 
 the apostle affirms two things: first, eternal redemption was 
 
 i 
 
 effected by Him as an objective blessing; next, the purging of 
 conscience followed as the subjective consciousness of deliver¬ 
 ance (vers. 12, 14). Both are put in close connection with 
 the blood of Christ as the sin-offering, and the apostle reasons 
 from the one to the other in a striking way. 
 
 1. As to the eternal redemption, it is here, and everywhere 
 else in Scripture, put as the effect of Christ’s atoning blood. 
 This deserves notice, because the common rendering conveys a 
 harsh sense : “having obtained eternal redemption for us” (ver. 
 12). The participle with the verb in the past tense denotes 
 simultaneous action as well as previous action, and here it is 
 plainly simultaneous action. The rendering must be: “ He 
 entered in by His own blood once into the holy place, obtain- 
 
380 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 ing eternal redemption.” Grammar and doctrine equally de¬ 
 mand this, because the blood of sacrifice is uniformly spoken 
 of as the cause of redemption (Eph. i. 7; 1 Pet. i. 19 ; Bev. v. 9). 
 The participle, too, in the Greek aorist middle, 1 conveys the 
 idea that Christ in His own person, or in and of Himself, 
 without aid or instrumentality beyond His person, procured 
 this redemption, which is also termed eteknal because pos¬ 
 sessed of everlasting validity. 
 
 But how did His entrance into the holiest of all by His 
 own blood secure eternal redemption, and how is the language 
 to be understood ? Both inquiries will be satisfied when we 
 ascertain the moment at which this entering took place. The 
 usual interpretation affirms that it took place at the ascension. 
 But that is burdened with insuperable difficulties. We are 
 here taught that this entrance on the part of Christ was the 
 counterpart or truth of what the high priest performed when 
 He carried the blood into the holiest of all to atone for the 
 sins of the collective congregation of Israel. How, if that 
 action of the Jewish high priest was atoning or expiatory, it 
 plainly had no correspondence to anything done by our great 
 Lord in heaven; for certainly everything atoning, in the proper 
 sense of the term, was effected by what was done on earth, 
 not by what was done in heaven. But if we carefully examine 
 the sacrificial ritual, no doubt can exist that the sprinkling of 
 blood in the holiest of all belonged to the expiation objectively 
 considered. Atoning efficacy attached to the sprinkling of 
 blood on the mercy-seat, and to the pouring out of blood at 
 the altar. The text must be understood with reference to this : 
 without the shedding of blood [or perhaps better, the outpouring 2 
 of blood ] is no remission (Heb. ix. 22). Though, from the im¬ 
 perfection of the type, the two elements of priest and sacrifice 
 
 1 Xurpatriv ilpipivoi. (1) The aorist participle, I am fully persuaded, is here 
 expressive of contemporaneous action ; and (2) the middie voice implies Christ 
 obtained the redemption in and of Himself. (See Winer and the commentators.) 
 
 2 uifAa.rix.%v<rioL. So De Wette, Tholuck, Doedes, and others; and 1 think 
 correctly. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 381 
 
 could not be combined in one, the proper meaning of this 
 action was, that the priest was viewed as sprinkling liis own 
 blood upon the mercy-seat. 
 
 The entrance of our High Priest into the heavenly sanc¬ 
 tuary may be considered as taking place at the moment of 
 Christ’s death, when He resigned His spirit to God, and His 
 blood was poured forth upon the cross: then He appeared be¬ 
 fore His Father and Judge. All the ceremonies on the great 
 day of atonement corresponded with this view, for the atone¬ 
 ment for the people of Israel was not consummated till the 
 sacrificial blood was sprinkled on the ark of the covenant. 
 The figure therefore corresponds with the Lord’s entrance into 
 heaven immediately after His death, when soul and body were 
 sundered, and not with the idea of a triumphant entrance into 
 heaven, as it took place at His ascension, with all the jubilee 
 belonging to a coronation day. In the type, everything as¬ 
 sumes that the whole was completed on the atonement day. 
 And Christ’s resurrection on the third day, equivalent and 
 parallel to the return of the high priest from the holy of 
 holies, was a proof that He had entered with His OAvn blood, 
 and been accepted. The confusion which has arisen on this 
 subject is owing to the fact that writers have not duly dis¬ 
 tinguished between the Aaronic priesthood and the Melclii- 
 zedek priesthood. 
 
 The explanation above given carries with it an amount of 
 evidence and appropriateness which contrast, to its advantage, 
 with the other view, which only perplexes all who maintain it. 
 When we look at the passage before us, other indications in¬ 
 cline the balance in the same direction. Thus, the words “ He 
 entered by His own blood” plainly speak of a separation be¬ 
 tween soul and body. They cannot naturally be expounded 
 in any other way. And a second expression may be taken as 
 decisive, “ He entered in once for in all the other passages 
 where this word is used in connection with Christ’s work, it is 
 contrasted with the frequent repetition of the Old Testament 
 
382 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 sacrifices (vii. 23). It is always used as descriptive of some¬ 
 thing finished or completed, without the possibility of per¬ 
 petuating the action, or of adding to it (1 Pet. iii. 18). The 
 expression is used by the apostles to distinguish the atone¬ 
 ment as completed once for all, from the intercession, which 
 is continuous; and these two are never to he confounded 
 (Heb. ix. 25-27). For the object contemplated, only one 
 entry was necessary, not to be repeated; and this expression, 
 therefore, is diametrically opposed to the view that the lan¬ 
 guage of this verse refers to Christ’s ascension to intercede; 
 for the offering of Himself a sacrifice was completed once 
 for all. 
 
 This explanation was first proposed by several eminent 
 Dutch divines about the middle of last century, who felt how 
 unsatisfactory was the common interpretation; hut it never 
 received the currency or approval to which it was entitled. 1 
 The more it is considered, the more does it commend itself, 
 and the more do evidences multiply in its favour. A double 
 entry into heaven is indicated in these chapters,—the first at 
 the time of Christ’s death, the second when He entered with 
 His risen body as the Melchizedek priest. Aaron’s priesthood 
 
 1 This interpretation, so far as I have "been able to trace its origin and pro¬ 
 gress, seems to have been first propounded by Witsius ( de (Economia federum , 
 lib. ii. cap. 6, sec. 9). He says: “Monui fusioni sanguinis respondere sepa- 
 rationem animse Christi a corpore, qufe est ruptura veli et fractio corporis ; sicut 
 illatio animce in coelum ad representandam Deo expiationem morte factam, 
 respondet illationi sanguinis in Sanctum sanctorum.” Honert, on Heb. ix., 
 contends that there is a double entry of Christ into heaven mentioned in this 
 chapter,—the first in a disembodied state (vers. 11, 12), the second after His 
 resurrection (vers. 24-28). J. Honert, son of the former, in his Collect. Misc. 
 S., maintaining the same view, argues at large that the entrance of the high 
 priest on the day of atonement corresponded to the entrance of Christ’s soul into 
 heaven at the moment of death, and that the Aaronic priesthood shadowed forth 
 the priesthood oi Christ only up to the day of His resurrection. Albert Schul- 
 tens, in his Dutch commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, and Prof. Lotze, 
 over liet Hoogepriesterschap van J. C., 1800, earnestly contend for the same 
 view. (See our previous explanatory remarks on the sacrifices, p. 49.) De Moor, 
 Comment, perpet., combats this view as if it were maintained only by Honert, but 
 admits repeated entrances into the holiest of all on the day of atonement (pars 
 iv. p. 238). 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 383 
 
 does not seem to have typified anything beyond Christ’s re¬ 
 surrection. 
 
 2. The other benefit, subjective in its nature, is the purging 
 of conscience, adduced as a proof or evidence of the former 
 (vers. 13, 14). The logical particle for gives a reason for the 
 statement as follows: that which purges the conscience brings 
 in eternal redemption. In proof of this, the apostle appeals to 
 the types. And no one can evade the force of the statement 
 by calling it a mere allusion to ancient rites: for we have an 
 express comparison in which the atoning efficacy of Christ’s 
 death is always presupposed; and a contrast between the in¬ 
 sufficiency of the Old Testament atonements effecting only an 
 outward deliverance, and the all-sufficiency of Christ’s atone¬ 
 ment bringing in an everlasting deliverance. 
 
 The appeal is to two facts in the lower sphere of the an¬ 
 cient ritual of sacrifice. They effected something there, and a 
 comparison is drawn between these merely outward effects and 
 the spiritual effects produced by the death of Christ. I shall 
 but briefly touch on these types, more especially as they were 
 considered in a separate chapter. (1.) The apostle announces 
 that the blood of bulls and goats sanctified to the purifying of 
 the flesh. That is simply a repetition of what was said in the 
 previous verse as to the ritual of the great day of atonement 
 (ver. 12): the terms are in reality the same, and the allusion 
 the same. The meaning is, that the death of the victims in 
 the room of the guilty removed the threatened punishment by 
 removing the defilement of the worshipper; and the Israelites, 
 for whom the sacrifice was offered, were now sanctified, that is, 
 pure and holy, and entitled to all the ecclesiastical and civil 
 privileges of Israel. The apostle mentions (2) that the ashes 
 of the red heifer, preserved for cases of ceremonial defilement, 
 effected the same as the former (Hum. xix. 1-18). This heifer, 
 as well as the sin-offering that was offered on the day of atone¬ 
 ment, was a sin-offering for the entire congregation; and its 
 ashes, collected and dissolved in water, and sprinkled on the 
 
384 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 unclean, gave renewed access to the sanctuary, and to the 
 fellowship of God’s people. These were of old the great ar¬ 
 rangements for restoring the defiled, so that they escaped death 
 from a holy God. 
 
 On the imperfection of the ancient ceremonies this passage 
 is most explicit. The apostle shows that they sanctified only 
 to the purifying of the flesh, but not to the purging of the 
 conscience. This was obvious from the nature of the case. 
 The Mosaic law itself was far from ascribing any influence to 
 rites and ceremonies in the way of removing moral guilt, 
 though this passed current in the pharisaic schools of a later 
 day. The law appointed sacrifices only for some involuntary 
 states of body, or some inevitable violation of those positive 
 laws by which Israel was separated by God from other nations. 
 An investigation of the texts referring to these offences clearly 
 shows this (Lev. xii. 7; Hum. vi. 11, iv. 19; Lev. xv. 15, xiv. 
 2). In the case of persons contracting defilement—not to 
 mention the sacred utensils, the ark, the tabernacle, the altar, 
 which are also spoken of as receiving a purification by atone¬ 
 ment—the defilement was merely ceremonial, and did not of 
 itself touch the conscience except in virtue of a positive ap¬ 
 pointment. The person under ceremonial guilt, exposed to 
 outward visitations of punishment, and even to death, if expia¬ 
 tion was neglected, was not, properly speaking, morally guilty 
 or defiled in conscience. His offence, though shutting him out 
 from the sanctuary of the Lord and from the communion of 
 His people, was more in the court of ecclesiastical polity than 
 in the court of conscience, and carried with it, when punish¬ 
 ment came, nothing beyond what was corporeal and temporal. 
 The touching of a dead body, necessary in the event of death, 
 or the entering a tent where a dead body was, though bringing 
 ceremonial defilement and necessitating cleansing, was diffe¬ 
 rent from moral trespass. The atonements were of the same 
 character, positive and outward in their effects. They did not 
 cleanse the conscience, nor even enter into that inner circle 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 385 
 
 bearing upon man’s immediate personal relation to God: they 
 restored him to the outward sanctuary, and to the outward 
 worship with the people. But they did more; they also taught 
 important things. They taught (1) that sacrifices were of grace 
 on the part of God; (2) that they were vicarious; (3) that they 
 were a satisfaction for the sins of the people. The true point 
 of comparison on which this verse fixes our attention is, that 
 while a certain effect was produced in a lower sphere by the 
 ancient sacrifices, an everlasting effect was produced in a 
 higher sphere by the blood of Christ; that they both accom¬ 
 plished the end designed, but that there was a “much more” 
 in the latter case as contrasted with the former. This is the 
 tertium quid of the comparison. 
 
 What did the sacrifices effect ? They sanctified to the puri¬ 
 fying of the flesh,—that is, cleansed the worshipper ceremo¬ 
 nially ; for it is better to say ceremonially than corporeally, as 
 
 _ * 
 
 the latter word scarcely defines the result. They could effect 
 nothing more, nor was more intended. They did not, and could 
 not, make the worshipper perfect as pertaining to the con¬ 
 science (Heb. ix. 9): they could not remove the conscience of 
 sin, or the conscious knowledge of sin (x. 2): they could not 
 put away sin as to the objective guilt (x. 4). The Jewish 
 sacrifices could do none of these things, and never were in¬ 
 tended to come into that inner circle where man, as a moral 
 and responsible creature under a holy spiritual law, has to do 
 as a guilty sinner with a righteous and holy God. But they 
 were meant to do something in their true sphere: they put 
 aw r ay ceremonial defilement, temporal punishment, and that 
 exclusion from the sanctuary and the fellowship of God’s 
 people to which ceremonial defilement exposed them. The 
 passage before us asserts this. 
 
 It must be noticed further, that the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 is peculiarly clear and express on the inadequacy of the sacri¬ 
 fices to take away sins in any sense of the terms (x. 4). The 
 opposite opinion, by whomsoever maintained, and with what- 
 
386 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 ever modifications and caveats, is explicitly condemned. The 
 question is not, whether sin was remitted to Old Testament 
 saints waiting for the Messiah, the consolation of Israel, for 
 that is not to he called in question, hut whether these animal 
 sacrifices gave remission. And we do not hesitate to say that 
 the hare supposition of such a thing is to mistake the magni¬ 
 tude of sin. It would he a heathenish superstition: no en¬ 
 lightened conscience could believe it; and certainly the Bihle 
 never required any to suppose that moral guilt was removed hy 
 the hlood of hulls and goats. Ho modification of the theory 
 can make it tolerable in any form. 
 
 On the other side of the comparison, it remains to he’’ 
 noticed that there was not only a similarity, hut A much 
 moee, effected hy the hlood of Christ. In all such deductions 
 throughout the epistle there is a something of agreement, 
 and also a something of disparity (Heb. ii. 2, x. 28); for the 
 superiority of the one dispensation above the other is infinite. 
 The hlood of Christ, the counterpart of the hlood of the Jewish 
 sacrifices, purges the consciences,—that is, takes away the 
 sense of guilt, or the painful foreboding of merited punish¬ 
 ment. And When we inquire hy what means that was effected, 
 it appears that it was not hy doctrine, hut hy the hlood of 
 Christ sacrificially shed to put away the guilt of sin. We have 
 thus a correspondence between the two sacrifices, hut also A 
 much moee in the way of pre-eminence, and the writer argues 
 from the effect of the ancient sacrifices in their sphere to the 
 greater efficacy of Christ’s death. The comparison is important 
 for ascertaining the nature and effect of Christ’s death; for the 
 point of comparison is this: the animal sacrifice of the old 
 economy, substituted for the worshipper, effected something iii 
 the lower sphere, and the hlood of Christ, vicariously shed, 
 purifies our conscience from dead works. 
 
 B. The peculiar character of Christ’s atoning sacrifice must 
 also he considered: How much more shall tlic Hood of Christ, 
 who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 387 
 
 God, purge [better, cleanse'] your conscience from dead works, to 
 serve the living God ? (ver. 14.) Here several points of moment 
 are mentioned, bearing on the nature of the atonement as well 
 as its effects. First, Christ is introduced as the sacrifice, for 
 what He offered was Himself ; next, The context, as well as 
 language here used, in which He is described as the offerer, 
 represents Him as the priest; thirdly, The object to whom the 
 sacrifice was offered was God. Plainly, the Lord is spoken of 
 in these words as priest and sacrifice united. 
 
 1. That Christ is the sacrifice, in the true sense of the word, 
 is unambiguously affirmed; and this Israelitish style decides 
 the peculiar character of His death. It is noteworthy, that in 
 all the peculiar arrangements of the Old Testament ritual, 
 guilt was not permitted to rest on the individual, but was 
 removed by a variety of atonements. The trespass, though 
 but an infraction of a positive precept, could not be connived 
 at, and the offerers acknowledged their own just desert in the 
 death inflicted on the victims. They acknowledged, too, the 
 vicarious character of the transaction. By this means, indeed, 
 the idea of vicarious satisfaction, and the nomenclature con¬ 
 nected with it, came to be naturalized in the church of God,—a 
 palpable fact being necessary to support the idea. The whole 
 fifty-third chapter of Isaiah forms properly the transition from 
 the typical economy to that of the great moral and personal 
 atonement. But, from the imperfection of types, the victim 
 used in the old economy could only in a faint degree shadow 
 forth the constituent elements of the great sacrifice. Thus the 
 true vicarious sacrifice could only be a voluntary one; for as sin 
 arose from the free choice of the sinner, it followed that the 
 substitute could only be voluntary, and the sacrifice only such 
 as was freely offered,—a feature which could not, from the 
 nature of the case, be displayed in' animal sacrifices brought 
 by constraint to the altar. The free-will offering of Christ 
 discovers the love from which all originated. A second defect 
 in the old system was, that as there was no community of 
 
388 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 nature, no essential connection obtained between those for 
 whom the sacrifice was offered and the sacrifice itself, in the 
 arbitrarily formed relation between man and animal sacrifices. 
 A far other connection obtained between Christ and us: first, 
 a community of nature, on the ground of which He was a 
 kinsman; and then, a federal or legal union, on the ground of 
 which we were brethren (Heb. ii. 17). 
 
 a. Three words are here used to exhibit the greatness of the 
 sacrifice, and each of them may be said to add an element of 
 value and dignity,—viz. The Christ, without spot, through 
 the Eternal Spirit. As to the first, it cannot be questioned 
 that the blood of Messiah, or the Christ, has a special em¬ 
 phasis, because He was known to possess the highest dignity 
 as the Son of God, the Angel of the Covenant (Mai. iii. 1), 
 and the Mighty God (Isa. ix. 6). The apostle means that 
 Christ was not only the high priest (ver. 11), but also the 
 sacrifice (ver. 14). The blood of the Christ, as the expression 
 means, denotes that the long-promised Messiah was sacrifi- 
 cially offered, and that His blood was the blood of the divinely 
 commissioned God-man; and no deficiency could be supposed 
 to attach, even in idea, to His sacrifice in the room of millions, 
 as the infinite merits of the offerer were added to His work. 
 
 b. A second word, “ offered without spot,” also taken from 
 the sacrificial ritual, is meant to bring before us that Christ 
 was not only in a negative point of view exempt from every 
 conceivable defect, but in a positive point of view the pos¬ 
 sessor of perfect holiness, consisting in love to God and love to 
 man, to the full measure of the human capacity. He acted in 
 every scene, even when reviled and buffeted, so as never to 
 betray what savoured of impatience, reluctance, or want of love 
 in any part of His surety-obedience. The question has been 
 raised, Was that exemption from defect in the piacular sacri¬ 
 fices a mere condition, a mere prerequisite in the way of pre¬ 
 paration, or an element of the satisfaction, and shadowing forth 
 the active obedience of Christ as vicarious not less than His 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 389 
 
 death ? The answer must he in the affirmative. The integrity 
 and unspotted perfection of the sacrifice were indispensable, not 
 as a mere prerequisite, but as an element of the sacrifice, and 
 offered with it. Here the apostle not merely adduces the 
 blood, but adds the offering of Himself without spot, as equal 
 constituents in the sacrifice which purges the conscience. 
 
 c. A third expression, “ through the Eternal Spirit,” must 
 be noticed. This has been interpreted of the divine nature of 
 Christ by many,—especially since Beza expounded this, and 
 several other texts containing an allusion to the Spirit, in this 
 way (Rom. i. 4; 1 Tim. iii. 16 ; 1 Pet. iii. 18). But to that ex¬ 
 position there are insurmountable objections. This introduces 
 an arbitrary nomenclature of man’s invention. 1 It is more 
 appropriate to expound it of the Holy Ghost than of the divine 
 nature of the Son: for, in the first place, we have in the 
 passage a priest, who is Christ; then a sacrifice, which is also 
 Christ; then the Eternal Spirit, as the impelling power that 
 animated Him from within to respond to the divine com¬ 
 mission. The most eminent Greek exegetes, Witsius and others, 
 correctly see in this expression an allusion to the fire by which 
 the Levitical sacrifices were offered to God. Of this fire that 
 came forth from the Lord, and fell from heaven on the victim, 
 a historical account is given us in Scripture (Lev. ix. 23, 24) : it 
 was kept by divine appointment burning on the altar, and was 
 never to go out (Lev. vi. 12). That sacred fire was a symbol of 
 the Holy Ghost, who was often so represented (Acts ii. 3 ; 
 Luke xii. 49 ; Dan. vii. 10); who perpetually fans the flame 
 of divine love in the human heart, and renders all sacrifices 
 acceptable (Rom. xv. 6). There is no force in the objection 
 adduced in many quarters, to the effect that we cannot suppose 
 it an allusion to the Holy Ghost, because that would imply 
 that the value attaching to the Lord’s sacrifice would thus be 
 ascribed to the Holy Ghost, whereas it is always ascribed to 
 
 1 It cannot be proved that to vrviZfjoa,, used personally, ever means auglit else 
 than the third person of the Trinity. 
 
390 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 the divine dignity of Christ’s person. The anstver to this is 
 at hand. The Holy Spirit was the executive of all Christ’s 
 actions, internal and external; and those actions, peculiarly 
 fragrant because of their holy spirituality, derived their worth, 
 so far as intrinsic merit was concerned, from the fact that 
 they were the actions of the Son. The meaning of the clause 
 under consideration is, that the Holy Ghost, filling the Lord’s 
 humanity with unspeakable compassion, ardent zeal, fortitude, 
 energy, and fervent love, impelled Him forward on His atoning 
 work, and never suffered His mind to cool till the sacrifice was 
 accomplished. 
 
 2. Christ was the priestly offerer as well as the sacrifice: 
 “ He offered Himself.” With regard to this expression, it does 
 not refer to a mediatorial work performed in heaven, but to 
 what was completed once for all during His humiliation here 
 on earth, or at the moment of death; and all the passages 
 which make mention of an offering and sacrifice on the part 
 of Christ have this sense (Eph. v. 2 ; Heb. vii. 27, viii. 4, ix. 
 14, ix. 28, x. 10, x. 12, x. 14). We may regard the expression 
 before us as coincident with the phrase already mentioned, 
 “ By His own blood He entered in once into the holy place; ” 
 that is, if we explain both clauses as pointing to the completed 
 act of atonement within the veil. A large class of eminent 
 expositors, not Socinian in tendency, but perplexed by an 
 erroneous interpretation of the entrance into the holiest of 
 all, have given plausibility to the Socinian comment, that 
 Christ’s sacrifice was, in some modified sense, offered in heaven 
 subsequently to His ascension. The Socinian view is unmixed 
 error, leading men’s minds away from the cross, and setting 
 aside the vicarious work of suffering obedience. In the other 
 case it amounts to this: that the sacrifice was completed in 
 heaven, and that men are in some mystical way pardoned by 
 Christ’s resurrection-life, and not by His cross; a theory tend¬ 
 ing, in a subtle though little suspected way, to turn men’s 
 minds away from the atonement as the doctrine of the cross. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 391 
 
 We deny that the present text, or any text representing Christ’s 
 death as an offering and sacrifice, can be so expounded. 
 
 The expression He offered Himself, in the historical tense, 
 refers not to an* action in heaven, but to what was done on the 
 cross. The appearing in the presence of God for us is said to 
 be now, and is expressed by a different word (Heb. ix. 24). 
 We have explained what was meant by entering the holy of 
 holies, and proved that the slaying of the victim was only one 
 element in the sacrifice, requiring to be followed by sprinkling 
 the mercy-seat, as completing the expiation and the principal 
 act of sacrifice. All this was done in humiliation, and at the 
 moment of death, when Christ entered within the veil, still 
 a high priest when disembodied. The rending of the veil 
 attested the fact. The completion of the atonement was not 
 reserved for the ascension to heaven, into which the Lord was 
 to enter as His reward, not to complete His atoning work. 
 The entire atonement was in humiliation (Lev. xvi. 6, 9 ; 1 
 Pet. iii. 18; 2 Cor. v. 21). And in reply to those who allege 
 that the cross was but a violence inflicted, the answer is: It 
 was a sacrifice, as it was His own voluntary choice (John x. 18; 
 Heb. xii. 2). 
 
 3. The blood of the great sacrifice is next said to cleanse 
 the conscience from dead works, to serve the living God. 
 As we already found a more objective purification of the wor¬ 
 shipper (Eph. v. 26; Tit. ii. 14), so we here find a subjective 
 purification of the conscience from dead works. With regard 
 to those dead works, so called because they emanated from a 
 soul alienated from the life of God, they may be viewed as 
 including two different expositions. The commonly received 
 interpretation makes them sinful works to be repented of 
 
 (Heb. vi. 1), by which the conscience had been defiled; for 
 
 « 
 
 these made the man unclean, guilty in judgment, and the object 
 of divine wrath and condemnation. Modern expositors, for 
 the most part, regard those dead works as the outward works 
 of the law, by which the Jews, according to their pharisaic 
 
392 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 errors, expected their justification before God. There is no 
 warrantable ground for opposing one of these opinions to the 
 other : they ought to be united, on this ground, that they are in 
 an equal degree phases or displays of that alienation from the 
 life of God, to which the atoning blood is here said to bring 
 us back. 
 
 This purifying of the conscience is specially the removal of 
 a sense of condemnation, and of the pollution caused by con¬ 
 scious guilt. A distinction must be drawn between that 
 cleansing, effected by the blood of sacrifice first taking effect 
 upon the person of the worshipper, and then upon his con¬ 
 science, and that further renewing which frees him from the 
 inward power of sin. The one is by the cross, the other is by 
 the Spirit; and unquestionably it is the former to which our 
 attention is here directed. When conscience is cleansed, the 
 painful sense of unpardoned guilt ceases to agonize the mind: 
 it no more accuses or brings us into judgment before God’s bar. 
 Conscience, as a court erected in the human breast, and pro¬ 
 nouncing sentence in accordance with God’s law, is pacified by 
 nothing which does not pacify the justice of God. The blood 
 of Christ does this, and nothing else can; and for this end it 
 is not only laid to our account in the court of heaven, but 
 immediately applied to, or sprinkled on, the conscience. 1 The 
 blood of Christ, sacrificially offered, cleanses the conscience, 
 inasmuch as it conveys the most satisfactory evidence that it 
 was adapted to all the ends of divine justice, originating in the 
 appointment of God, and fitted to magnify His law. And the 
 effects of a purified or cleansed conscience will be seen in the 
 boldness of access, the peace, liberty, and hope, which Scripture 
 commonly connects with it (Eom. v. 1-3; Eph. ii. 18). 
 
 When a man receives the atonement, he has a sensible 
 peace and a well-grounded persuasion of exemption from guilt 
 and punishment, on the ground that if God had intended to 
 
 1 See tlie admirable sermon of Fraser of Alness on this text, as found in liis 
 works, appended to the explication of Eom. vi. and vii. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 393 
 
 visit him with punishment, the Son of God would not have 
 been put in a position to he punished in our stead. But a 
 further difficulty is presented to the mind. As I cannot say 
 that I never sinned, what can unmake that fact as if it had 
 never been ? Does not this memory abide as an everlasting- 
 stain in my conscience; and who can undo the past ? Can 
 even Omnipotence undo it ? The only answer is: Omnipo¬ 
 tence cannot; but the atonement can. And the explanation, 
 as suggested by this passage, is as follows:—A judicial exchange 
 ■of persons has been effected between Christ and sinners, by 
 which they truly enter into each other’s position. When the 
 man accepts this provision, keeping in view the two sides of 
 that personal exchange, he says: Sin does not attach to me, 
 but to my Substitute, who took it upon Him by an act allowed 
 at the divine tribunal. Punishment is not to strike on me, for 
 He tasted death for every one of His people: and the good 
 which the divine law required in its utmost conceivable perfec¬ 
 tion I have done; for what the Surety did, I did in Him, and 
 His merits are transferred to me with the accompanying boon 
 of the divine good pleasure. All this is effected in a way that 
 for ever humbles and abases the man; but that which paci¬ 
 fies God pacifies the human conscience, the vicegerent of God. 
 The purging of the conscience 1 is effected when we see that the 
 law suffers no wrong, and the divine attributes no indignity. 
 
 This turns aside the Cocceian comment, which refers the 
 language to the difference between the two economies. The 
 founder of this school, an eminent expositor in many respects, 
 adopted the notion that the fathers under the law were not 
 in possession of a pacified conscience, which he thought a 
 privilege of gospel times. He argued that the effect could 
 not exist when the cause did not exist. But the easy answer 
 is: The blood of Christ had retrospective as well as prospective 
 effects. The apostle does not deny a cleansing of conscience 
 
 1 See an excellent anonymous work, die grosse Lehre vom Gewissen, Leipz. 
 1769. 
 
394 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 under the law in the case of those who waited for the con¬ 
 solation of Israel. Contrasting two things, he ascribes to the 
 one what he denies to the other. He is not speaking of 
 believers under the law and under the gospel, hut of Hebrews 
 recently converted, who found in the blood of Christ a peace 
 vainly expected in the rites and ceremonies of Judaism. He 
 speaks of the same men in their previous and present condition. 
 
 4. As to serving the living God, this is the natural and 
 necessary result. The defilement of conscience hinders access; 
 the cleansing and perfecting of conscience facilitates access, and 
 emboldens the worshipper to draw near. ’The conscience either 
 bars or permits access to God. So long as sins are uncancelled, 
 exclusion from fellowship is continued, and the man has a 
 defiled or evil conscience. A cleansed conscience, attesting his 
 reception into the fellowship of God, enables and emboldens 
 him to serve the living God. 
 
 C. The apostle having named the ever-valid sacrifice of 
 Christ, is led by a natural transition of thought to refer to the 
 new covenant founded on it, and to the Mediator’s action in 
 regard to it: And for this cause He is the mediator of the new 
 testament [better, covenant], that by means of death, for the 
 redemption of [better, for redemption from ] the transgressions 
 that were under the first testament [covenant], they which are 
 [have been] called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance 
 (Heb. ix. 15). This verse begins a section on the subject of the 
 covenants, very variously expounded. It would draw us aside 
 from our purpose to enter into the conflicting views, though 
 they have an interest of their own. The apostle calls Jesus 
 Mediator (compare Heb. vii. 22, viii. 6, xii. 24), a designation 
 that has everything in common with that of High Priest,— 
 intimating one who has come under obligations for another, 
 and occupies his place. Each of the terms used— Surety, 
 Mediator, Advocate, High Priest— differing as they do from 
 each other only by a shade of meaning, brings before us Christ’s 
 work as a whole, and represents Him as occupied with it on 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 395 
 
 earth, and still continuing to he occupied with it in heaven. 
 When Christ is designated the Mediator of the new covenant, 
 the expression denotes that He is the founder of a new alliance 
 or fellowship between God and sinners, who previously were 
 infinitely remote and alienated from each other. 
 
 1. This did not take effect merely upon men then living; 
 for His vicarious death extended to transgressions under the 
 first covenant, as well as to those who lived subsequently to 
 the incarnation. The atonement, adequate to the sins of His 
 people in all times, made His sacrifice infinitely superior to the 
 shadowy economy it superseded. The apostle draws a contrast 
 between the sacrifice on the great annual festival of atonement, 
 with its shadowy expiation of ceremonial offering, as an effect 
 in the lower sphere, available only for the past year and for 
 men then living, and the atonement of Christ, which was for 
 all sins of all times, and even for men long dead. His death, 
 as is here stated, was an expiation for moral transgressions 
 under the first covenant, and which had remained unexpiated, 
 though remitted in the forbearance of God (Rom. iii. 25). On 
 the ground of the previous proof as to the efficacy of Christ’s 
 sacrifice, the apostle declares that it was retrospective, and 
 atoned for transgressions till then unexpiated.' Christ’s atone¬ 
 ment cannot be conceived of except as a proper expiation, if 
 we trace these two elements: it took the place of the Old 
 Testament sacrifices, which were undoubtedly atonements in 
 their own sphere; and it accomplished what they, from their 
 insufficiency, could not accomplish. When we consider the 
 expression, “redemption from the transgressions that were 
 under the first covenant,” and connect this result with the 
 Mediator’s death 1 as the meritorious cause, according to the 
 express terms of this passage, we are taught that Christ’s death 
 removed the punishment of those transgressions which previ¬ 
 ously were unatoned for by any sacrifices. That conclusion is 
 inevitable: the allusion is to actual sins, or moral trespasses, 
 
 1 6a.vtx.rou yivofxivou u; uTroXvrputnv ruv orapoi/oatnoijv. 
 
396 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 committed under the old economy. This thought is demanded, 
 too, by the connection: a harrier was put by these transgres¬ 
 sions in the way of access to the sanctuary. 
 
 2. This representation decides on the nature of Christ’s 
 atonement as a vicarious satisfaction. If we place it alongside 
 of the theory that makes Christ’s death a confirmation of His 
 doctrine, what influence on previous ages could the Mediator’s 
 death by any possibility exercise, considered as the confirma¬ 
 tion of His doctrine ? All that effect must, from the necessity 
 of the case, be prospective, not retrospective. But, considered 
 as an expiation of transgressions, it could very well influence 
 past as well as future ages. If, again, with others, we view the 
 death of Christ as fitted only to deliver men from slavish fear, 
 we may ask by what figure of speech can the expression here 
 used, “ redemption from transgressions which were under the 
 first covenant,” be made to signify slavish fear of punishment ? 
 It were a violence to language to torture it to such a sense. 
 
 VII. The nature of the atonement is illustrated by the 
 comparison between Christ’s one sacrifice and the annually 
 repeated sacrifice of the Jewish high priest; and then, again, 
 by death, considered as the common lot of men, and the pro¬ 
 pitiatory death of Christ: But now once in the end of the world 
 [or, world-ages ] hath He appeared, to put away sin by the 
 sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to 
 die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to 
 bear the sins of many: and unto them that look for Him shall 
 He appear the second time, without sin unto salvation [better, so 
 Christ, being once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear 
 the second time without sin to them who wait for Him unto sal¬ 
 vation ] (Heb. ix. 26-28). The statement is, that Christ once 
 appeared, in the end of the ages, to cancel or put away sin. 
 How ? By the sacrifice of Himself. The expression to put 
 away cannot mean to put away the idea of criminality or ill- 
 desert ; nor can we refer it to the removal of corruption by His 
 doctrine. The apostle speaks of His sacrifice, not of His doc- 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 397 
 
 trine. And as He did not offer Himself often, the one sacrifice 
 was adequate to cancel the sin committed from the beginning. 
 The sufferings of Christ effected this, not as a magnanimous 
 display of self-sacrifice, nor as a mere declaration of divine 
 love; for that could only gain its end prospectively, not retro¬ 
 spectively. The simple meaning is, that Christ put away sin 
 by the atonement. Though the expression is so general that 
 it seems to comprehend the putting away the power of sin, the 
 connection and allusion to sacrifice limit the meaning 1 to the 
 cancelling of guilt. 
 
 The next comparison between the once inflicted penalty of 
 death and the one atonement is equally significant (ver. 27). 
 The expression once to die is not to be taken simply for 
 the separation of soul and body, but for death penally con¬ 
 sidered ; for of some we read that they went down alive into 
 hell (Hum. xvi. 30). The apostle speaks of death as the penal 
 doom of sin, the word once being the emphatic term; and the 
 analogy between the two things is, that as there is one penal 
 death impending over men, so Christ died once to remove 
 their penalty. The Surety, adequate as He was to the task 
 of assuming our responsibilities, and of entering into our con¬ 
 dition, was thus appointed to die only once. But after death 
 followed the judgment. Two things are in the comparison: 
 first, man’s dying once, having its counterpart in Christ’s one 
 sacrifice; then the second advent of the Lord, for the complete 
 salvation of the redeemed, in place of judgment. By an appeal 
 to man’s history, the passage thus convincingly establishes that 
 only one sacrifice for sins was necessary, and that Christ’s one 
 death sufficed for all time. The proof is drawn from the 
 consideration that as nothing more was due in the history of 
 man, so nothing more was in Christ’s obligation. The com¬ 
 parison is based on the suretyship of the Lord, rendering Him¬ 
 self liable to man’s obligations. The dying once, and the one 
 
 1 Bleek and Delitzscli, without necessity, make tU «6irv<riv ifiaprlus so general 
 as to denote also the annihilation of the dominion of sin. 
 
398 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 offering for sin, are thus put together as counterparts, plainly 
 proving substitution, if anything can. Not only so: the one 
 sacrifice of Christ, represented as the counterpart of our penal 
 death, indisputably proves, against the Socinians, and all who 
 fall in with their theory, that Christ’s sacrifice was on earth, 
 and not in heaven after His ascension. His one offering was 
 in death. 
 
 We must now more particularly discuss the import of the 
 clause, “so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many” 
 (ver. 28). The passage is by universal consent regarded as a 
 quotation from Isaiah (Isa. liii. 12), conveying the idea of 
 vicarious sin-bearing; that is, of taking His people’s sins on 
 Himself, and bearing the consequences to be inflicted on sinful 
 humanity in their stead. They who give another turn to the 
 expression, and arbitrarily allege that the verb is to be viewed 
 as denoting “to take away,” are chiefly biassed by doctrinal 
 prejudices adverse to vicarious sin-bearing. The assertion has 
 been hazarded, that the epistle knows nothing of the formula 
 that “He bore our sins,” but always speaks of taking them 
 away. 1 Others, however, having no objection to the doctrine 
 of sin-bearing, encounter a new difficulty, founded on the order 
 of events, as follows: The language is, “ He was once offered 
 to bear sins,” which at first sight seems to say that He was 
 offered in order to bear sins, and consequently that sin-bearing 
 is viewed as succeeding the offering properly so called. Hence 
 they think themselves shut up to the rendering, “ to take away 
 sinsfor they argue that it cannot be said, “ He was once 
 offered to bear sins,” but conversely. That difficulty, however, 
 may easily be obviated. As the oblation is commonly put in 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is represented as Christ’s own 
 act: He is set forth as at once priest and victim; the obvious 
 meaning being, that the sin-bearer offered Himself. Accord- 
 
 1 Thus Reuss rashly expresses himself: l’Epitre ne connait pas la formule 
 qu’il a port£ nos peehes ; elle dit toujours qu’il les a otes (Hist, de la Theol. 
 Chret. ii.). 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 399 
 
 ingly, we find Him represented as a sacrificing priest offering 
 Himself (Heb. ix. 14), and carrying His own blood into the 
 holiest of all (ix. 25). But here the expression is used pas¬ 
 sively, describing God’s action in the matter, not Christ’s 
 action as the high priest. And in this use of the phrase it 
 embraces all that may be regarded as included in the mission, 
 manifestation, and giving up of the Son of God. The phrase 
 has thus a larger and wider sense when applied to God. 
 
 The same thing is evident from a comparison of this verse 
 with a previous one (ver. 26). The intervening verse (ver. 27) 
 does not break the connection: it is only the first member in a 
 serious of parallels. There is one parallel between Christ’s 
 appearing once for all and His one offering: there is another 
 between His putting away sin and His bearing sin. A 
 marked correspondence obtains, and the words set forth the 
 completeness of the atonement as offered once, and needing 
 no repetition. The passage assumes that Christ willingly sub¬ 
 mitted to the ordinary penal law appointed to man ; the whole 
 clause having reference to the vicarious work of the servant 
 of God mentioned in Isaiah (Isa. liii. 12). That the expression 
 here used means to bear sms, may be established by two con¬ 
 clusive arguments,—the one based on the philological import 
 of the term, and the other on the context. 
 
 1. The proper import of the expression to bear the sms 
 of many, is to bear or carry them up : that is, to the cross, as 
 some view it; or to lay them on His own person, as others 
 prefer to view it. This is the shade of meaning which the 
 verb expresses. 1 The idea of removal does not express the 
 primary signification, and no instance can be adduced from the 
 
 1 See Beza, and Grotius, de Satisfactione, p. 14. Afterwards, when Grotius’ 
 Commentary appeared, it was found that he had changed his interpretation 
 into avferre, as many moderns render it, viz. Bleek, Lunemann, Hofmann. 
 See an admirable discussion on the meaning of a.va<pipuv apotp-Ttots by Yan Yoorst 
 in his de Usu Verborum cum Prcepositionibus Compositorum in N. T. 1818, pp. 
 148-166, with a thorough refutation of Grotius’ second thoughts. He proves 
 that %copi> a.pu.prices and auferre would furnish no antithesis such as is plainly 
 meant. 
 
400 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 usage of language in proof of the meaning “ to take away.” An 
 interpreter, therefore, who knows his function, will abide by 
 the laws of language. This fact is decisive as to the import of 
 the expression, and may be appealed to by those who maintain 
 that the essence of the atonement consists in sinless sin-bearing 
 on the part of the appointed Christ, the Son of God. The con¬ 
 stituent element of expiation is sin-bearing, and not the mere 
 removal of sin in the future, whether that may be effected by 
 instruction or inward reformation. They who persist in assign¬ 
 ing to the verb the signification of taking away, have nothing 
 but conjecture in their favour; and something better must be 
 adduced as authority when the question is the meaning of a 
 phrase and the aspect of a doctrine. 
 
 2. The same thing is proved by the context. The apostle, 
 contrasting the two comings of the Lord, affirms that at His 
 first coming He bore the sins of many, while at His second 
 advent He will appear without sin. The phrase must mean, 
 without vicarious sin-bearing, suggesting that at His first 
 coming He was a sin-bearer. It cannot refer to personal sin, 
 as He had none, nor to anything approaching to the notion of 
 a fallen humanity. But while He was on earth. He was at 
 once separate from sinners and made sin. 
 
 The expression “ to bear the sins of many ” intimates that 
 Christ, in a certain sense, sustained the person of sinners. As 
 a historic fact, running through all stages of the Lord’s earthly 
 life, this was the core of the atonement; and this aspect of it 
 is the key to the entire doctrine. Sin-bearing was necessary 
 to the propitiation as a presupposition or indispensable pre¬ 
 liminary ; and without it we encounter difficulties which find 
 no solution. What light does Scripture throw upon it ? It 
 is the well-known Old Testament formula for being guilty, 
 whether that may be personal or vicarious; and in numerous 
 passages it conveys the idea of being guilty as contrasted with 
 being guiltless (Hum. v. 31). It may be personal guilt to 
 which allusion is made; or, where the sins of others are. said 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 401 
 
 to be borne, it means to incur their guilt, to come under their 
 obligation to punishment (Ezek. xviii. 19). 
 
 Between the general undertaking of suretyship and the 
 actual infliction of the curse there lay an intermediate arrange¬ 
 ment, by which the Lord Jesus occupied a positive relation to 
 our penalty. This w r as sin-bearing or guilt, rendering it just 
 that the moral Governor of the universe should exact the ex¬ 
 piation. That the Lord Jesus assumed sin, and incurred a 
 liability to punishment, when He came in the flesh and was 
 found in fashion as a man, is to be affirmed on the strict 
 interpretation of the language used by the apostles. They 
 affirm that He bore sin, and was made sin. Of the two 
 expressions just mentioned, sin-bearing has reference to sin 
 considered as a heavy burden, while the other means that 
 the Lord, personally sinless, was made the embodiment of 
 sin, or incorporated sin in an official point of view; for the 
 personal and official are to be kept distinct, and in this 
 matter sin-bearing is official, distinguished from what was 
 properly personal. However various the nomenclature, no 
 biblical phrase more precisely sets forth the essence of the 
 atonement than sin-bearing. 
 
 VIII. So important for the apostle’s purpose was the differ¬ 
 ence between the annual sacrifice of the Aaronic high priest 
 and the one sacrifice of Christ, that an entire section of the 
 tenth chapter is devoted to the exposition of it (Heb. x. 1-10). 
 And much may be derived from this connected portion to ex¬ 
 plain the proper nature of the atonement. The points of 
 similarity have been brought out; now we have to trace the 
 points OE contrast. Having proved in the last verses of the 
 previous chapter that Christ’s sacrifice could not be repeated, 
 partly because that would carry with it repeated suffering, 
 partly because it would be contrary to the analogy of man’s 
 own history, which appoints man to die once,—the Substitute 
 acting only according to the obligations of the represented,— 
 the apostle, at the tenth chapter, sets forth by contrast the 
 
402 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 sufficiency of Christ’s one sacrifice. The imperfection of the 
 sacrifices annually offered on the great day of atonement is 
 put before us in the first four verses of the chapter. There are 
 three distinct grounds mentioned by the apostle which conclu¬ 
 sively prove the inadequacy of those sacrifices, each furnishing 
 a point of contrast to the perfection of Christ’s sacrifice. 
 
 1. The first contrast is derived from the fact that the 
 ancient sacrifices w~ere but a shadow, or rough outline, of good 
 things to come, and not the things themselves ; or, as it is here 
 expressed, not the very image of the things 1 (ver. 1). It might 
 at first sight seem that the apostle contrasts two things which 
 in different degrees represent the substance,—a rude sketch 
 and a fully painted figure. But it is the shadow contrasted 
 with the substance or reality, blow if these priestly sacrifices, 
 the culminating points of the ancient worship, were but 
 shadows or pictures, they obviously could not put the wor¬ 
 shipper on a right footing with God. They could not perfect 
 him, in the sense of justifying his person, and giving him a 
 right, as a purified worshipper, to approach the living God. 
 We may take in the subjective element of a purged conscience 
 as included in the term perfect, as it is commonly employed, 
 though it is as natural to take it in the objective sense (comp, 
 ver. 14). According to the apostle, those unsubstantial shadows 
 could not perfect the worshippers ; that is, could not satisfy the 
 justice of God, and atone for sin, which was the great promise 
 from the beginning. 
 
 2. A second reason for the inadequacy of the ancient sacri¬ 
 fices is taken from their annual repetition (vers. 2, 3). Whether 
 we read the first clause interrogatively or not, the apostle 
 emphatically declares, that had they availed to perfect the 
 worshippers, that annual iteration would have been needless. 
 They would have ceased or been superseded. The ground on 
 which this is put is noteworthy: For the worshippers, once 
 purged [or, cleansed'], should have had no more conscience of sins ; 
 
 1 See Turretin, de Scitisfactione, p. 239. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 403 
 
 assuming that the purifying from sin has, as its effect, the re¬ 
 moval of a guilty conscience. The perfect participle denotes 
 something clone once for all, describing the condition of those 
 whose consciences have been purged. The opposite of this was 
 the characteristic of the Old Testament worshippers, where no 
 provision w 7 as made for the acceptance of their' persons, but 
 only for the cleansing of ceremonial trespasses, soon to become 
 as numerous as before. The new covenant accepts the person, 
 and perfects him as pertaining to the conscience. The apostle’s 
 argument is, that had their relation been perfected, an echo of 
 it would have been heard subjectively in a pacified conscience. 
 The conscience, already mentioned (Heb. ix. 14), is not mere 
 consciousness, but consciousness alive to man’s relation to God, 
 and having God for its object, the consequence of which is a 
 charge of guilt while man’s relation remains unrectified. The 
 worshippers under the law thus had a fresh remembrance of 
 sins year by year, having neither personal acceptance nor a 
 pacified conscience. 
 
 Here it is necessary to correct a piece of over-doing—a 
 theory as to the imperfection of the Old Testament believers. 
 From this passage it was argued by the Cocceian school, that if 
 there was a conscience of sin, true peace of conscience could 
 not be possessed. That by no means follows, as will be appa¬ 
 rent to every one who apprehends the retrospective character 
 of the Lord’s death. The power to perfect the worshippers is 
 denied to the law, and proved by the repetition of the same 
 sacrifices, but is not denied to the efficacy of the great sacrifice 
 by anticipation applied to believers under the old economy. 1 
 So far from detracting from the honour of Christ’s sacrifice, 
 this exhibits its vast potency, as not only adapted to ages that 
 were to run after He came, but also possessing retrospective 
 efficacy. A certain difference there was between believers 
 under the Old Testament and under the Hew,—a difference 
 
 1 See Rev. A. Bonar’s elucidations of Leviticus ; also Knobel, Com. zu 
 Leviticus, 1852; and B. W. Newton’s Thoughts on Leviticus. 
 
404 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 neither to be denied nor ignored, but of a peculiar nature. 
 They had a conscience of sin, not yet expiated, but one day to 
 be fully expiated by the great sacrifice of Messiah. They were 
 like us, yet with a shade of difference; that is, more in degree 
 than in kind. They could have, and actually had, peace of 
 conscience, as we have. But, according to their historical 
 position, they had of necessity a peculiar experience, into 
 which we cannot enter. Not the want of acceptance or pardon, 
 not the fear that had torment; but a certain conscience of sin, 
 such as we have not, that is, of sin as a something not actually 
 atoned for—not yet expiated in fact. Hence, though sin had 
 long ago been judicially forgiven, the spirits of the just seem 
 to have been made perfect in this subjective sense, when the 
 great fact of the atonement arrived (Heb. xi. 40, xii. 23); for 
 this must have been imparted to them by a knowledge of the 
 event, and an experience of its potency. 
 
 3. The third reason assigned for their inadequacy and im¬ 
 perfection is: It is not possible, that the blood of bills and of 
 goats should take away sins (ver. 4); a reason derived from the 
 necessity of the thing, whether we look at the nature of God, 
 the nature of man, or the infinite demerit of sin. The atone¬ 
 ment must be offered in man’s nature, to satisfy the injured 
 rights of God, which the blood of bulls and goats could not 
 effect. The apostle pronounces it impossible, because the blood 
 of irrational animals bore no proportion to the sins of rational 
 beings, which could not be removed by any arbitrary arrange¬ 
 ment. But why could not sins have been taken away by these 
 Jewish sacrifices, if, as many allege, God cancels them without 
 atonement? We see the necessity of an adequate satisfaction; 
 for the impossibility is founded in the thing itself, and the 
 appeal is to the divine justice and holiness. 1 
 
 Having proved, from the necessity of the case, the inade¬ 
 quacy of animal sacrifices, the apostle next shows that, in point 
 
 1 An argument is warrantably based on this statement for the absolute 
 necessity of a satisfaction by AVitsius, cle Feedere, p. 177, Yander Kemp, etc. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 403 
 
 of fact, they were set aside as insufficient (Heb. x. 3-10); and 
 a quotation is made from the book of Psalms, in which this 
 was clearly announced (Ps. xl. 6-8). As we have already 
 explained this passage, nothing further is necessary than to 
 advert to the appended words of the apostle in introducing the 
 quotation, and commenting upon it. He plainly considered the 
 passage as an utterance of Christ when He came into the 
 world: “ Wherefore, when He cometh into the world, He saith, 
 Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not” (ver. 5). The logical 
 particle wherefore intimates that, by reason of the imper¬ 
 fection of the Old Testament sacrifices. He came not to offer 
 these fruitless sacrifices, but to do the will of God in their 
 room. The quotation contrasts the imperfection of animal 
 sacrifices with moral obedience and willing service: “ Lo, I 
 come to do Thy will, 0 God.” In animal sacrifices God had 
 no pleasure, because, though divinely appointed, they were 
 inadequate to be the true sacrifice, which required moral obe¬ 
 dience. This spiritual obedience looked beyond Old Testament 
 times, and was realized only when Christ fulfilled the divine 
 will. But it is added, there was the removal or taking away 
 of the first thing mentioned in the quotation, that is, of animal 
 sacrifices, that He might establish the second, that is, the doing 
 God’s will. The Mosaic worship, with its complicated system 
 of sacrifices, was superseded by something better coming in its 
 stead. And the apostle appends a commentary, the import of 
 which must be brought out in a few particulars: By which will 
 [better, in which will] we are sanctified, through the ofilering of 
 the body of Jesus Christ once (Heb. x. 10). 
 
 1. What is meant by the expression, IN which will ? Can 
 it intimate the ready will or promptitude of the Messiah to 
 respond to the divine commission, and to carry it out ? That 
 cannot competently be maintained, because the preceding verse 
 (ver. 9) expressed the divine will of the Bather purposing that 
 Christ should be the personal sacrifice. Besides, the will here 
 mentioned is distinguished by the terms employed from the 
 
406 
 
 apostles’ sayings on tiie atonement.. 
 
 offering itself. The original word used in the Psalm gives the 
 idea of God’s good pleasure ; hut the apostle renders it Thy 
 will (ro deXrjfJba gov), a term wide enough to comprehend the 
 agreement or compact between the Father and the Son, and the 
 commandment which needed to be performed, that the issue 
 might correspond to the will of God. It is not the moral law 
 simply,—an idea added in the Psalm, though not quoted by 
 the apostle,—but all that was enjoined upon the Surety; and 
 the translation we have given— in which will —brings out 
 the sphere or element in which the great sacrifice was offered, 
 as well as the sphere in which we are sanctified. 1 
 
 2. The one offering must be noticed. This point the 
 apostle repeatedly inculcates in the epistle, in proportion to its 
 importance. He will have attention paid to the one historic 
 fact of Christ’s vicarious obedience and death. The word once 
 excludes all repetition of Christ’s sacrifice ; for it must be con¬ 
 strued, as our translators have done, with the offering of the 
 Lord’s body (comp. Heb. vii. 23, 24, ix. 24-28). The unity of 
 the sacrifice is further mentioned, as we shall see in the subse¬ 
 quent verses. 
 
 3. Christ’s sacrifice consists in the offering of His body: 
 He is compared and contrasted with the annual sacrifice. The 
 term body denotes here His humanity; for His soul as well as 
 His body was offered. This term is contrasted with the bodies 
 of animals burned on the altar; for in the previous verses the 
 Psalm was quoted : “ A body hast Thou prepared me.” More 
 necessary is it to examine the force of the expression, “ the 
 offering of the body of Jesus Christ once,” because many— 
 with a modification of the Socinian theory, which transfers 
 Christ’s sacrifice to His ascension to heaven—give but a half¬ 
 hearted adherence to the great truth that the Lord’s sacrifice 
 was completed on the cross. That scheme of thought is refuted 
 
 1 See Waleh, de Obedientia Christi A diva, p. 8. Sebastian Schmid, on 
 Hebrews, says here: “Voluntas et lex Dei patris non tantum decalogus, seu 
 lex moralis est; sed omnis Voluntas Dei circa redemptionem humani generis.” 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 407 
 
 by this expression, which can only refer to the cross. It could 
 not be in the apostle’s mind to affirm that Christ offered His body 
 to God at the ascension; for the only ostensible plea on which 
 men advocate an offering in heaven is, that, according to the 
 typical economy, the blood was carried into the holiest of all, 
 which they groundlessly conclude was done at His ascension. 
 But He offered Himself when He bore our sins on His own 
 body (1 Pet. ii. 24); and the sacrifice was completed at His 
 death, and incapable of supplement or repetition. 
 
 4. We are said to be sanctified in this element of God’s 
 will, and by the one sacrifice of the Lord’s body. How the 
 worshippers were sanctified by sacrifice, has been noticed above. 
 It is a relative, not inherent sanctification; for sacrifice put men 
 on a right footing with God, covering their guilt, and calming- 
 conscience. It is sacrificial phraseology, and not to be inter¬ 
 preted of moral amendment. 
 
 The previous statements, taken from the sacrificial phrase¬ 
 ology, throw a steady light on the true design of Christ’s 
 obedience unto death. They show that He is the truth of 
 those shadows. Though the Hew Testament writers, accus¬ 
 tomed to the sacrificial style, do not wholly abandon it even 
 when no express comparison is made between the sacrifices 
 and the death of Christ, it was the very design of this epistle 
 to bring out the typical relation; and we have had express 
 testimony to the fact that the death of Christ was a sacrifice 
 (vii. 27) ; that He offered a better sacrifice (ix. 23); that He 
 put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself (ix. 26) ; that His 
 sacrificially shed blood purges our consciences from dead works 
 (ix. 14); and that the offering of His body sanctifies us, in the 
 sense of dedicating us as a covenant people to God (x. 10). 
 All these passages affirm that the death of Christ was a sacri¬ 
 fice, by which men are separated as a peculiar people for the 
 worship of the living God : and it is important to see the thing 
 signified in the symbol, the antitype in the type. If the 
 ancient sacrifices, as symbols in the lower sphere, freed the 
 
408 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 worshipper from merited punishment, because guilt passed 
 over to the victim, the death of Christ in like manner, in a 
 higher sphere, not only displayed the punishment due to us 
 for sin, hut effected the removal of our punishment. It put us 
 in the position of a people near to God, a holy people, as Israel 
 were in a typical sense. All this was brought about by sacri¬ 
 fice. The Old Testament sacrifices occupied the place of those 
 who brought them, and who saw their sin and punishment 
 transferred; and in the same way the death of Jesus was 
 vicarious, because He actually bore His people’s punishment, 
 and restored them to favour and holy fellowship. Nor does 
 this view convey ought unworthy of God. The sacrifices did 
 not represent God as moved to mercy by the shedding of 
 blood, for they were provided in grace, and argue a gracious 
 plan by which all the attributes of God are magnified. 
 
 As to the remaining portion of this connected section, we 
 may content ourselves with merely touching the salient points 
 (vers. 11-14). The apostle contrasts the action of the Jewish 
 high priest with Christ’s official action. The Hebrew Chris¬ 
 tians were somewhat troubled by Jewish cavils as to the non¬ 
 repetition of the atonement; and the apostle, comparing the 
 two priesthoods, shows why no repetition of Christ’s work was 
 necessary or possible. Omitting the proof for the sufficiency 
 of Christ’s finished work, from the great fact of His resurrec¬ 
 tion, let us notice a threefold antithesis: the first, between 
 every priest or high priest daily ministering, and this Man; 
 the second, between the same repeated sacrifices and the one 
 sacrifice for sin; the third, between the insufficiency of the 
 one and the all-sufficiency of the other. What a vain parade 
 of language, if it were not meant that the atonement is to be 
 traced to the death of Christ, in the same way as the Israelites, 
 in a lower sphere, ascribed to the priestly sacrifices their de¬ 
 liverances from defilement! 
 
 One point to be determined is : How are we to construe the 
 expression for ever in the verse, “ But this man, after He had 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 409 
 
 offered one sacrifice for sin for ever, sat clown on tire right hand 
 of God?” (ver. 12.) Opinion is pretty equally divided on the 
 question whether the words for ever are most fitly joined 
 with the “ one sacrifice,” denoting that it was eternally valid; 
 or with the following words, denoting that He sat down for 
 ever. On many accounts we greatly prefer the former; and the 
 repetition of the same expression further down, He perfected 
 for ever (ver. 14), renders this highly probable, for the one is 
 the foundation of the other. Thus, “ Christ offered one sacrifice 
 for sins for ever,” and this fact “perfected for ever” those 
 who share in it. 1 The everlasting validity attaching to it was 
 due to this, that it was ONE sacrifice of infinite sufficiency, with 
 retrospective as well as prospective influence, and capable of 
 rectifying for ever man’s relation to God. This text plainly 
 calls it “one sacrifice” (ver. 12), and views it as incapable of 
 being repeated. It is not represented as perpetually offered in 
 heaven. The antithesis between the two sacrifices and the two 
 priesthoods is very emphatic. The one high priest is represented 
 as daily ministering, and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, 
 which could never take away sins; the other High Priest offers 
 one sacrifice for sins, and then sits down. Ho one interpreting 
 naturally will refer this one sacrifice to anything but the 
 finished work on the cross—the ground of His reward. The 
 oblation was on earth, and the intercession in heaven; the 
 oblation only once, and the intercession perpetual. The parti¬ 
 cipial clause in the first part of the verse is meant to indicate 
 antecedent, not simultaneous action (ver. 12); and a similar 
 style of expression occurs at the beginning of the epistle (Heb. 
 i. 3). 
 
 The apostle is now led to subjoin a further statement of the 
 same thing in an aphoristic form: For by one offering (^rpoa^opcc) 
 He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified (ver. 14). 
 
 1 This is the construing of Tlieophylact, Luther, Tholuck. The original 
 pointing also of the authorized English version was : ‘ ‘ This man, after He had 
 offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down.” 
 
410 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 This assigns the reason of the previous statement, as is evident 
 from the causal or grounding particle for ,—a reason based on 
 the sufficiency of the sacrifice for all the purposes of man’s 
 salvation. Because it was so, the Surety sat down on His 
 mediatorial throne, waiting for the final victory. As to the 
 word offering here used, it is of the same meaning with the 
 previous term sacrifice (ver. 12), but more general. The 
 same two terms are applied, but in a different order, to the 
 death of Christ in another epistle (Epli. v. 2). When the 
 apostle says, “ by one offering,” 1 he plainly alludes to the 
 previous expression, “through the offering of the body of Jesus 
 Christ once” (ver. 10). As all the terms here used have been 
 already considered, two remarks will suffice. 
 
 1. We have another emphatic reference to the one sacrifice. 
 The importance of this point was great. It could not be placed 
 in too great prominence, as will appear by recalling other 
 passages to the same effect (Heb. vii. 27, ix. 26, 28). In this 
 passage, after pointing out that the Levitical atonements cul¬ 
 minated in the sin-offering which the high priest offered year 
 by year continually, and the repetition of which argued imper¬ 
 fection, he shows that the Lord Jesus, by one offering, or by 
 the offering of His body once (ver. 10), perfected for ever them 
 that are sanctified. Before passing from this point, it may be 
 noticed that the one sacrifice is a point of as great moment 
 against Socinians and Bomanists as it was against the ancient 
 Jews of the apostle’s age: it cannot be put in too great pro¬ 
 minence. It is diametrically opposite to the Socinian notion 
 of a sacrifice in heaven, or a perpetual oblation; for it is one 
 thing to offer an oblation, and another to carry on perpetual 
 intercession. It is diametrically opposed to all Boinanist or 
 semi-Romanist theories, which argue for a repetition of the 
 sacrifice in the Lord’s Supper. The Epistle to the Hebrews 
 supplies a ready answer to sacerdotal assumptions of this sort. 
 
 1 -rpo<r$opa. might he construed as the nominative to nriXiluxiv, hut not so 
 naturally. 
 
EPISTLE TO TIIE HEBREWS. 
 
 411 
 
 The repetition argues defect and imperfection. Not only so: 
 for a renewal of the propitiatory sacrifice the apostle explicitly 
 declares there must be fresh abasement on the part of Christ; 
 renewed suffering; the shedding of blood, coupled with an 
 accursed death (Heb. ix. 26). The reason of this was, that the 
 sin-offering was vicarious. 1 
 
 2. The one offering perfected the saints. This was accom¬ 
 plished objectively when Christ died; for all the saints were 
 represented in their Surety before the divine mind. When the 
 one sacrifice is said to perfect them, the meaning is, that it 
 effected full remission, a complete expiation ; objectively secur¬ 
 ing personal acceptance, priestly standing, covenant nearness 
 as a peculiar people; and subjectively securing the purging of 
 conscience, or the making the worshippers perfect as pertaining 
 to the conscience. What effected this ? Not Christ’s doctrine 
 nor His example, but the offering of His body once. 2 These 
 three terms, perfect, sanctify, purge or purify, are terms of 
 sacrificial import—relative terms bearing on the standing of 
 the worshipper before God. They do not mean moral amend¬ 
 ment. 
 
 Another point remains to be noticed in this connected 
 outline, which compares Christ’s official action and that of the 
 high priest on the day of atonement: A new and living way 
 vjhich He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, 
 His flesh (Heb. x. 19). How could the flesh of Christ be the 
 veil which served to shut out the holiest of all from human 
 access ? The investigation of this fact opens up a chain of 
 important truths. The antitype of the veil is expressly said 
 to be the Lord’s flesh ; and we have already seen that, when 
 the term flesh is so applied, it has the peculiar meaning of 
 sin-bearing humanity. Thus we read of the days of His flesh 
 
 1 See the striking discussion of Calovius in his Socinismus proflicjatus: 
 “utram Christi ohlatio jugis sit” (p. 368). 
 
 2 We may compare Heb. ii. 10: The redeemed were viewed as objectively 
 in Christ, and all who are kyio^'o^ivoi were objectively reconciled and perfected in 
 that one sacrifice. 
 
412 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 (ITeb. v. 7); of knowing Christ after the flesh (2 Cor. v. 16). 
 The sins of His people were by imputation laid on Him so 
 long as He sojourned among men; and therefore His humanity, 
 so long as it was uncrucified, was still a proof that the curse 
 was not removed, nor sin abolished. By the veil we under¬ 
 stand Christ’s flesh burdened with our sins, and laden with all 
 the curse which the law threatened against transgressors. 1 His 
 flesh was rent, as the veil was rent, at His death, to open up to 
 His people free access into the holiest of all. He entered, 
 and they entered with Him, into a state of perfect rest and 
 intimate fellowship with God. He entered within the veil at 
 the moment the spirit was separated from the body; and 
 through means of His surrendered life, we entered into the 
 nearest communion with God. This was a new and living 
 way, and it was, so to speak, signed and sealed by the historic 
 fact of the rending of the temple veil (Matt, xxvii. 57). The 
 entrance of Christ’s soul into heaven, or paradise, at the moment 
 of His death, as has been already shown, corresponded with 
 the carrying of the blood into the holiest of all. 
 
 Hence we draw near with sprinkled consciences (x. 22). 
 Christians are all said to have come to the blood of sprinkling 
 (xii. 24). As the blood was the blood of victims, to which the 
 guilt of the worshippers had been transferred, the sprinkling of 
 it freed the Israelite from punishment and ceremonial defile¬ 
 ment. The sprinkling of Christ’s blood cancels all sin, and 
 purifies the conscience for ever. 
 
 IX. We come now to a section which delineates the sacri¬ 
 ficial institute and its typical import in a variety of lights: We 
 have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat who serve the 
 tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought 
 into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin [or, as a sin-offer¬ 
 ing'], are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that 
 
 1 See AVitsius, de Feedere, ii. 6. 9 : “Caro Christ! velum erat, aditum nobis 
 intercludens. Quamdiu enim adliuc erat integra, indicium erat nondum. aboliti 
 peccati, nee sublatse maledictionis. ” 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 413 
 
 He might sanctify the people with [better, through\ His own 
 blood, suffered without the gate (Heb. xiii. 10-12). The apostle 
 draws a comparison between the old and new economy, and 
 exhibits the danger of abiding by the shadow. They who 
 served the tabernacle are they who adhered to the external 
 rites of Judaism, and never penetrated into the inward gospel 
 worship which Christianity has introduced. As contrasted 
 with this, the apostle says, We have an altar. A few words 
 will suffice to show the meaning. In the arrangements of the 
 Mosaic worship there were two altars,—the brazen altar of 
 burnt-offering in the court, and the altar of incense in the holy 
 place. To the former the apostle’s words clearly refer, accord¬ 
 ing to a phraseology current among the Hebrews, of which we 
 find an example in Malachi (Mai. i. 7): the altar is spoken of 
 as a table furnished with bread. 
 
 1. A preliminary comment is necessary as to the meaning 
 of the first of these verses (ver. 10), and whether it is to be 
 taken in connection with the next verses. The altar is de¬ 
 scribed as supplying food,'—that is, the flesh of slain victims ; 
 and all who ministered in the tabernacle—that is, who were 
 officially connected with its services—had a right to eat of it. 
 Of some of the sacrifices the Israelites generally, the women 
 and children, were allowed to partake; but the reference is 
 specially to the priests, who, according to the law, had their 
 appropriate portions assigned them from the sacrifices brought 
 to the altar. They participated in the thank-offerings, and also 
 in the sin-offerings offered by private individuals (Lev. vi. 16, 
 vii. 5). But this was kept within strictly defined limits. 
 Thus, no priest could eat of the altar in the case of the burnt- 
 offerings : they were wholly to be consumed. Hor could they 
 eat of the altar on the occasion of the public sin-offering on 
 the day of atonement, to which frequent reference is made in 
 this epistle, for no part of it was to be reserved (Lev. xvi. 27). 
 All these were indications of imperfect atonement, and that the 
 great sacrifice was yet to come. And this fact was significant; 
 
414 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 like the entire institutions of the first covenant, an actual pro¬ 
 phecy of the new covenant. 
 
 What altar does the apostle speak of as peculiar to Chris¬ 
 tianity, when he says, We have an altar? The Lutheran 
 writers, for the most part, understand the wood of the cross, 
 or the tree to which Peter refers (1 Pet. ii. 24). Others, espe¬ 
 cially patristic writers, understand the Lord’s Supper; a view 
 which, when once allowed, had a tendency constantly to re¬ 
 ceive new elements, till another priesthood and sacrifice super¬ 
 seded the one priest and one sacrifice. Others say the altar 
 means the entire Hew Testament worship. The altar of which 
 the apostle speaks, is plainly that on which the Lord offered 
 His sacrifice; that is, the cross, viewed as the manifestation of 
 divine justice and holiness. That is our altar in the court of 
 the Lord’s house: there God showed Himself reconciled; there 
 the Son of God was offered, and poured out His blood abun¬ 
 dantly. 1 Of this altar Christians eat without reserve, receiving 
 the crucified Christ, and having fellowship with Him. On the 
 other hand, they who served the tabernacle, that is, they who 
 attached themselves to the rites and ceremonies of the old wor¬ 
 ship, when all was abrogated by Christ’s atonement, preferring 
 the shadow to the substance, could not eat of the Christian’s 
 altar, and had no right to it. 
 
 2. The apostle finds typical significance in the fact that 
 the bodies of the victims offered as a sin-offering were burned 
 without the camp. The slain animal was carried without the 
 camp, by reason of the defilement with which it was laden, and 
 for which it was rejected, or deserted, by God and man; and 
 Christ, covered with guilt and defilement, was led without the 
 gates of Jerusalem, and suspended on the accursed tree, be¬ 
 tween heaven and earth, as if uirworthy of either. The apostle 
 is the best expounder of the secret meaning of the ceremonial 
 law; and the meaning of the word wherefore is best eluci¬ 
 dated by this interpretation—viz. that the type might be ful- 
 1 See the Dutch commentators, e.g. D’Outrein, Bonnet, etc., on Hebrews. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 415 
 
 filled. 1 That removal of the victims beyond the walls clearly 
 intimated that they were unclean, because the guilt and 
 punishment of the people were imputed to them. They were 
 considered as polluted with the guilt of the people. Now, 
 according to the true meaning of the type, Christ is compared 
 to the ancient sacrifices, the sins of the people being imputed 
 to Him. He was considered as a sinner, and obliged to bear 
 the guilt, the shame, the penalty of others, 2 to suffer without 
 the gate, that He might restore men to the favour and friend¬ 
 ship of God. We do not need to insist upon details; but 
 taking into account the point of comparison between type and 
 antitype, we ask, Can these words by any violence be made to 
 mean, as some will have it, that Christ dedicated the Jews to 
 Christianity, or brought them from one profession to another ? 
 The comparison instituted between Christ and the ancient 
 sacrifices, whose bodies were burned without the camp, would 
 then be destitute of meaning. 
 
 3. Consider the burning of the sin-offerings, whose blood 
 was brought by the high priest into the holy of holies on the 
 day of atonement. The connection between the sprinkling of 
 the mercy-seat and the burning of the bodies demands atten¬ 
 tion. They were both atoning. The act of burning was after 
 the act of carrying the blood into the holiest of all, but how 
 long after it may be difficult to ascertain. As the burning 
 following the sprinkling of the mercy-seat was a type of 
 Christ’s suffering without the gate, we may warrantably 
 affirm that this is another proof that the entrance into the 
 holiest of all stood connected with His death, and not with 
 His ascension. This confirms the interpretation already given. 
 The burning, identified as it is with Christ’s suffering, followed, 
 and could not have preceded, the sprinkling of the mercy-seat 
 (Lev. xvi. 27, 28). 
 
 1 So Estius, as quoted by Bleek : “ut ille typus V. T. impleretur. ” 
 
 2 See Albert Schultens’ Dutch Commentary on Heidelberg Catechism , i. p. 
 217. Bahr labours in vain to explain away this idea in Studien und Kritiken, 
 1849, p. 936. 
 
416 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 We cannot sunder tlie burning of tlie bodies of the victims, 
 the second part of the sacrificial ritual, from the sprinkling of 
 the blood, which was the first part; for then the unity of the 
 whole would be destroyed. That the burning of the sacrifice 
 may be correctly apprehended, it must be added that the refer¬ 
 ence is not to inward holiness, but to vicarious obedience in 
 suffering. This is indisputably proved by the present passage, 
 making it equivalent to the Lord’s death without the gate. If 
 the sprinkling of blood sets forth the vicarious endurance of 
 the penalty, the act of burning fitly brings out that active 
 obedience, or positive sinlessness, evinced amid all that was 
 to be endured, which was an odour of sweet smell to the 
 Holy One of Israel (Eph. v. 1). The union of suffering and 
 sinlessness was a sweet-smelling savour. The imperfection of 
 the type, requiring as it did successive acts to bring out what 
 in reality was simultaneous, prevents us from clearly perceiv¬ 
 ing these two in their combination. Only one thing more 
 must be noticed, viz., the meaning of the fire by which the 
 bodies of the victims were consumed. Already it has been 
 proved that this was intended to figure forth the Holy Ghost, 
 which came down from heaven upon the sacrifice, as the fire 
 from heaven often fell, rendering it acceptable and of sweet¬ 
 smelling savour to God (see Heb. ix. 14). The burning was 
 vicarious and atoning. 
 
 This enables us to meet the modern objection, that the 
 burning of the bodies was not a religious act at all, and had 
 nothing whatever to do 1 with atonement. The two things put 
 together are thus a mere coincidence, without typical signifi¬ 
 cance. But the answer to all this is obvious: the apostle 
 affirms the opposite in terms the most express, for he asserts 
 the typical relation between the two things, according to divine 
 appointment. A typical relation obtains between the two, and 
 they must have the same meaning. On the one hand, the 
 
 1 So Hofmann permits himself to speak. See Iveil’s admirable reply, Zeit- 
 schrift fur Lutherische Theologie, 1857, p. 463. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 417 
 
 bodies of the beasts slain for burnt-offerings were burned 
 without the camp, because they were unclean in consequence 
 of the sins of the congregation being laid on them; and on 
 the other hand, Christ, the sinless One, accounted guilty, and 
 adjudged a criminal by man, was led forth without the gate to 
 suffer the penalty of death, according to the terms of the law 
 (Lev. xxiv. 14; Nurn. xv. 35; Deut. xvii. 5). This was ex¬ 
 pulsion from the covenant people. 1 As Caiaphas pronounced 
 a prophecy without knowing it, so, in condemning Christ to 
 a malefactor’s death without the gate, they fulfilled, without 
 knowing or intending it, the typical import of the burning of 
 the bodies of the sin-offerings. According to the divine pur¬ 
 pose, He must suffer as a malefactor without the gate, if He 
 was to suffer the penalty of human guilt. This, according to 
 the apostle, was the typical significance of that act of burning. 
 
 4. Christ’s design was, “ that He might sanctify the people 
 with His own blood.” This is one of those many final clauses, 
 introduced by a final particle (ha), which are intended to bring 
 out divine purpose, or Christ’s own design in connection with 
 His death; and they give us a glimpse into Christ’s heart. 
 In the present instance, the design contemplated by the Lord 
 in His death, is said to have been the sanctification of the 
 people—that is, of the people of God, the elect of God. Cast 
 out by men, and punished as the surety of the guilty, He was 
 all the while, as the sinless sin-bearer, offering a sacrifice so 
 acceptable, that He was securing the dedication and separation 
 of the people to God. This is the relative sanctification, not 
 the inherent: it is that wdiicli immediately results from sacri¬ 
 fice. The great day of atonement did this for Israel in a lower 
 sphere, cancelling the sins of the year, and setting apart the 
 people anew. The blood of Christ did it in the higher sphere 
 for all sins, and for ever. 
 
 X. The last passage referring to the atonement is the me¬ 
 morable prayer in wdiicli the apostle commends the Hebrew 
 
 1 So Bahr happily describes it. 
 
 2 D - 
 
418 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 Christians to God: Now the God of peace, that brought again 
 from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, 
 through [literally, m] the blood of the everlasting covenant, make 
 you perfect in 'every good work to do His will (Heb. xiii. 20). 
 This passage recapitulates in the form of prayer the contents 
 of the entire epistle, which was specially intended to set forth 
 the nature of Christ’s priesthood, and the new covenant of 
 which He is the mediator. 
 
 1. A particular title of God, referring to the new relation 
 in which He stands to mankind on the ground of the atone¬ 
 ment, is presented in the invocation, “ the God of peace.” This 
 designation, intimating reconciliation with God, 1 implies that 
 hostility has ceased. When we trace the history of our race, 
 we find that the friendship which man made with Satan caused 
 enmity with God, and that the first proclamation of the gospel 
 in Paradise, foretelling enmity between the serpent and the 
 woman, included a way of peace with God. The ancient types 
 and sacrifices, though inadequate to give this peace, prefigured 
 it till Christ came. The invocation is addressed to the God 
 of peace, once angry, but whose anger is turned away by the 
 atonement, which appeased Him; for in vain would blessings 
 be sought from an angry Judge without the means of recon¬ 
 ciliation. But the prayer is offered without fear to a pacified 
 God, who looks not at human amendments or repentance, at 
 human sorrow, humiliation, or gifts presented to Him on the part 
 of those whose personal standing was that of rebels and crimi¬ 
 nals, but at the sinless life and vicarious sufferings of His Son. 
 
 2. The next clause, referring to the resurrection of our Lord, 
 shows that by this fact God is proved to be the God of peace. 
 The resurrection is here ascribed to the Father, because in our 
 redemption He was the source of the great provision, sending 
 the Son and receiving the satisfaction from His hands. The first 
 
 1 The phrase l ©so? <rr,s upfiws cannot refer to peace between Christians them¬ 
 selves. Though De Wette, Lunemann, and Delitzsch so expound it, it is plainly 
 insufficient. 
 
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 419 
 
 proof of being pacified was given by openly releasing or dis¬ 
 charging the Surety on the morning of His resurrection. The 
 apostle deduces the argument that God is reconciled, and His 
 anger turned away, from the historic fact of the resurrection, 
 which proved/if anything could, that He is “the God of peace.” 
 The Lord Jesus, in his capacity of Surety, had entered into our 
 obligations in every respect—into prison and judgment for us— 
 and was brought again from the dead by Him who is the foun¬ 
 tain of law and justice, because ample satisfaction and payment 
 had been rendered. Had not this been so, God could not have 
 discharged the Surety, and brought Him again from the dead; 
 but He liberated all His people in such a way that Christ- stands 
 before our view as the evidence and attestation of their dis¬ 
 charge : and hence the apostle in this prayer appeals to all the 
 attributes of God, expecting a display of grace and power for the 
 ends of men’s salvation and the welfare of the church of God. 
 
 3. It is further added, that all this was in, or with, the 
 blood of the eternal covenant. The dispute among exposi¬ 
 tors here is, whether to construe these w T ords with the resurrec¬ 
 tion, intimating that Christ was raised in virtue of the blood of 
 the covenant; or with the Shepherd of the sheep, conveying the 
 sense that the function of the Shepherd is founded on the fact 
 that He bought the sheep with His own blood. An equal 
 number of expositors is found ranged on opposite sides of this 
 point. 1 I am persuaded that the apostle meant to combine 
 both thoughts, and that we are not to think of the resurrec¬ 
 tion apart from the great Shepherd’s function, nor conversely. 
 It is a diversity of view where none should exist, and where 
 conflicting views may be united. 
 
 It only remains to notice that this covenant is described 
 with the addition of the term blood, which conveys the idea 
 of sacrificial blood as that on which it is founded. 2 
 
 1 Bleek, De Wette, and Delitzsch construe the words \v with uvuyxyuv ; 
 
 whereas Lunemann and others connect them with rav ftiyccv. 
 
 2 See our former volume, on Matt. xxvi. 28. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLE PETER. 
 
 SEC. XX.—THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 W E come now to the testimony of Peter, whose activity in 
 the first founding of the Christian church, as the most 
 prominent man of action, was already noticed under the Acts 
 of the Apostles. We here confine ourselves to his epistles. 
 The first of these was addressed to the strangers of the diaspora 
 (1 Pet. i. 1), a title which seems an allusion to a class of Jewish 
 Christians rather than a metaphor for their pilgrim life. This 
 at least is the conclusion to which exegetical inquiry in modern 
 days has brought most minds, though the tendency for a long¬ 
 time was different. The words strangers of the dispersion 
 lead us to regard the epistle as addressed to Jewish believers, 
 whether they originally belonged to the Jerusalem congrega¬ 
 tion, and went abroad on the errands of their calling, or more 
 probably came under Christian influences on some of those 
 occasions when they came up from Pontus, Galatia, Cappa¬ 
 docia, Asia, and Bithynia, and carried home the truth to he 
 diffused among their Jewish countrymen. The districts named, 
 with the exception of Galatia and Asia, are not precisely in the 
 sphere of Paul’s missionary tours. Though it is not our object 
 to discuss the date of Peter’s epistle, Weiss’ conclusion is not 
 improbable, that it was prior to Paul’s residence in Ephesus 
 (Acts xix. 1): certainly it bears all the marks of being com¬ 
 posed at an early period of the Christian church. 
 
 Peter has been called the apostle of hope, as John is of 
 love; and agreeably to this feature of character, the aspect in 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 421 
 
 which he presents the atonement is pre-eminently deliverance 
 from the effects of sin. Peter sustains the character of a wit¬ 
 ness of Christ’s sufferings (1 Pet. v. 1); and his allusions to 
 the blood, the stripes, and the death of Christ, show how fully 
 he had outlived the state of mind which was offended at the 
 idea of a suffering Messiah. The aspects of the Lord’s history 
 set on the foreground are the sufferings that were to come on 
 Christ, and the glories that should follow—the themes which 
 the prophets searched into (1 Pet. i. 11). Peter represents the 
 gospel very much in the light of the fulfilment of prophecy, 
 as James represents it in the light of the perfect law. Hence, 
 in his vivid delineation of Christ from personal recollection, 
 he passes from prophecy to his own testimony, blen»~ ng the 
 two together in the most natural way. He speaks as the eye¬ 
 witness of the Lord’s abasement, and the spectator of that in¬ 
 terview on the holy mount when heavenly visitants conferred 
 with Christ about His death, and animated Him in His suffer¬ 
 ing career (1 Pet. ii. 23; 2 Pet. i. 16). He reproduces the 
 Lord’s words, or the Baptist’s, in several passages which de¬ 
 scribe the atonement; and in unambiguous terms brings out 
 the different elements of the doctrine, the nature, and fruits of 
 the Sacrifice. 
 
 I. At the commencement of the epistle, Christians are 
 thus described: Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the 
 Father , through [better, in\ sanctification of the Spirit, unto 
 obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ (1 Pet. i. 2). 
 The words describe God’s election from a threefold point of 
 view: its source in divine foreknowledge; the mode in which 
 it is carried out by sanctification of the Spirit; and the end 
 contemplated, viz. obedience and sprinkling of the blood of 
 Christ. The obedience here named is but another name for 
 faith, or, more strictly, for that obedience of faith which sub¬ 
 mits to the righteousness of God. 1 An obedience follows 
 faith; but this is the obedience of faith itself (Rom. i. 5 ; Acts 
 
 1 See Gerhard on Peter ; also Klinkenberg on the passage. 
 
422 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 vi. 7). As God’s commandment is to believe, so it becomes a 
 paramount duty to obey, or submit to God’s way of salvation 
 (Kom. x. 3). 
 
 The next thing contemplated by the election of Christians, 
 and their separation by the Spirit from the common mass, was 
 “the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” This sacri¬ 
 ficial language receives its illustration from the ancient ritual. 
 Whenever mention is made in the Old Testament of the 
 sprinkling of blood or of ashes, the allusion is to the blood or 
 ashes of victims to which the offerer’s guilt was transferred: 
 sprinkling made atonement for the parties spoken of, freeing 
 them from guilt and punishment. That the expressions TO 
 sprinkle, and to absolve from guilt, are coincident, may be 
 seen from the passages where the language occurs (Ex. xxix. 
 21; hum. xix. 13; Ps. li. 7). If justice is to be done to the 
 present passage, and others similar, we must represent the Lord 
 Jesus as an atoning sacrifice, to which the sins and punishment 
 of His. people have been transferred; while, on the other side, 
 His merits applied to them serve to expiate their guilt, and 
 present them faultless before God. The words mean that 
 Christ’s blood makes atonement for the elect, and that they 
 are chosen of God and separated by the Spirit for this end. 
 An atoning death for sin always preceded, and was presup¬ 
 posed by, the sprinkling. The apostle represents the blood of 
 Christ as sacrificial, a meaning which the word usually bears. 
 This passage limits the sprinkling to persons, without noticing 
 the other sprinkling, more objective in its character, applied to 
 the altar of burnt-offering (Lev. i. 5), to the veil of the sanc¬ 
 tuary (Lev. v. 6), and to the mercy-seat on the day of atone¬ 
 ment (Lev. xvi. 14). In its application to persons we find two 
 things included—a positive and a negative; the remission of 
 sins, and a provision for securing access with boldness and 
 confidence. Pardon, in a word, was only a pathway to the 
 further privilege of a covenant relation, as in the case of Israel 
 at Mount Sinai (Ex. xxiv. 8). 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 423 
 
 Possibly, as has been conjectured, Peter only reproduces 
 the ideas which he had heard from the lips of his Lord at the 
 institution of the Supper (Matt. xxvi. 28). The blood shed for 
 many, or sprinkled, as some choose rather to view it, was not 
 only for the remission of sins, but for the institution of the 
 new covenant, replacing that of Sinai. The further idea of a 
 covenant relation secured by the sprinkling of Christ’s blood 
 on those who are set apart as Christians, is warranted by 
 Peter’s words. hTor is that all: a continuous sprinkling of the 
 blood of Christ to perpetuate that covenant standing, and to 
 adjust the relation afresh when it is disturbed, is also in¬ 
 volved in the terms. As the term is used in the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews, sprinkling intimates an action which lies 
 at the foundation of a covenant relation 1 (Heb. xii. 24, x. 22). 
 Whether we look, then, at the words of Christ on the occasion 
 of instituting the Supper, or at Israel’s position at Mount 
 Sinai, or at the close connection between the blood of sprin¬ 
 kling and the new covenant, as indicated in the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, we may safely conclude that the apostle alludes to 
 the founding of a new covenant relation in Christ’s blood. The 
 death of Christ atones, and puts away sin; but not only so: it 
 forms a positive covenant relation by which Christians, elected 
 and set apart, become a people of God by the sprinkling of 
 Christ’s blood. 
 
 II. In a second reference to the death of Christ, Peter con¬ 
 nects it with redemption, placing them together as cause and 
 effect: Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver 
 and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from 
 your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb 
 without blemish and without spot: who verily was foreordained 
 before the foundation of the world (1 Pet. i. 18, 19). This is an 
 echo of the Lord’s own words as to the giving of His life a 
 ransom for many, with perhaps a further allusion to the Bap¬ 
 tist’s testimony to the Lamb of God. The words are put in 
 1 See Weiss’ der Petrinische Lehrbegriff, p. 271. 
 
424 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 such a form and connection as to imply an obvious allusion to 
 the first passover in Egypt, and the subsequent redemption. 
 The apostles have made the doctrine of the atonement more 
 perspicuous and striking by the copious use of this class of 
 terms, which also recall the Old Testament history, where the 
 same ideas are typically exhibited. We have already had 
 occasion to find a sure basis for the exposition of the text 
 before us, in the elucidation of similar passages in due course 
 in the several epistles. The remarks already made on the 
 word ransom, as used by our Lord (Matt. xx. 28), may here 
 be recalled. 
 
 The primary meaning of the term redeem is to deliver from 
 slavery, or captivity under the power of an enemy, by the 
 payment of a ransom. This is the simple meaning of the word, 
 and it precisely corresponds to the English verb to ransom, 
 derived from its cognate noun in the very same way. If the 
 Saxon term, indeed, were used instead of the term of Latin 
 origin, it would be the exact equivalent, and not less emphati¬ 
 cally convey to an English reader the idea of deliverance from 
 captivity by the payment of a ransom; and we are not to aban¬ 
 don the proper sense while it is compatible with the case in 
 hand. Under an evangelical garb we find, in modern times, a 
 new mode of representing the party to whom the ransom is 
 given, which is very wide of the mark. Thus Stier and Klaiber 
 make use of the term only to explain away its significance. 
 They allow that Christ gave His holy human life and shed His 
 precious blood as a ransom, and they will allow the word, if we 
 wish it, that He paid the ransom. But when the question is 
 raised, to whom was it paid, and by whom was it received, the 
 divergence becomes apparent. They will not admit that it was 
 offered to God, who, as they represent the matter, is to be 
 viewed as eternally rich, and, whether considered as Love or as 
 Justice, as having need of none. They hold that it was paid to 
 us men, the poor and destitute. In other words, they do not 
 allow that it was paid to God in our stead; for God dispenses 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 425 
 
 an absolute pardon in tlie exercise of pure love by His Son, 
 only slain in proclaiming this gracious message. They retain 
 the name' and neutralize the meaning, or make it a mere meta¬ 
 phor, excluding the idea of an equivalent or satisfaction to the 
 divine law for our deliverance. They hold that, without any 
 reparation to the law of God, men enter into union with Christ, 
 who descended into humanity and lived a sinless human life, 
 which is reproduced in us, His followers, by means of fellow¬ 
 ship with Him. Only in this subjective way have His people 
 any benefit from Christ, according to the theory. A change of 
 nature is admitted, but no provision is made for the rectifica¬ 
 tion of man’s relation, or for his personal standing before God. 
 The judicial element is discarded, and the claims of the divine 
 law have no place. To this the ready answer is, that man is 
 not merely a nature, but a person who must have a standing in 
 law before the moral Governor of the universe; and the terms 
 connected with man’s legal relation are, without exception, 
 connected with the ransom offered to God in our stead by 
 Christ’s obedience unto death. 
 
 But this leads me further to notice how the two ideas of 
 ransom and sacrifice, by a natural and easy transition, pass 
 into each other. However these ideas seem to differ, they do 
 not diverge so widely when we attend to the biblical phraseo¬ 
 logy, as a few remarks will show. What was effected by the 
 ancient sacrifices, was the removal of the threatened penalty. 
 On some occasions the Israelites, stringently bound to provide 
 a satisfaction, were under the necessity of paying ar certain 
 ransom, which occupied the place of a sacrifice; and this 
 ransom, paid in money, was called an atonement, as it ex¬ 
 empted them from punishment (Ex. xxx. 15). The- man was 
 considered as a captive or prisoner to a divine retribution, if 
 this was not rendered, whether it required a ransom, properly 
 so called, or a sacrifice. But in all cases the principal matter 
 is the turning away of a threatened calamity by means of the 
 satisfaction (Job xxxiii. 24; Ex. xxi. 30; Ps. xlix. 7). If we 
 
426 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 keep this in view, we can have no difficulty in perceiving how 
 the death of Christ can he represented in either light, and 
 how the one thought passes over into the other by an easy 
 transition. His blood is thus a ransom, and the atonement 
 accomplished by Him is a redemption. 
 
 This enables us to obviate the often-repeated objection, that 
 these terms are pressed beyond their legitimate significance, 
 and that we attend more to the figure under which the truth is 
 represented than to the thing itself. It is not so: for we hold 
 as strongly as those who make the objection, that this would 
 run counter to all the rules of sound interpretation. But the 
 term means something, and cannot be treated as if it were not 
 employed, or could be ignored; and we must do justice to its 
 import, if we would not incur the deserved blame of indulging 
 in a mere capricious exposition of terms meant to be signifi¬ 
 cant. The question to be determined is: In what sense is the 
 death of Christ called a ransom ? In what sense is the deliver¬ 
 ance designated a redemption, and derived from the Mediator ? 
 And to answer this inquiry, the rules of sound interpretation 
 require not only that we shall examine the import of the terms, 
 but the passages where they are found, the connection of the 
 context, and the appended words which put the ransom and 
 deliverance in the relation of cause and effect. 
 
 The opponents of the vicarious satisfaction, when pressed 
 by the consideration that the apostles bring out this causal 
 connection, resort to the following evasion: They say the 
 language may denote absolute liberation, as it comes to us by 
 the proclamation of Christ, its great messenger, who confirmed 
 His testimony by His death. 1 That is to make the allusion to 
 Christ’s death nugatory, when the proper import of the terms 
 intimates something much beyond a preaching of uncondi¬ 
 tional, unpurchased pardon. It contains nothing less than the 
 
 ♦ 
 
 1 A strenuous attempt has been made to make good this point by Oltramaire 
 on Rom. iii. 24, and in one of the Latin treatises recently issued at Leyden by 
 Bok on i-roXvrpum;, hut in vain. 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETEK. 
 
 427 
 
 connection of cause and effect, price and deliverance. The 
 language of the apostles on the subject of the ransom and 
 redemption is too express to allow any such evacuation of 
 the meaning, any evasion of this nature. It cannot be ex¬ 
 pounded in any other sense than this, that the redemption is 
 the direct immediate effect of the ransom or atonement offered. 
 As a captive held in chains was set at liberty when the full 
 ransom was paid, so are the people of Christ liberated by His 
 death from guilt and punishment. If the death of Christ 
 exercised no causal influence at all, if it was but a confir¬ 
 mation of the proclamation of absolute deliverance, why does 
 the Holy Ghost uniformly ascribe to the blood of Christ the 
 character of a ransom ? - 
 
 The question on doctrinal grounds touches the deepest 
 truths; it touches the divine attributes, to which all such 
 questions are and must be run up—the authority of the divine 
 law, the immutable justice, holiness, and truth of God. But 
 does it, as is alleged, more fully display divine love to set forth 
 absolute deliverance ? Ho : that is but indifference to human 
 conduct, concession, indulgence, not love; and we say, with the 
 poet Young, “ A God all mercy is a God unjust.” 
 
 The import of Peter’s words may be easily collected. Their 
 connection and significance may be thus stated: After an 
 exhortation to walk in fear, the apostle adds, that the death 
 of Christ, considered as a ransom, redeemed the believers, to 
 whom he wrote, from their vain, ungodly conversation. He 
 intimates that the blood of Christ—that is, the whole surety- 
 obedience of Christ—won for them holiness as well as recon¬ 
 ciliation ; for it is Peter’s manner, when touching on the death 
 of Christ, to unite the atoning and sanctifying elements. The 
 thought is, that a sanctified life has its ground and possibility 
 in the fact of the objective redemption from guilt, or in the 
 blood of Christ as the ransom. 
 
 The more necessary is it to advert to this, to obviate the 
 conclusion that, because the death of Christ had in view this 
 
428 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 liberation from moral corruption, it could not be a satisfaction 
 to tbe justice of God. These two things are not opposites, but 
 related as primary and secondary. The primary design is 
 atonement, and deliverance from a liability to eternal death. 
 The secondary design, or that which is consequent on the 
 attainment of the former, is this redemption or rescue from 
 unholy conduct. The former is preparatory to the latter, and 
 the connection may thus be stated: Forgiveness of sins is 
 directly effected by the blood of Christ; the forgiveness of sin 
 paves the way for, and secures, the gift of the Holy Ghost; and 
 where the Holy Ghost is, men are delivered 1 from their former 
 vain conduct, according to the spirit of the age and the tra¬ 
 ditions handed down to them. 
 
 The apostle, too, lays stress on the greatness and value of 
 the ransom by which we are redeemed. He exhibits the blood 
 of Christ as the ransom, when he connects the redemption and 
 the blood by a relation of cause and effect. To make this 
 apparent, he compares two different kinds of redemption: one 
 by corruptible things, as silver and gold; the other by a ransom 
 infinitely more costly. This contrast proves that the death of 
 Christ is a true ransom, and that the comparison is not be¬ 
 tween a proper and a metaphorical redemption, but between 
 one effected by silver and gold, and another brought about by 
 no lower ransom than the blood of Christ. He names the 
 price, and points to the result—deliverance in the first case 
 from merited punishment, and in the second from vain conduct. 
 
 Christ’s blood, the price of our redemption, and described 
 as precious, suggests, by way of contrast, the blood of lower 
 animals constituting the ransom in typical ages before the 
 reality was ushered in. The point of the comparison, or that 
 which both had in common, was the satisfaction necessary for 
 the liberation. We have seen how naturally, in the phrase¬ 
 ology of Israel, the terms ransom and sacrifice passed over into 
 
 1 See Gess, Jahrbucher fur Deutsche Tlieologie, 1857 ; also Lechler, das 
 apostolische Zeitalter, p. 178 ; and Thomasius, Christi person, iii. p. 143. 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 429 
 
 each other, and came to he united on the ground that any one 
 neglecting the ceremonial precepts became by that neglect a 
 captive to the retributive government of God, and a sacrifice 
 or ransom redeemed him. When the blood of Christ is here 
 contrasted with the ransoms or sacrifices current in the ancient 
 Israelitish community, the comparison must either intimate 
 that our liberation stands in the same connection, or be inept 
 and nugatory. 
 
 In addition to this, let the particle by which the apostle 
 introduces the allusion to Christ as the unblemished and spot¬ 
 less Lamb be carefully noted : a AS of a Lamb.” It is not the 
 particle of comparison, but of explanation, expressing the 
 reason why the blood of Christ was so infinitely precious. The 
 original word rendered AS, or AS being (ojg), serves frequently 
 to intimate the truth of a thing, or such a quality as belongs 
 to a person or economy. Many passages serve to show this 
 (John i. 14 ; Matt. xxi. 26 ; 2 Pet. i. 3; Phil. ii. 8; 2 Cor. ii. 17, 
 v. 20). The important thought is, that Christ’s blood is not 
 to be considered as that of a teacher confirming his doctrine 
 by his death, or of a hero exposing himself for his country, but 
 sacrificial blood, as of a spotless lamb, whether the allusion be 
 to the passover in Egypt, which is probable from the further 
 reference to redemption, or to the lamb of the daily sacrifice. 
 Eansom and sacrifice are so closely allied, that the one idea, 
 from the nature of the case, at once passes over into the other. 
 
 Thus His blood was sacrificially shed; and it is further 
 designated precious, or of infinite value, from the fact that it 
 was the sacrifice of a sinless person. To go back to the type, 
 the Lamb must needs be without blemish and without spot 
 (Ex. xii. 5 ; Lev. ix. 3): for the perfection of the animal was 
 not a mere prerequisite or condition of the sacrifice; rather it' 
 was an element of it, offered in and with the blood. And the 
 sinless perfection of Jesus was not a mere indispensable pre¬ 
 requisite to the atonement, but an integral part of it. His 
 blood, viewed as sacrificial, possessed infinite value, because 
 
430 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 it was the blood not merely of the best of men, but of the 
 eternal Son of God, and adequate to meet the wants of count¬ 
 less millions of mankind. The apostle connects the high value 
 of the sacrifice with the absolutely sinless purity of Christ. 
 But the subjoined words, referring to the eternal fore-appoint¬ 
 ment of Christ and the federal transactions of the Trinity, 
 recall the dignity of the Lord as lending a divine value to the 
 whole. Not one element then, but several, enter into the in¬ 
 finite value of this precious blood. 
 
 The remoter effect of Christ’s redeeming blood, as here 
 stated, is moral renovation. It has sanctifying efficacy, and 
 prompts the Christian too, in the way of motive, to walk in 
 fear (ver. 17). But this presupposes the remission of sins, 
 and the acceptance of our persons, as the itnmediate effect of 
 the Lord’s sacrifice. The sacrifice conditions the sanctifying 
 change, or spiritual renovation, which sets us free from our 
 vain conversation according to the course of the world. The 
 apostle’s words assume that the Lord’s death effects the re¬ 
 mission of sins, and then gives rise to a sanctification of life or 
 moral renovation. 
 
 III. Another decisive passage as to the nature of the atone¬ 
 ment occurs in the following chapter: Who His own self hare 
 our sins in His own body on [better, up to~\ the tree, that we, 
 being dead to sms, should live unto righteousness: by whose 
 stripes ye were healed (1 Pet. ii. 24). The apostle had addressed 
 Christian slaves, a class of men who suffered deeply from the 
 cruelty, caprice, and absolute power of heathen masters. Ani¬ 
 mating them to patience, he pointed to Christ as the grand 
 pattern, who, when reviled, reviled not again, but committed 
 Himself to God, the righteous Judge (vers. 18-23). The apostle 
 does not stop short there, but adds, by a natural transition of 
 thought, that Christ’s sufferings were more than an example. 
 He mentions two things : first, what Christ did for us in His 
 sufferings and death; secondly, for what end all was done. 
 He shows how painful, and yet voluntary, were those suffer- 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 431 
 
 ings, liow innocent and elevated in their nature. First, when 
 it is said that He bore our sins in His body, the shade of 
 meaning conveyed by the terms is, that He bore our sins as a 
 heavy burden. This will appear by a few considerations drawn 
 from the primary meaning of the verb, from the accessory 
 words, and from the context. 
 
 a. As to the primary meaning of the verb (avccftzpsiv), it 
 
 denotes “ to carry up,” " to bear upwards.” From that primary 
 signification arises a secondary or metaphorical sense in the 
 most natural way, viz. “ to offer in sacrifice.” Ho writer uses 
 the Greek verb in any other way, as will appear to any one 
 who institutes a strict inquiry, It is used in its primary signi¬ 
 fication, when it is said that the Israelites, at the exodus from 
 Egypt, brought up the bones of Joseph (Josh. xxiv. 21); when 
 David brought up the bones of Saul and Jonathan from Beth- 
 shan (2 Sam. xxi. 13); when our Lord brought up the disciples 
 to the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 1); when He was 
 carried up to heaven at His own ascension (Luke xxiv. 51). 
 In the secondary signification, naturally derived from the 
 former, it denotes to offer in sacrifice; the allusion being to 
 the fact that the victim was carried up to the altar, which was 
 always erected on a raised or elevated spot (Jas. ii. 21; Heb. 
 vii. 27). * 
 
 b. The accessory words to be next noticed supply another 
 reason for abiding in this case by the primary signification of 
 the word. Two expressions render it absolutely necessary to 
 retain that signification; for the statement that He bore our 
 sins in His own body, and next, that He bore them up to the 
 tree, 1 can be fitly interpreted only when we maintain the 
 primary meaning. 
 
 c. The context was further mentioned, as requiring that the 
 passage shall be understood of the bearing of sin as a heavy 
 burden. A few words will show this. The apostle had ex- 
 
 1 See Yan Yoorst, cle Usu Verborum cum Prcepos. Compositorum in iY T.; 
 also Grotius, Annot. in N. T. 
 
432 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 liorted Christian servants, by the Lord’s example, to the patient 
 endurance of the injurious treatment to which they were ex¬ 
 posed ; and the notion of bearing a burden is so plainly con¬ 
 tained in the passage, that, without it, no natural connection 
 could obtain between the context and the clause under our 
 notice. A threefold view of Christ is given: the patient 
 sufferer who, when reviled, reviled not again; the faultless 
 sufferer, who did no sin; and the vicarious sufferer, who bore 
 our sins in His own body. This makes it evident that we 
 must retain the primary meaning of the verb. 
 
 On these grounds, we deny the competency of the transla¬ 
 tion, “ He took away our sins.” To this rendering many in 
 former and recent times have given a preference, for various 
 reasons. By most of the supporters of this rendering the idea 
 attached to the phrase is, that of removing future sin by moral 
 amendment. But, not to mention other arguments against 
 that interpretation, let it suffice that this idea is intimated in 
 the last clause of the verse, when the apostle mentions the 
 ultimate end contemplated by the atonement; and to make 
 both clauses affirm the same moral reformation, would not only 
 be a tautology, but make a matter the reason of itself. That 
 is decisive against the rendering, “ He took away our sins.” 
 According to the other rendering, the atonement is represented 
 as conditioning moral renovation. 
 
 But even if such a rendering could be admitted, it would 
 not make for the opponents of the vicarious satisfaction. The 
 question would still recur, How were they then and there 
 taken away ? The limitation of this removal, or taking away 
 of sin, to Christ’s own body on the tree, would still lead to the 
 conclusion that this was accomplished eighteen centuries ago, 
 and therefore would be tantamount to the atonement of the 
 cross. The language is so environed and limited by the other 
 words, that they must be taken as affirming that sin was taken 
 away in His own body on the tree. Sin was thus taken away 
 by a fact in connection with Christ’s cross, and this virtually 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 433 
 
 amounts to expiation. Peter’s words refer all this to tlie cross; 
 and it is simply inconsistent with the apostle’s design to affirm, 
 as Socinians were wont to do, that this was but an inter¬ 
 mediate stage in Christ’s way to heaven, where sin was actually 
 taken away. It will not do to say, as they said, that the cross 
 does all this, as it persuades men to believe and lead a virtuous 
 life, which is followed in due course by the taking away of sin. 
 The words cannot be understood in that sense. They must be 
 understood of a result effected in His own body. 
 
 This leads me to an explanation which finds favour with a 
 class who feel that they must say something about Christ’s 
 connection with human sin, but are committed to a disavowal 
 of Christ’s vicarious sacrifice : they make Him bear sin in His 
 own body, because He received the outburst of human malice 
 and passion against Himself. That we are warranted to call a 
 mere evasion; for it changes the terms, substituting for the sins 
 which He bore, the idea of malicious men opposing Him, and 
 acting out their sinful feelings against Him. The answer to 
 this is, that it runs counter to the Old Testament phraseology 
 on the subject of bearing sin ; that no instance can be adduced 
 where the phrase to bear sin has such an acceptation; that 
 certainly it does not so occur in a passage from Lamentations 
 sometimes adduced in this sense (Lam. v. 7); and that, had 
 Peter’s design been to express this idea, he would have used 
 wholly different language, as may be seen by comparing what 
 he did say in the book of Acts (Acts ii. 23, iii. 13). 
 
 After removing these false comments, it remains that we 
 bring out the positive ideas contained in the verse. These are 
 specially two—vicarious sin-bearing, and priestly action on the 
 cross ; and to both these we must specially advert. 
 
 1. The words imply that Christ, by His own act as well as 
 by God’s appointment, bore our sins in His own body, con¬ 
 necting Himself with sinful humanity, and taking our sins in 
 such a way as to incorporate them with Himself, or conjoin 
 them with His own body. The quotation from Isaiah estab- 
 
434 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 lishes this still more precisely. He made our sins His own, 
 in such a way that they adhered to Him in the only sense in 
 which they could adhere to the sinless humanity of the in¬ 
 carnate Son—by suretyship and imputation. That is brought 
 out in the words, who His own self. He became personified 
 guilt: it was made His by His own act and His Father’s will. 
 The words refer to the efficacy of His person in the atonement, 
 showing so marked an antithesis between Himself and our sin, 
 that no man without prejudice can fail to apprehend the idea 
 of substitution and sin-bearing. When a physician makes use 
 of means, we cannot say that he himself wrought the cure. 
 But of Christ it is said that He Himself bore our sins, and ex¬ 
 piated them by transferring our obligations to His own person. 
 He made them His, and bore them, that their guilt might not 
 be imputed to us. 
 
 2. Another idea is Christ’s priestly action on the cross. 
 The word here used stamps the character of a priestly action 
 on this spontaneous offering of Christ. He carried our sins up 
 to the tree; in other words, He carried up His own body, laden 
 with our sins, to the tree. The language is so put, that we can¬ 
 not exclude the sacrificial idea. To that tree the Lord, by His 
 own spontaneous act, carried up our sins, incorporating them 
 with Himself, and consummating the oblation by His priestly 
 act. It does not matter whether we take the wood of the cross 
 as His altar, with some of the best commentators both in the 
 Beformed and Lutheran Church, or prefer, with others, to ab¬ 
 stain from such a definition of the altar. One thing is obvious, 
 the idea is sacrificial. But when we decide for the allusion to 
 a priestly sacrifice, it by no means follows that we must neces¬ 
 sarily interpret the word sins here used as meant to denote 
 sin-offering. The language in the plural cannot naturally 
 admit that sense. Bather the apostle alludes to our count¬ 
 less sins, viewed as guilt. What does the apostle mean when 
 he names Christ’s “ body ” as bearing the sin ? It is a synec¬ 
 doche for the person. He does not mean that our Lord bore 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 435 
 
 sin in His body alone. This appears very evidently from the 
 other phrase, “ who His own self.” The body in which the 
 Lord bore onr sins is only contrasted with animal sacrifices. 
 
 Nor is this text to be interpreted as teaching that Christ 
 
 was the sin-bearer only during the hours when He hung on 
 
 the cross,—a notion to which James Alting gave currency in 
 
 Holland two centuries ago, and which has been revived among 
 
 certain crude religionists in our own time. 1 Alting maintained 
 
 that our Lord’s sufferings were divided into those borne in His 
 
 encounters with Satan, or such as were warlike, and those 
 
 endured as a satisfaction for sin, limited to the three hours 
 
 on the cross when the sun was darkened. That notion was 
 
 repudiated by the best divines on all sides, who expressed their 
 
 conviction that the whole previous life of Christ came within 
 
 the range of sin-bearing. They who appeal to this text as 
 
 lending countenance to the theory that sin-bearing was limited 
 
 to the time of the crucifixion, draw their argument from the 
 
 English version, in this case palpably defective. The text does 
 
 not say that sin-bearing coincided with the time of Christ’s 
 
 suspension on the cross. Still less does it say that He did 
 
 not come within this experience in the previous stages of His 
 « 
 
 life. It intimates that He who bore our sins all through His 
 earthly history, bore them up to the cross, to be finally and for 
 ever expiated. 
 
 We do not hesitate to declare for the use of the biblical ex¬ 
 pression sin-bearing, in preference to all the artificial language 
 which many would put in its place. Some, without weighing 
 the advantages of abiding by the nomenclature of Scripture, 
 choose rather to speak of our punishment than of our sins 
 being laid on Christ. The import in substance amounts to 
 the same thing. But why alter the biblical phrase sin-bear¬ 
 ing for any other mode of speech ? We forfeit precision, for 
 without sin-bearing punishment could have no place. God 
 
 1 The Plymouthists adduce this text for their notion that Christ bore sin 
 only on the tree, but mistake the sense. 
 
436 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 made our sins meet on the Surety, in such a way that, from 
 the time of the incarnation till He gave up His spirit on the 
 cross, He appeared with them at every moment. He appeared 
 with them before the divine tribunal, and even confessed them 
 to His Father (Ps. xl. 12, lxix. 5). 
 
 This of course assumes that in this great transaction, whether 
 we call it sin-bearing or the imputation of sin, nothing is out of 
 keeping with truth. Sins were not charged to Christ in such a 
 sense that He was held to have personally done the deeds when 
 He bore their guilt. No reasonable mind ever adopted a sup¬ 
 position so unwarrantable. The distinction was always drawn 
 between the personal and the official in all the language used 
 of the vicarious satisfaction ; and had due regard been paid to 
 this distinction, as is always done by intelligent expounders of 
 the Scripture, much of the revolting language used by the op¬ 
 ponents of the vicarious satisfaction, and many of the difficul¬ 
 ties which they have conjured up, would have been forestalled 
 and obviated. On the one hand, sin is so personal a thing, 
 that it never ceases to be recalled as ours, as a source of 
 humiliation, even when its guilt is cancelled; for we may say, 
 with Milton, “ Who can undo the past ? not God Himself.” 
 On the other hand, sins were charged to Christ in such a 
 sense that they were transferred to Him, as He sustained the 
 person of the sinner; and thus they are no longer ours, but 
 His, who, as the sinless surety, condescended to bear them in 
 His own body to the tree. They are to the believing mind 
 still the cause of humiliation, for it will be always true that we 
 committed them; and we must say, These sins are ours. On 
 the other hand, seeing them in the light of Christ’s cross, we 
 also say, These sins are no longer ours, in consequence of the 
 expiation of the cross, and are extinguished or annihilated as 
 if they had never been. The exchange of places explains all. 
 This can be fully maintained in harmony with the truth of 
 God. I only add, that Christ’s bearing of our sins was meant 
 to fill the whole horizon of the church’s view, as if nothing 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 437 
 
 were seen between us and God but the Surety surrendering 
 Himself as the sin-bearer, and satisfying for sin. 
 
 3. The next thing to be noticed is the final cause or end 
 contemplated in the divine plan by the atonement: “ that (ha) 
 we, being dead to sin, might live unto righteousness.” The two 
 clauses of the verse are connected by the particle of design 
 (ha), so as to show that Christ’s death aimed at moral renova¬ 
 tion as well as pardon. And this, as we noticed above, is 
 decisive as to the strict connection between the atonement and 
 holiness. 
 
 This fact is established, whether we hold with some, that 
 Peter has his own phraseology and phase of thought, or hold 
 with others, that we have a mode of expression common to 
 Paul and Peter. The former view renders the words, “ that 
 we, being freed from sins, might live unto righteousnessand 
 the sense is, that we are freed from the heavy guilt of sin, and 
 no more disquieted by it. That is the practical end kept in 
 view by those to whom the atonement is applied, and more 
 and more to be attained. The words may admit this interpre¬ 
 tation, which is supported by many excellent expositors, but 
 not so naturally. The other view is, that we have a style of 
 thought common to Paul and Peter, meaning, according to the 
 translation of the authorized English version, that we died 
 with Christ in that atoning death. We shared so fully in that 
 one act of our Eepresentative, that we suffered the punishment 
 of sin, and fulfilled the divine claims in Him, as truly as if 
 we had personally performed it all. This is preferable, and 
 does greater justice to the language: it retains the contrast 
 between death and life; it shows more forcibly in what way 
 the Christian died to sin, and is discharged from its guilt. 
 
 The important thought, in a doctrinal point of view, is, that 
 the atonement procured a premial life, or paved the way, 
 according to the divine aim, for a life of holy obedience. That 
 is described in the way of purchase rather than in the way of 
 human motive. This was the ulterior end for which the Lord 
 
438 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 bore our sins in His own body. The expiation of sin, and the 
 acceptance of our persons, contemplated that further object. 
 
 Sin is considered as a potentate, or master, exercising au¬ 
 thority over a slave. Death liberates the slave; and when the 
 penal infliction due to sin ran its course on the Surety, with 
 whom we were one in the eye of God, we died to sin. His 
 death and our death are not regarded as two separate acts, of 
 which the one is like the other, but one and the same. To 
 understand how the action of one may be for many, we have 
 only to recall the first Adam : by one man sin entered into the 
 world, and it was the act of one for many. According to 
 apostolic language, we may either say, Christ died for us, to 
 deliver our persons from guilt, and secure the renovation of our 
 natures to newness of life; or, We obeyed when He obeyed, and 
 died when He died in that one representative act, that, as the 
 recipients of a new premial life, we may walk in holy obe¬ 
 dience. The latter is preferable. We find it repeated in the 
 Pauline epistles in various forms, and particularly in the 
 phraseology that we were co-crucified with Christ in that one 
 corporate surety-act . 1 
 
 The doctrine contained in this important clause is, that 
 only as sin is expiated and the sinner discharged, can a holy 
 life begin; and that there is no way apart from this for the 
 dedication of our lives to God. Discharged by the sin-bearing 
 death of Christ from the captivity under which we were held, 
 we are prepared for personal dedication, and a holy obedience 
 to God different from the previous life of sin. This was the 
 great end for which Christ bore our sins in His own body on 
 the tree. 
 
 IY. We come now to a statement which, of all the pas¬ 
 sages, gives us the clearest description of substitution and 
 vicarious punishment: For Christ also hath once suffered for 
 
 1 See our remarks above on Rom. vi. 1-11, and on 2 Cor. v. 14. See Doedes, 
 p. 327, who makes «<royivopivoi not dead , but sundered , or having done with. 
 See Weiss. 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 439 
 
 sins, the just for the unjust [better, the righteous for the un¬ 
 righteous'], that He might bring us to God, being put to death in 
 the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit (1 Pet. iii. 18). This verse 
 is introduced as grounding the practical duty that Christians 
 must willingly suffer for righteousness’ sake (vers. 14,17). The 
 expressions may be an echo of similar terms used by the Lord 
 Himself on various occasions, combined with others derived 
 from Isaiah’s prophecy. They teach, in unfigurative language, 
 that Christ, personally righteous, suffered punishment for sins 
 in room of the guilty. The apostle’s object is to bring out that 
 the effect of the atonement is to bring back to God, or restore 
 to priestly nearness and priestly service, those who by sin had 
 been widely separated and estranged from Him. 
 
 1. The first thing mentioned is, that He suffered for sins. 
 The meaning of the expression, which it is necessary accurately 
 to apprehend, is that sin was the cause or ground on account 
 of which He suffered. Had there been no sin in us, Christ 
 would not have been required to suffer. But because we were 
 guilty, or liable to punishment, He underwent the suffering. 1 
 The meaning of the words, “ He suffered for sins,” is self- 
 evident from the language of ordinary life. Thus, in common 
 discourse, when we say of any one that he suffered for his sins, 
 the import is that he bore their punishment; and no other 
 sense can be put upon the words by any hearer or reader. 
 And, in like manner, when we read that Christ the righteous 
 suffered for sins, which are further mentioned as the sins of the 
 unrighteous, the import is, that the innocent took upon Him¬ 
 self the sins of others, and suffered the punishment which the 
 guilty should have endured. That is the natural and necessary 
 meaning. Lest it should be alleged there was no relation be¬ 
 tween. the sufferings of Christ and those of guilty men, Peter 
 says, in terms the most precise, that He suffered for sins, and 
 for the guilty. Nor can any other interpretation of the words 
 
 1 Doedes ( l.c .) shows that Christ’s death was made necessary by the sins of 
 the ubiKot. 
 
440 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 be made even probable. They cannot, for example, mean 
 that Christ died to turn men away from future sinning, for 
 that could not be called suffering for sin. To bring out that 
 sense, many* additional words would be necessary, whether it 
 were understood as a motive on the part of man, or as an 
 influence on the part of God. The suffering is spoken of as 
 caused by actual guilt, past and present sin, of which the 
 Christian is already conscious. When Paul speaks of Christ 
 giving Himself for our sins, and unites with this a further 
 reference to a future amendment or deliverance from this pre¬ 
 sent evil world, the two things are plainly distinguished from 
 each other (Gal. i. 4). As little can the words refer to the 
 sinful passions of men, or to the bitter hostility with which the 
 Jews were animated when they crucified the Lord : that could 
 not be called a suffering for sins. The allusion is to the actual 
 guilt of men, which must be expiated by punishment. This is 
 the result or full effect of what was already noticed,—the bear¬ 
 ing of sin in His own body to the tree. Here we may take in 
 the phrase, being put to death in the flesh. This peculiar style 
 of language applied to Christ, denotes His abased, sin-bearing 
 humanity (see Heb. v. 7), contrasted with the state in which 
 He now is, and implies all the infirmities proper to humanity 
 in this life, and which could be in Christ along with a perfect 
 immunity from sin. The whole time of His humiliation, from 
 the manger to the cross, is thus described (2 Cor. v. 16); and 
 the phrase, “ put to death in the flesh,” has reference either to 
 the sin-bearing condition of the Lord, or to the guilt and cursed 
 death to which He was subjected. 
 
 2. The next thing requiring notice is the emphatic allusion 
 to the Lord’s sinlessness as the Eighteous One by way of emi¬ 
 nence, or the one Eighteous Person as contradistinguished from 
 all men as sinners: He suffered, the righteous for the un¬ 
 righteous. The term righteous denotes one approved by God 
 when tried by the standard of the law. The word intimates 
 perfect sinlessness of nature, and a life adjusted to the idea of 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 441 
 
 man’s normal relation toward God. When it is added that He 
 suffered, the righteous for the unrighteous, the words imply, in 
 connection with the previous allusion to sin, that He was the 
 innocent for the guilty, the pure for the impure, the holy for 
 the unholy, in all the steps to which, as the surety of sinners, 
 He must needs subject Himself. His sufferings were not on 
 His own account, nor from the mere course of events or laws 
 of evil in a sinful world, but the result of substitution in the 
 room of others. The nature of the transaction, and the marked 
 antithesis, imply that the suffering was in the room of the 
 guilty; and no unbiassed mind can peruse these words in 
 their natural import, with the desire to know simply what is 
 written, without arriving at this conclusion. The words, even 
 with the utmost violence, cannot be made to yield any other 
 meaning than that of vicarious suffering. What is wanted is a 
 full recognition of the claims of the divine law, for the atone¬ 
 ment was but a satisfaction to them in all their breadth and 
 extent. The main position, to which every one must come 
 who has right conceptions of the extent of the divine law 
 and of its unbending claims, is, that Christ’s satisfaction is 
 perfectly identical with that which men should themselves 
 have rendered; and in the atonement of Christ we are to 
 read off the unalterable claims of the divine law. We must 
 argue from man’s obligations to the nature of the Lord’s under¬ 
 taking, and conversely from the latter to the former. 
 
 The penal suffering or passive obedience must come to its 
 rights. The infliction or visitation He suffered could be nothing 
 else than a retribution —a suffering for sins, as here expressed 
 —the wages of sin. The active obedience must also come to 
 its rights; for many too exclusively fix attention on the death 
 of Christ, without taking into account, as they ought to do in 
 speaking of the necessity of a satisfaction to justice, the sinless 
 nature and immaculate obedience of Him who is here called 
 the Eighteous One. Some make His sinlessness a mere condi¬ 
 tion or indispensable prerequisite to the atonement; but it is 
 
442 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 more. Others maintain that Christ’s active obedience was a 
 service which He, in common with every rational creature, 
 owed to God on His own account; but they forget that He 
 was under no obligation either to take flesh, or to fulfil what 
 He did fulfil in humanity on His own account. The active 
 obedience was an essential factor or constituent element in the 
 atonement. 
 
 3. Another thing calling for notice is the declaration that 
 Christ once suffePlED. By that expression the apostle does 
 not mean that all penal suffering was confined to one time— 
 to the hours when He was suspended on the cross. The ex¬ 
 pression intimates that He suffered once for all, so that there 
 was no more need to repeat the sacrifice, as in the case of the 
 Old Testament sacrifices. His one all-sufficient atonement has 
 everlasting validity, needing no repetition. The allusion is 
 plainly to a suffering which on the one hand pervaded the 
 whole tenor of His earthly history, and on the other reached 
 its culmination on the cross (Heb. ix. 25-28). It is the more 
 necessary to advert to the true meaning of the expression, as it 
 has been thought to lend countenance to the notion that the 
 vicarious sufferings of Christ were limited to the time of the 
 crucifixion. But the apostle’s aim in the use of this expres¬ 
 sion, is to contrast the completeness of His suffering obedience, 
 which comprehends His whole life, with the notion that it 
 needed a repetition. Even the Jewish sacrifices were not done 
 at one moment, but presupposed many successive steps; and 
 our Lord’s sacrifice took in His entire earthly course. And it is 
 said that He once suffered, to intimate that the atoning work 
 which satisfied the law of God and procured remission was 
 limited to His first advent, as contrasted with anything per¬ 
 formed during His present mediatorial activity or at His 
 second advent. It was once, and only once, as contrasted 
 with the oft-repeated sacrifices of the old economy. The Lord’s 
 atoning work required and admitted no repetition. 
 
 4. The end contemplated by the Lord’s death is next 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 443 
 
 noticed: that He might bring us to God. The death of 
 Christ attains this end only as it procures the remission of 
 sins, and so delivers us from the dividing element which 
 separates between God and man. The great end for which 
 the Lord died was to restore us to the divine communion—to 
 friendly intercourse and priestly privilege, after a complete 
 disunion. The peculiar shade of meaning ascribed to the ex¬ 
 pression is very variously given. Thus, some have regarded it 
 more in the light of inward renovation and dedication, while 
 others make it identical with reconciliation. A third class are 
 of opinion that, while it includes the divine favour, it prin¬ 
 cipally alludes to the possession of future blessedness and the 
 life with God above. The expression may be taken in the 
 latter comprehensive sense. But it seems specially to contain 
 an allusion to the restoration of access or nearness to God, and 
 the priestly privilege, 1 in which these feelings find their fullest 
 scope. They have an open door of entrance—a deliverance 
 from fear and the depressing sense of guilt, which previously 
 shut them out from God, and prevented every activity or 
 liberty of approach. They are now made nigh as priests, 
 and can do everything as a priestly service (1 Pet. ii. 5, 9). 
 This was the privilege faintly set forth, but never realized, by 
 the separation of Israel. 
 
 But the words, while tracing this great privilege to the 
 Saviour’s sufferings as the meritorious cause, refer also in no 
 obscure way to the activity of the risen Christ. By whom 
 are Christians brought to God ? By Christ, in His function of 
 risen Mediator or great High Priest, the introducer , 2 whose 
 action is here distinctly intimated after His redemption-work 
 was completed. Whether we refer the language to Oriental 
 court ceremonies, and suppose an allusion to the introduction 
 
 1 Some, as Calvin, make the vpaffotydy* refer to inward renewing. Weiss, 
 Petrin. LeJirbe.gr iff, correctly refers it to the Christian’s priestly standing. 
 
 2 There is frequent mention of Christ’s introduction (i-potrayuyyi, Rom. v. 2, 
 Eph. ii. 12). Comp. Calvin. 
 
444 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 effected by the favourite or son of a monarch, or simply call 
 in the idea of Christ as the way to the Father (John xiv. 6), 
 and as our introducer, we cannot fail to notice the action of 
 our risen Lord and Saviour: it is He who brings us to God. 
 
 Y. Still another passage must be noticed, though closely 
 connected with the former: Forasmuch, then, as Christ hath 
 suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind; 
 for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin (1 Pet. 
 iv. 1). Peter returns to the same theme, which he expresses in 
 the same terms; and the obvious conclusion is, that we must 
 take the allusion to Christ’s sufferings in the same sense. 
 There is nothing to warrant a different exposition of the words, 
 as the apostle returns to the same thought, and, indeed, in a 
 formal way recapitulates its substance after completing the 
 intervening parenthesis (1 Pet. iii. 19-22). When he resumes 
 his previous expressions, he can only refer to Christ’s vicarious 
 sufferings in the flesh. And he bids the Christians realize the 
 fact, that in Christ’s sufferings, as the representative or surety 
 of all believers, they were co-crucified or co-sufferers. The 
 language goes much beyond a mere allusion to Christ’s ex¬ 
 ample, carrying with it the notion of two separate and similar 
 actions parallel to each other. This is but one. 
 
 Here, then, we have another instance in which Peter and 
 Paul use nearly the same phraseology in speaking of our death 
 to sin; and this so far from offering a difficulty, or inclining us 
 to make a difference when there is none, is only what was to 
 be expected (compare 1 Pet. ii. 24). Any other explanation is 
 in the last degree unnatural. They who represent the ex¬ 
 pressions as alluding to what Christ encountered in His 
 earthly life from wicked men, and explain the second clause 
 of the believer suffering in Christ’s cause and after His ex¬ 
 ample, can produce nothing to satisfy the forcible terms here 
 used as to ceasing from sin. To allege that the words mean 
 only, that he who suffers in the cause of Christ has broken 
 with sin, or testifies that he no more obeys the will of the 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 445 
 
 world, is to evacuate words of tlieir significance. It makes the 
 whole clause unmeaning. The best expositors of the Patristic 
 and Reformation schools have agreed to explain the expression, 
 “ He that has suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin,” in the 
 Pauline sense of suffering or dying with Christ 1 (Rom. vi. 7). 
 Thus the meaning of the expression will be, that we suffered as 
 one person with Christ. Peter considers Christians as one 
 person with Christ, as suffering when He suffered, and paying 
 the last tribute to sin—their old master and tyrant—when we 
 died with Christ. There are two modes of speaking in re¬ 
 ference to the atonement, either of which presupposes and 
 involves the other. We may either say, “ Christ suffered for 
 sins, the just for the unjustand then we describe the Surety 
 as interposing between God and us: or we may say, “ He that 
 suffered in the flesh,” or suffered in the Surety, or in that 
 obedience unto death finished by Him as a public person, has 
 been discharged from sin, or parted company with sin. The 
 person who is regarded at the divine tribunal—as every be¬ 
 liever is regarded—as a co-sufferer with Christ, or crucified 
 with Christ (Gal. ii. 20), is absolved from sin, dead to sin. He 
 is here described as having ceased from sin; that is, as one who 
 has done with sin, and has no more connection with it as his 
 master. This naturally flows from the representative capacity 
 of Christ and His vicarious atonement. But how could such a 
 thought be deduced from the sufferings of Christ, and how 
 could we be regarded as suffering with Him, if He did not 
 suffer in our room and stead ? The apostles, when they connect 
 our sanctification with the death of Christ, always presuppose 
 His surety-satisfaction in our stead. This enables us to meet 
 the only plausible objection to the interpretation now advanced, 
 viz. that the word flesh must be taken in two different senses 
 in the two different clauses of this verse. By no means. It has 
 the same sense in both, denoting Christ’s representative suffer¬ 
 ing, and our act, considered as one with Him in God’s account. 
 
 1 (Ecnmenras says: « 7ra,(uv lv <rxpz) «vt! b K'xo&a.vwv (Rom. vi. 8). 
 
446 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 The only further point to be noticed in the verse is, that the 
 Christian must realize all this, and arm himself with the same 
 mind. There is a divine fact; but it must be apprehended and 
 felt, and the inward realization' of that objective fact is the 
 Christian’s armour in the way of motive. He must apprehend 
 his discharge from sin in Christ (Eom. vi. 11). And this 
 forcibly proves how much, in the practical conduct of life, the 
 apostle deduced all privileges and all motives from the fact of 
 the atonement. 
 
 The Second Epistle of Peter contains less express allusion 
 to the atonement. Nor should this excite surprise, as it was 
 directed against a class of gnostic errorists, imbued with an 
 Antinomian spirit, and scoffers in regard to the second advent; 
 and this gave a peculiar tone to the epistle; for the genuine¬ 
 ness of which, notwithstanding all the doubts which many 
 have expressed, the church has a satisfactory amount of 
 evidence, external and internal. It bears to have been written 
 by the aged Peter toward the close of his apostolic labours 
 (2 Pet. i. 14). 
 
 The sole passage that bears reference to the atonement is 
 the prophetic announcement of false teachers, who were to 
 bring in heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them (2 Pet. 
 ii. 1). The term Lord ( hsayroTriv ) has special emphasis, de¬ 
 noting a Lord who rules over others with unlimited power. 
 While ostensibly appearing to serve Christ, they in substance 
 deny His dominion and atoning sacrifice, spreading views at 
 variance with these fundamental doctrines. This passage, con¬ 
 sidered in the light of an efficacious atonement securing the 
 redemption of the true church (Acts xx. 28), is not without its 
 difficulties, and is variously expounded; being the passage, in 
 fact, in which the Lutheran and Arminian polemical writers uni¬ 
 formly intrench themselves and defy assault. It cannot fairly 
 be adduced as impugning the biblical doctrine of the special 
 redemption of the elect (Eph. v. 25); and two explanations have 
 been given by those w r ho maintain that, according to Scripture, 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 447 
 
 tlie atonement is at once special and efficacious. The first 
 mode, not so satisfactory, holds there is no allusion to Christ’s 
 death; that there is no mention of Christ, hut of a Master,— 
 a word not elsewhere applied to Christ, and rather applicable 
 to God; no allusion to Christ’s blood, sufferings, and death, as 
 the ransom; nor of deliverance from Satan and the bondage 
 of sin; and that the whole must therefore be referred to the 
 outward relation which the false teachers occupy to God, as 
 employing them in His church. That exposition does no 
 justice to the term bought. The comment of Piscator and of 
 the Dutch annotations is much to be preferred, viz. that these 
 false teachers are described according to their own profession 
 and the judgment of charity. They gave themselves out as 
 redeemed men, and were so accounted in the judgment of the 
 church while they abode in her communion. This is simple 
 and natural. The passage by no means affirms that any but 
 the true church or the sheep of Christ are truly bought by 
 atoning blood. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLE JOHN. 
 
 SEC. XXL—THE EPISTLES OF JOHN. 
 
 J OHN was reserved, with liis calm contemplative mind, to 
 lay a new impress on the Christian church, already 
 founded by the labours of Peter and Paul. The activity of 
 John presupposes the labours of Paul, and takes for granted, 
 too, that the conflict on the subject of the law has been termi¬ 
 nated. The disciple whom Jesus loved, less a man of action 
 than of intuition, seems to have received into himself all the 
 impressions to he derived from the life and death of his Lord, 
 and all the experience to he drawn from the first founding of 
 the Christian church, in order to appear upon the field in due 
 season, when the rest of the apostles had passed away, and 
 errorists began to arise,—to encourage and edify the church by 
 new elements. His writings were sent forth long after the 
 other inspired documents. 
 
 The first Epistle of John, supposed by some to have been a 
 companion document to his Gospel, recalls in many ways the 
 Lord’s own words. None of the apostles in a brief epistle 
 more explicitly refers to the atonement; and a few peculiarities 
 may be noticed. 
 
 a. John most copiously expatiates on the love of God. 
 And it is worthy of remark that, of all the apostles, he most 
 frequently used the term propitiation, which takes for granted 
 divine wrath against sin. The one suggests and presupposes 
 the other. 
 
 b. A second point that may be noticed is: John, in de- 
 
THE EPISTLES OF JOHN. 
 
 449 
 
 lineating the work of atonement, commonly connects the 
 divine Sonsliip with the sacrifice—as was indeed to he ex¬ 
 pected from the high conceptions everywhere expressed of 
 the personal dignity of Christ. Sometimes he does this in 
 direct terms, sometimes more suggestively. 
 
 c. Nor can we fail to notice another peculiarity : he attaches 
 himself closely to the Old Testament doctrine of sacrifice in 
 alluding to the blood of Christ (1 John i. 7; Rev. i. 5). The 
 greatest mistakes of expositors have arisen from not keeping in 
 view the sacrificial vocabulary, and allusions to the ancient 
 worship occurring in his style. Thus, he describes the Lord as 
 coming not by water only, but by water and blood (1 John v. 6): 
 in the Apocalypse he twenty-seven times designates the exalted 
 Christ as the Lamb, recalling His humiliation as the ground of 
 the dominion ; and no one shows more clearly that forgiveness 
 comes directly from the atonement, not from moral amend¬ 
 ments. His type of doctrine is the following:—The Eternal 
 Life has been manifested to bring back to men that life which 
 lies in fellowship with God. Before that could be effected, 
 the fountain of death, which lies in sin, must be removed; and 
 the atonement enters as the provision which restores men to 
 fellowship with Him who is life and light as well as love. 
 
 I. The first allusion to the atonement is in the first section: 
 If we walk in the light , as He is in the light, we have fellowship) 
 one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth 
 us from all sin (1 John i. 7). The context amounts to this: God 
 is light, and in Him is no defilement at all: if we claim to 
 have fellowship with Him, and indulge in unholy conduct out of 
 keeping with union to Him, we are false pretenders : only as we 
 walk in the light have we fellowship with Him and each other. 
 Here it recurs to the apostle that the Christian’s walk in the 
 light, far from reaching steady, unsinning fellowship, contracts 
 ever recurring taints, for which a cleansing is to be provided. 
 The last clause of the verse, which might be marked off by a 
 colon, and begin with an also, thus announces this provision : 
 
450 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 “ Also the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses ns from all 
 sin.” 1 The usual mode of connecting the two clauses is the 
 following: If we walk in the light, we receive cleansing or 
 remission of sins by the continuous application of the blood of 
 Christ;—an exposition which seems to run counter to the re¬ 
 ceived biblical principle, that forgiveness precedes, and a holy 
 walk is its fruit. The connection rather is as follows: Amid 
 the recurring stains of the Christian life, the blood of Christ is 
 ever needed and applied anew to restore the fellowship which 
 it at first procured. The present tense, cleanses, intimates that 
 the blood daily cleanses, that the merits of the Lord are anew 
 imputed, as sin is contracted and confessed. 
 
 1. The apostle describes this cleansing blood as the blood of 
 God’s Son,— an addition having peculiar emphasis, as it is in¬ 
 tended to exhibit the infinite value and efficacy of that blood. 
 The title Son occurs in a higher sense than can be ascribed to 
 any other being. It assigns a divine nature to Him, and, in 
 such connections as the present, exhibits His redemption-work 
 not merely as planned and approved by God, but wrought out, 
 so far as atoning action is concerned, by the only-begotten and 
 beloved Son. This imparts to Christ’s atonement its infinite 
 sufficiency and value, making it adequate to procure for men 
 the remission of sins, how great and numerous soever, whether 
 we think of individuals or of countless millions. On account 
 of the personal union of the two natures, the blood is spoken of 
 as the blood of the Son of God. Though the blood belongs to 
 Him as Son of Mary, yet in virtue of the hypostatic union 
 it is the blood of God’s Son, and therefore possessed of all the 
 value that the divine nature lends to it, and adequate to the 
 expiation of human sin laid in the scales against it. 
 
 2. How is the blood of Christ said to cleanse us ? One 
 thing is obvious, this cannot denote inward cleansing, or the 
 renewing of the Holy Ghost, as it is a cleansing by the blood 
 of Christ; that is, by His blood sacrificially shed. Several 
 
 1 See Muntinghe, Geschiedenis, x. 118, and note appended. 
 
THE EPISTLES OF JOHN. 
 
 451 
 
 recent expositors of note have referred the language to inward 
 cleansing from the power of sin, but a cursory examination of 
 the passage suffices to refute that comment. The very terms 
 refer to the sacrifices. 1 Then in no case are men here below 
 cleansed from all sin, in the inward acceptation of the phrase. 
 Besides, it would run counter to the very object which the 
 apostle intends to teach—that we are cleansed notwithstanding 
 daily recurring stains. He asserts a continuous cleansing by 
 the blood of Christ, applied as necessity requires; and we 
 cannot therefore expound this cleansing by referring to the 
 mission of the Spirit, or inward spiritual life, when it is so 
 definitely ascribed to the blood of Christ, considered, in the 
 sacrificial sense, as sprinkled and applied to the guilty. 
 
 To understand this cleansing by blood, we may go back 
 to the Old Testament ritual, and notice the great national 
 cleansing of Israel. On the day of atonement, when the blood 
 was brought into the holiest of all, and sprinkled on and be¬ 
 fore the mercy-seat, this action was regarded as the appointed 
 means by which sin was removed. But not only was this 
 action said to atone (Lev. xvi. 17), it was also said to cleanse 
 the people (ver. 30). In the latter verse we find the two ex¬ 
 pressions conjoined as coincident or parallel: “On that day 
 shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, 
 that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord.” 
 Evidently the expression “ to cleanse you ” does not mean 
 inwardly to amend and renew, but to free from punishment 
 incurred by sin, so as to put the worshipper on a right footing 
 with God. Moses explains it, by making atonement, or re¬ 
 moving the penalty threatened in the law. To obtain remission 
 was the great design of the sacrificial blood. Could the whole 
 nation be cleansed or improved in heart, so as to be clean from 
 all their sins, by a mere external ceremony ? Erom this passage 
 
 1 Doedes (Jaarboeken voor Weten. Tlieol. 1846, p. 320) argues for this view, 
 and adds as an argument, that kko ’zatr^? ct.pK.prta.? means from every sin which 
 is covered ; lienee, he argues, it is not an allusion to progressive holiness. 
 
452 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 it appears that the two expressions above mentioned amount to 
 nearly the same thing; and this is the import of the phrase 
 wherever cleansing is coupled wdth sacrificial blood according 
 to the Jewish ritual. 
 
 To this, however, an objection is taken by Socinus and 
 his followers, on the ground that inanimate things, needing 
 no forgiveness, nor capable of receiving it, are also described 
 in the Jewish ritual as purified and cleansed by blood. The 
 objection is easily obviated. It argues a defective insight into 
 the true nature of the sacrificial laws and the Mosaic code. 
 The primary question is, What is meant when men are said 
 to be cleansed by the blood of sacrifice ? We have seen that 
 it implies deliverance from punishment, and restoration to the 
 due position of a worshipper. Nor is the meaning different 
 when the expression is applied to inanimate objects. The 
 words of the law are: “ He shall make an atonement for the 
 holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of 
 Israel” (Lev. xvi. 16). The general notion of cleansing by 
 blood is retained even here, as the following explanation will 
 show. The nation was regarded as a sinful people before God; 
 as having defiled the sanctuary of God, which was His habi¬ 
 tation. The priests, as they approached the altar with the 
 sacrifices, indicated that the Israelites coming before God with 
 so many sins defiled the sanctuary; and the vessels as w r ell as 
 holy places were annually cleansed by atoning blood. But 
 this w r as because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel. 
 Thus, the sprinkling of blood on inanimate things removed 
 divine punishments from the priests and the people. This is 
 the meaning. 
 
 The expression, “the blood of Christ cleanses,” intimates 
 purifying from the defilement of sin, by which the believer 
 was again made meet to appear as clean before the Lord. The 
 blood of Christ is regarded as the truth or realization of all the 
 ancient sprinkling or cleansing which restored the Israelite to 
 his standing or right relation before God, when this was inter- 
 
THE EPISTLES OF JOHN. 
 
 453 
 
 rupted by ceremonial defilement. The word cleanse is to be 
 taken, first in the sense of effecting forgiveness for sins com¬ 
 mitted, and then of uniting us to God anew (Heb. i. 3, ix. 14), 
 as the Israelite was absolved and restored to God’s friendship 
 by sacrificial blood. 
 
 This further appears by what the apostle subjoins in the 
 context. Thus it is said: “ If we confess our sins, God is 
 faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us 
 from all unrighteousness” (ver. 9). It is a peculiarity of John’s 
 style to use two expressions for the same thing, the positive 
 and negative (ver. 5); sometimes a coincident expression, as in 
 Hebrew poetry, that the one may elucidate the other. The two 
 expressions, “ to forgive us our sins,” and “ to cleanse us,” are 
 equivalent, or a slight advance of meaning is found in the latter 
 phrase. The Epistle to the Hebrews, recalling sacrificial ideas, 
 speaks of cleansing or purging the conscience by the blood of 
 Christ, and then identifies the purging with remission (Heb. 
 ix. 22). 
 
 ISTor can the force of this conclusion be evaded by asserting 
 that the allusion is to a cleansing from future sins. The apostle 
 does not speak of sins not yet committed, but of sins already 
 contracted and every day recurring. He cannot mean deliver¬ 
 ance from sin by moral amendment, and motives drawn from 
 that which Christ had to encounter among men. The context 
 shows that no such attainment is made by any one; and that 
 forgiveness and cleansing cover each other, and mutually ex¬ 
 plain each other. It is sacrificial blood that cleanses, sprinkles, 
 and purifies the Christian disciple, by covering his sin, and 
 enabling him to stand before God. 1 
 
 A single glance at the Old Testament sacrificial ritual 
 suffices to show that it was not the death, or bloody action 
 of slaying the sacrifice, that possessed the sin-covering and 
 cleansing power. The action with the blood—the priestly 
 action which ensued—cleansed and purified. And the apostle, 
 
 1 See Calvin on the passage ; also Grotius on xx0upi%uv, de Satisfactione . 
 
454 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 ill writing to Christians, assumes that, amid daily recurring 
 stains, they shall have a fresh remission, and restoration to 
 their privileges. As the transgressor under the law, becoming 
 unclean, was excluded from an approach to God, so he had 
 access restored, and a renewal of the privileges of God’s people, 
 the moment the blood was sprinkled. He was clean, and 
 again in communion and favour. Precisely so is it with us: 
 by Christ’s blood we are forgiven and restored to fellowship. 
 
 II. Another passage is as follows: We have an advocate 
 with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the pro¬ 
 pitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins 
 of the whole world [better, without the supplementary words 
 of our translators, but also for the whole world]. The apostle, 
 exhorting believers not to sin, takes for granted daily sins, 
 which would forfeit the divine favour were no provision made 
 to remove their guilt. He directs their thoughts to the Advo¬ 
 cate, or Helper, through whom divine anger is averted; and the 
 ground of that intercession is next subjoined, viz. the twofold 
 consideration that Jesus Christ is righteous, and that He is the 
 propitiation for sins. These two descriptive names bring before 
 us His vicarious work in its double aspect, reminding us that 
 it is all identified with Christ Himself, a present as w^ell as a 
 past. 
 
 1. As to the epithet righteous, the contrast in which it 
 stands to sin proves that it must denote innocent or sinless; 
 that is, one approved as righteous when tried by the test of the 
 divine law. It does not mean constant to His promises, as the 
 Socinians expounded it, but the sinless One, or righteous Ser¬ 
 vant (Isa. liii. 11; 2 Cor. v. 21; 1 Pet. iii. 18; Heb. vii. 26), 
 and intimates that for the sinning a sinless obedience is pre¬ 
 pared. Wherever Scripture speaks of Christ’s redeeming work, 
 it generally shows us His personal righteousness underlying it, 
 and that not as a mere preparation, but as an element of the 
 propitiation. Only the righteous One could atone: only the 
 righteous One could intercede. 
 
THE EPISTLES OF JOHN. 
 
 455 
 
 2. Another term is: the propitiation for our sins. Per¬ 
 sonally sinless, He must also be the propitiation. It will be 
 necessary to elucidate the import of this term (ikcurfios) from 
 the usage of language. The uniform acceptation of the word 
 in classical Greek, when applied to the Deity, is the means 
 of appeasing God, or of averting His anger; and not a single 
 instance to the contrary occurs in the whole Greek literature. 
 As interpreters, therefore, our business is to abide by language, 
 and not pervert it from its proper meaning. As this is the 
 received import of the term in the language of Greece, without 
 a trace of any other, we are bound to hold that it here inti¬ 
 mates the means of averting divine anger for the sins of man¬ 
 kind, when Christ Himself is called our propitiation. 1 The 
 expression intimates that this propitiation is found in His own 
 person, apart from any work which man can render for him¬ 
 self. God had just grounds for inflicting punishment, just 
 cause of anger; and the word means that by which God’s anger 
 is turned away, and man ceases to be the object of divine dis¬ 
 pleasure. It is interesting to find that the word occurs in the 
 same sense in what is called Hellenistic Greek. It is the word 
 in the Septuagint for the day of atonement (Lev. xxiii. 27); 
 for the ram of atonement, whereby an atonement was made 
 (Hum. v. 8); and for the sin-offering (Ezek. xliv. 27). This 
 fact explodes all other senses put upon the word by Socinian 
 writers. If men will maintain another signification, they can¬ 
 not do so as interpreters of language, but must appeal to 
 theories and foregone conclusions of their own. 
 
 The expression propitiation for our sins takes for granted 
 the wrath of God, a property often ascribed to Him in the 
 Old and Hew Testament, and the moving cause of the punish¬ 
 ment which He inflicts on sin. This anger has its seat in the 
 bosom of God, or in His moral nature, and its measure is ac- 
 
 1 See Stillingfleet on the Death of Christ; Chapman’s Defence , on this word 
 Ikourpos; Moms, in suam Epitomen , ii. 91 ; also Stein, de Satisfactions , p. 270 ; 
 Oeder on Racov. Cat. p. 821 ; Calov. p. 556. 
 
456 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 cording to the conduct of His creatures. It is grounded in His 
 essential holiness, as appears from the fact that God swears in 
 His wrath (Heb. iii. 11); and it belongs to the idea of the per¬ 
 sonal God, the Creator and moral Governor, as He acts in 
 history. He is no indifferent spectator of human conduct: He 
 cannot look on sin and obedience, on vice and virtue, in the 
 same light. Had we no other idea of God than the Epicurean 
 notion, which represented Him as remote from human inte¬ 
 rests, or the pantheistic notion, which makes all things equally 
 divine, we could not affirm that God had affections correspond¬ 
 ing to anger or displeasure in regard to human conduct. But 
 the Scriptures give us a different view, and speak of God’s 
 wrath as comprehending the following elements: aversion to 
 sin; displeasure at the sinner; and the will or purpose to 
 avenge it. It is impossible to assent to their opinion, who, 
 with Koppe, maintain that this term applied to God means 
 nothing more than punishment, and that the translators of the 
 Scriptures should have rendered it by the latter word (1 Tliess. 
 i. 10). A full examination of biblical language may satisfy 
 every one that the term wrath never means the mere outward 
 fact of punishment, apart from the affection of an acting party: 
 it never means the mere effect (Bom. i. 18, ix. 22 ; 1 Thess. v. 9). 
 
 Man, made in the image of God, is capable of regarding sin 
 and vice in a similar way. The Bible speaks of God in words 
 borrowed from what is human; and, on the ground already 
 stated, there is no reason to remove from our representation of 
 God the idea of displeasure or wrath against sin,—that is, 
 without the turbulent emotion which is associated with it in 
 fallen natures. We find it in the sinless Saviour (Mark iii. 5). 
 There is in God a displeasure at moral evil simply as such, 
 which He regards as a violation of His supreme authority, and 
 an injury offered to His majesty. Irrespective of the conse¬ 
 quences which sin carries in its train, He regards Himself as 
 wronged, even though His essential happiness is not invaded 
 by any denial of His authority or withdrawal of His declara- 
 
THE EPISTLES OF JOHN. 
 
 457 
 
 tive glory, and is led by the perfection of His nature to regard 
 the offender with anger, and to visit him with punitive jus¬ 
 tice. This wrath rests on man by nature (Eph. ii. 3). We 
 may affirm that divine wrath is essential to our idea of God 
 as the moral Governor, that it is essentially connected with the 
 doctrine of sin, with the atonement, and with the doctrine of 
 future retribution. It cannot be limited to the future, how¬ 
 ever, as some propose, 1 on the erroneous supposition that it 
 strikes only the rejectors of salvation, and is but a modification 
 of love, or the sorrow of love. It strikes on sin as sin, in all 
 its forms and degrees, and is far from being a mere phase of 
 love. If men, however, represent the essence of God as con¬ 
 sisting in love alone without other perfections, such as holiness 
 and justice, they cannot ascribe anger to God in any Scripture 
 acceptation of the term. 
 
 This brings us to the propitiation which presupposes the 
 wrath of God. It is revealed in its full depth and severity in 
 the atonement of Christ, as sin-bearer, curse-bearer, and wrath- 
 bearer. Considered in its objective significance, the atoning 
 work of Christ is the propitiation of the divine wrath—the 
 appeasing of God. The Lord Jesus is called the propitiation 
 for our sins, to intimate that He is the author, the cause, or 
 the means of averting the divine wrath. The word which 
 the apostle employs, denotes in general terms the means of 
 expiation, without naming His death, and without a closer 
 definition of its sacrificial character. But whether we look at 
 the cleansing blood, referred to in the previous context (1 John 
 i. 7), or at the Hebrew style of thought which is introduced, 
 according to which the only propitiation was by sacrifice, no 
 doubt remains that the allusion is to the sin-offering. The 
 apostle could not more unambiguously teach that what the sin- 
 offering was under the old economy, Jesus is for the sins of 
 His people. By Him the divine anger is averted, and for¬ 
 giveness bestowed. The allusion, as in the Epistle to the 
 
 1 So Ritschl, cle ira Dei . 
 
458 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 Hebrews, is to the priestly office of the Lord, and to His death, 
 as the truth of the Mosaic sacrifices. The words affirm: What 
 the propitiatory sacrifices were to Israel, when they expiated 
 their sins and delivered them from punishment, that Christ is 
 to the world at large. 
 
 Here we may answer three inquiries : (1.) Who is propi¬ 
 tiated ? God, provoked to anger by the sins of men. It is 
 not man who is described as propitiated to God, but conversely. 
 (2.) By what was the propitiation effected ? By the whole 
 active and passive obedience of the Lord. The fact that He 
 who is the propitiation is described as Jesus Christ the right¬ 
 eous, emphatically shows that it was not personally needed 
 for Himself. (3.) Was the work done a full satisfaction ? He 
 is called the propitiation in the abstract, intimating that, by 
 His sinless obedience as the righteous One, and by becoming 
 the sin-bearer, and consequently the wrath-bearer, in our room, 
 a full provision was made for making peace between God and 
 man. The divine anger was averted, and merited punishment 
 was removed. 1 
 
 These expressions of the apostle plead so convincingly for 
 the doctrine of the atonement in all its essential elements, that 
 it is hard to see how any, admitting the authority of God’s 
 word, can be insensible to their force. Other explanations, 
 especially those which deny the wrath of God, and culminate 
 in the twofold objection that substitution and penal suffering 
 are not to be supposed as possible, are in the last degree 
 unnatural. Did Christ vicariously take on Himself the punish¬ 
 ment of sin, or bear the wrath of God in our room ? is the 
 principal point in modern discussions of the atonement; and 
 this text unquestionably leads us to affirm that He did so. 
 This is to be coupled, indeed, with the explanation that He was 
 personally the Son of His love. But as our substitute, in His 
 official capacity, He was the object of the divine wrath. This 
 
 1 See Diisterdieck’s commentary and philological discussion on Ixatry/o; in 
 this passage. 
 
THE EPISTLES OF JOHN. 
 
 459 
 
 cannot be denied, if it was a real substitution, without main¬ 
 taining that God is indifferent to good or evil. When Christ is 
 explicitly called the propitiation for our sins —that is, the sole 
 cause, author, or means of our peace with God—the meaning is, 
 that He appeased the divine anger by becoming a sacrifice in 
 our room. What goes to strengthen the statement is, that the 
 propitiation is connected with our sins, and confined to our 
 sins; that is, it is not only for men, but for their sins. 
 
 The Socinian explanation was, that the language refers to 
 the prevention of future sins by wmrking holiness in men, or 
 moral amendment. But there is no warrant for this exposition 
 but in a foregone conclusion. 1 When was the prevention of 
 future sin ever designated a propitiation for sins ? They might 
 much better affirm at once that the term denotes moral amend¬ 
 ment. The language does not intimate that sins are to cease, 
 but that divine wrath is to cease. 2 That is the meaning of the 
 word, and it can bear no other. The design of misinterpreting 
 language, contrary to its true and genuine meaning, we do not 
 presume to scan. But its tendency is to weaken the meaning 
 of words, and of the things signified. The natural meaning of 
 the language, confirmed by classical and Hellenistic usage, is, 
 that Christ appeased the wrath of God by expiating sin. 
 
 But, further, the apostle extends the propitiation TO the 
 whole world —that is, to all times and places. In analyzing 
 this language, we must notice that the phraseology furnishes 
 a case of altered structures: it is not an instance of concise 
 expression or breviloquence. 3 The first clause describes the 
 work of Christ as a propitiation for our sins : the second clause 
 describes it as for the whole w r orld. The supplementary words, 
 for the sins of\ inserted in the authorized version, are an un- 
 
 1 Grotius, in his annotations, holds that it means “to make sins to cease,’' 
 ■whereas he before stated the very opposite, de Satisfactione. See Weiss, der 
 Johann. Lehrhegriff, p. 162 ; also Fromman, Johann. Lehrhegriff. 
 
 2 See Calovius’ remarks, Soc. prof. 
 
 3 See Winer’s Grammar, where this is clearly and correctly put. So Doedes. 
 It is ft'-pi oXou, not Tip) rcov oXov. 
 
460 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 warrantable addition, from which the translators should have 
 been preserved, both by the structure and by the repetition of 
 the Greek preposition. To apprehend the meaning, it must be 
 remembered that the sinner as well as the sin is represented 
 in Scripture as the object of the propitiation, and that it was 
 wide enough to take in the whole world. 
 
 These words have been much canvassed, and often un¬ 
 warrantably adduced, in the discussions bearing on the extent 
 of the atonement. What was the apostle’s primary object ? To 
 comfort dejected Christians on the recurrence of sin in their ex¬ 
 perience. And he reminds them that they can appeal to Christ’s 
 intercession, which has its basis in His propitiation. The 
 words plainly allude to the atonement as offered and applied— 
 that is, to the actual expiation, which does not go beyond the 
 number of believing recipients. It is a perversion of the 
 language when this is made to teach the dogma of universal 
 propitiation; or that the atonement was equally offered for all, 
 whether they receive it or not, whether they acknowledge its 
 adaptation to their case or not. The passage does not teach 
 that Christ’s propitiation has removed the divine anger in such 
 a sense from all and every man. Nothing betokens that the 
 apostle had others in his eye than believers out of every tribe 
 and nation. 
 
 What, then, does he mean when he calls it a propitiation for 
 the whole world ? He intimates that it was not for him and 
 for those to whom he wrote alone, but for the redeemed of 
 every period, place, and people — that is, prospectively and 
 retrospectively. The apostle connects the intercession and 
 propitiation in such a way as to show that Christ’s work is 
 applicable to all the redeemed who then lived, or had ever lived, 
 or should ever live, wherever found in the nations of the earth, 
 and in whatever age. This is the point of the distinction; it 
 is not the distinction elsewhere expressed between Jew and 
 Gentile. 
 
 III. Another passage replete with the sacrificial idea, or the 
 
THE EPISTLES OF JOHN. 
 
 461 
 
 idea of the sin-offering, is as follows: And ye know that He was 
 manifested to take away [better, to bear'] our sins; and in Him is 
 no sin (1 John iii. 5). It is plain, whether we have regard to the 
 style of language or to the context, that the apostle alludes to 
 the great object of Christ’s manifestation in the flesh. This 
 should naturally lead us to some phase of His redemption- 
 work, as is usual in such cases. The verse occurs, it is true, in 
 a section which aims at enforcing a holy walk, and it w r as not 
 unnatural on that account that expositors should be biassed in 
 favour of the supposed allusion to inward holiness. 1 This 
 drops the sacrificial allusion. The argument of those who refer 
 the words to inward renovation by the Spirit, is derived from 
 the context, where the apostle combats certain perverters of 
 divine grace, probably Gnostics of an Antinomian tendency, 
 perverted in principle and vicious in practice. But an argu¬ 
 ment from the context, liow T ever important as a principle in 
 hermeneutics, is by no means sufficient to control the usage of 
 language. A closer investigation will show that such an in¬ 
 terpretation is untenable on many grounds; that the passage 
 does not refer to holiness, but furnishes a dogmatic basis or 
 grounding for the enforcement of holiness; that the language is 
 sacrificial; and that had the apostle meant to show that Christ 
 came to sanctify us from sin, the singular would have been 
 used. The context is as follows:—The apostle begins a series of 
 arguments against the perverters of the gospel, derived from the 
 scope of Christ’s mission. He reasons from the fact that Christ 
 came to bear sin or expiate guilt. Hence it would follow that 
 no quarter can be given to sin, nor allowance granted to it. 
 Nor is that out of keeping with the further statement, that 
 Christ was manifested to destroy the works of the devil 
 (ver. 8). 
 
 Another mode of interpreting the passage is to render the 
 phrase to take away sins, and refer it to the efficacy of 
 
 1 Calvin and some of our best exegetes have fallen into this subjective inter¬ 
 pretation on such mistaken grounds. 
 
4G2 * 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 Christ’s blood. It is thus equivalent, or nearly so, to the 
 sprinkling of Christ’s blood (1 John i. 7). This is so far 
 correct, that it apprehends the sacrificial allusion, and brings 
 out the idea of deliverance from punishment. It is so far 
 correct, too, as it refers the language to actual sins, and con¬ 
 templates guilt as removed by Christ’s work. But it fails to 
 trace the precise shade of meaning, which is the same as is 
 contained in the Gospel of John, where Jesus is called the 
 Lamb of God that bore the sin of the world (John i. 29); the 
 same thought that Isaiah expresses in the well-known passage 
 descriptive of sin-bearing (Isa. liii. 12). 
 
 The phrase means strictly to bear sin. This is the uniform 
 signification, and it may be used either of personal guilt, or 
 guilt borne by imputation. Nothing can warrant us to take 
 the phrase in any other than in the Old Testament sense when 
 applied to the sin-offering. The phrase is the well-known 
 formula for incurring guilt, which may be either personal or 
 vicarious, according to the connection. From this acceptation 
 we are not to deviate, if we would defer to the laws of lan¬ 
 guage. 1 This is the undoubted usage, as we have elsewdiere 
 proved. What are the sins ? The form of expression, as well 
 as the use of the plural number, suffices to prove that the sins 
 are actual sins, past and present, for which a provision must be 
 made; not future sins, to be prevented or forestalled by the 
 force of motives or communications of the life-giving Spirit of 
 God. They are actual sins ; and the whole phrase shuts us up 
 to the conclusion that the words signify the transfer of guilt to 
 the Son of God as manifested to bear our sins. 
 
 But the sin-bearer must Himself be sinless; and to this 
 element, uniformly brought out in some form in connection 
 with the redemption-work of Christ, the subsequent clause 
 makes reference. We have only to recall the Petrine language, 
 or the words of John already expounded, to see how constantly 
 
 1 See Storr, Brief an die Hebrder, p. 193 ; and Doedes, p. 318 : xlpuv with 
 a.uctf>r'tct; means to bear, as we proved in the former vol. at large, p. 68. 
 
THE EPISTLES OF JOHN. 
 
 463 
 
 these two integral parts of the atonement are united together. 
 If we accept this as the connection, it will denote that He was 
 sinless, to stand for the sinful; innocent, to occupy the place 
 of the guilty. 
 
 As no small division of opinion prevails, however, as to the 
 relation of the second clause to the first, and as this decides on 
 its significance, we must put it in its proper light. Some argue 
 that the second clause, and in Him is no sin , is the commence¬ 
 ment of a new topic or argument, which is continued through 
 the next verse. The present tense of the substantive verb, it 
 is thought, thus receives its due force. Sinlessness is thus 
 referred to Christ as He now is, not as He verified sinless per¬ 
 fection and learned obedience in the days of His flesh. But 
 that deprives the clause of its emphasis, and gives the whole a 
 fiat, unmeaning turn. To refute this mode of construing, it is 
 necessary to notice that, whenever Christ is described as with¬ 
 out sin, as doing no sin, as separate from sinners, the ex¬ 
 pressions always imply a state of humiliation, in which He was 
 brought in contact with sin and sinners. The allusion is to 
 the period of testing His obedience. Such expressions are not 
 applicable, in the proper sense, to the heavenly glory, where 
 sin cannot enter, and where He is far removed from the range 
 of sin, and contact with it. 
 
 Besides, the second clause is subordinate to the first. And 
 in John’s manner, though without a grounding particle or con¬ 
 junction, it intimates the relation in which sinlessness stood to 
 sin-bearing; making it apparent that the sin was not His own, 
 that sinlessness underlay the imputation of others’ sins. There 
 is in the thought a certain causal relation; the second clause 
 bringing into vivid view the sinless holiness of the Lord, and 
 intimating that Christ was competent to bear the sins of others 
 because He had none of His own. It expresses a reason. The 
 whole verse, thus connected, denotes that, as the true ideal 
 of humanity, and as One exempt from all sins, either of 
 omission or of commission, He was in a position to clothe 
 
464 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 Himself with human guilt. 1 But why is the present tense 
 used—“ in Him is no sin ? ” It may imply what the living 
 Lord is, as well as what He was, and shall ever he before God’s 
 face, even as He is called Jesus Christ the pjghteous (1 John 
 ii. 1). He still stands before God’s face with that approval, 
 recognition, or imprimatur which He received in the days of 
 His flesh, and by which He was qualified to he the sin-hearer. 
 
 This important text, rightly understood, brings these two 
 elements together, sinlessness and sin-hearing,—the two con¬ 
 stituent parts of the atonement, viewed in that which is 
 essential to it. The one would not avail without the other. 
 They are the counterpart of the two elements in the divine 
 law, as it comes with its precept and its curse; and at every 
 moment of Christ’s earthly history both may be discovered. 
 They describe all that goes to constitute the Lord’s earthly life 
 or manifestation, as it is here termed; and they coincided at 
 every moment. Only as His life at every stage came up to the 
 ideal standard, was He in a position to bear the sins of others. 
 But with sinless perfection, measured by the divine law, and 
 reflecting in the most perfect manner the divine image, He was 
 in a position, as the accepted substitute, to be the sin-bearer. 
 
 The apostle’s phrase here and in his Gospel is the same as 
 Isaiah’s : He bore sin. He could be the curse-bearer or wrath- 
 bearer only as He was the sin-bearer. It was this that brought 
 penal suffering in its train. The sum and substance of the 
 atonement, considered in its essential elements, apart from 
 all its accessories, is sinless sin-bearing; that is, not mere 
 punishment without sin-bearing, but punishment following on 
 the sin-bearing, and endured by One who is at once sinless 
 man and Son of God. To exempt us from sin the Son of 
 God was manifested. 
 
 We have only to add, that the transaction always proceeds 
 
 1 Doedes happily says, “The phrase kcu xpapria. lv alvu olx \<rnv is added, to 
 show both that Christ did not bear His own sin, and that He was fitted to bear 
 the sins of others. ” 
 
THE EPISTLES OF JOHN. 
 
 465 
 
 upon a community of nature, and a real relation between the 
 Surety and those in whose behalf His work was undertaken. 
 But when this was formed, Christ was no otherwise regarded 
 in the divine judgment, and at the divine tribunal, than if He 
 had incurred by His own act the guilt with which He was 
 charged. 
 
 There are various passages in this epistle where allusion is 
 made to the atonement in a less direct way, but so as to be 
 easily perceptible (1 John ii. 12, iii. 16, v. 6). These we shall 
 pass over, that we may concentrate attention on those which 
 are obvious and not to be mistaken. 
 
 IY. The only passage which we shall further adduce is 
 
 found in the memorable verses which bring together the love 
 
 of God and the wrath of God, as displayed in the atonement: 
 
 God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, 
 
 because [better, that ] God sent His only begotten Son into the 
 
 world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that 
 
 we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the 
 
 propitiation for our sins (1 John iv. 9, 10). Without doubt, the 
 
 apostle repeats, in nearly the same terms, what he had long 
 
 ago heard from the lips of his Master, as is recorded in the 
 
 Gospel (John iii. 16). He verifies his title as the disciple of 
 
 love. Not content to direct the attention of his readers to 
 
 the atonement, considered merely in its effects, he leads them 
 
 back to its source in the divine love, giving us a glimpse of 
 
 the father-heart of God—a discovery of God as the sum of love. 
 
 He had already said of God, God is light (1 John i. 5); now 
 
 he twice repeats, God is love (vers. 8, 1 6),— a definition of His 
 
 nature not to be reduced to the shallow signification that it 
 
 merely intimates the loving will of God, or even that God is 
 
 full of love. It describes the essence of God, His nature, and 
 
 His name. The epistle emphatically delineates the Supreme 
 
 Being as Light and Love; and we need not be surprised that 
 
 in this passage love and anger are so intimately connected in 
 
 the atonement of our Lord, or that both are displayed. Nor is 
 
 2 G 
 
466 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 the one incompatible with the other when we duly consider 
 their proper object. 
 
 1. As to the love of God, many who are swayed more by 
 a philosophical transcendentalism than by biblical representa¬ 
 tions, are apt to represent love as a mere human affection, 
 and to maintain that it is applied to God only in a way of 
 accommodation, or in its effects. 1 They call it an anthropo¬ 
 morphic representation of God. They do not ascribe to God 
 a true and proper love. On the contrary, this passage repre¬ 
 sents God not merely as possessing love, but as being love. 
 
 2. But next, the term propitiation, which we have already 
 expounded, intimates that man, the sinner, has come to be the 
 object of divine wrath, and that this can never be averted, 
 unless a sacrifice comes between the divine wrath and human 
 sin (Hum. xvii. 11). The language of the apostle seems at 
 first sight to intimate that the pacifying of the divine anger 
 did not exclusively lie in Christ’s death, but took in all that 
 is comprehended in His mission; and so indeed it does (ver. 
 10). But it culminated in His death, and the phraseology has 
 undoubted reference to the sin-offering, or the atoning sacri¬ 
 fices in general. As we have already asserted the presence of 
 the divine anger in connection with the propitiatory sacrifice 
 of Christ, it is only further necessary to add, that God was 
 thereby not merely made placable, but was absolutely pacified 
 to all in whose behalf it w T as offered. 8 
 
 The testimony contained in this passage may be briefly 
 exhibited in the following particulars :— 
 
 (1.) The holy love of God is described as providing the 
 atonement. And the apostle, in .connecting the love of God 
 with sending the only begotten Son into the world, sets 
 forth two things—the infinite greatness of the love (ver. 9), 
 
 1 They say effectum non affectum, as if man was not made in God’s image. 
 
 2 See Calvin’s very striking remarks on this x>assage : “Sed hie emergit 
 qusedam repugnantise species : nam si prius nos amabat Deus qnam se Christus 
 pro nobis in mortem offerret, quid nova reconciliatione opus fuit ? quia interea 
 nos Deo eramus liostes, iram ejus assidue provocando. ” 
 
THE EPISTLES OF JOHN. 
 
 467 
 
 and its gratuituous nature as free, unmerited, and self-moving 
 (ver. 10). The incarnation of the only begotten Son was un¬ 
 doubtedly the greatest fact of the divine love ; but it is never 
 disjoined from the deep abasement and vicarious sacrifice to 
 which it enabled the Son of God to descend. The greater 
 the distance between the divine and the human, the infinite 
 and finite, the greater the degree of love displayed in sending 
 the Son. The first ground of the atonement is thus the love of 
 God, and the greatness of the Son displays its infinite magni¬ 
 tude. But the apostle, secondly, sets forth how gratuitous and 
 undeserved is the love of God; "Not that we loved God, but 
 that He loved us.” His design is to teach that the scheme of 
 redemption is of God, emanating from free, self-moving, infinite 
 love, and not a recompense for love first rendered on our part. 
 
 (2.) We find the twofold fruit or effect of the atonement 
 with which all the apostles make us familiar. The one is 
 objective, the other subjective; the one bears on the accept¬ 
 ance of our persons, the other on the renovation of our natures; 
 and the latter is here put first. 
 
 a. One fruit is, that we might live through Him (ver. 9). 
 The life here mentioned is premial life, and must be taken in 
 its utmost amplitude of meaning as comprehending spiritual 
 and eternal life. And when it is said “ through Him,” the 
 allusion is plainly to His merit and satisfaction. There may 
 be a tacit antithesis between death as the price, and life as the 
 reward. 
 
 b. A second fruit of the atonement is the acceptance of the 
 person or the restoration to favour, which is involved in the 
 phrase “propitiation for our sins” (ver. 10). This is properly 
 the first in order in God’s moral government. The appeasing 
 of the divine anger, according to the Old Testament represen¬ 
 tation, was effected only by the intervention of an atoning 
 sacrifice, which is the shade of meaning attaching to these 
 terms; and this was the end for which the Son of God was 
 sent. By that sacrifice sin was cancelled, wrath removed, and 
 
468 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 the person accepted as well as brought nigh to the life-giving 
 God. Thus, the acceptance of the person was the means by 
 which the life was- procured: for no life was possible hut by 
 a sacrificial death. Life was attainable only by satisfying 
 divine justice, which restored men to God as the life-giving 
 and renewing God. 
 
 Thus the passage connects the atonement and its fruits with 
 divine love as its source. And it is only necessary to add, that 
 this is true and proper love, as may he deduced from a strict 
 interpretation of the terms. God not only possesses love: He 
 is love; that is, infinitely inclined to the communication of 
 Himself for the happiness of His creatures. We must take 
 the term love in its proper sense when applied to God, and 
 not evaporate it into a mere abstraction, as if affections were 
 to he affirmed only of man, hut not to he affirmed of God. 
 
 SEC. XXII.—THE TESTIMONY OF JOHN IN THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 The Apocalypse may he considered as one of the latest 
 books of the Hew Testament Canon, and composed long after 
 the destruction of Jerusalem. In its scope and structure it is 
 adapted to delineate the mediatorial dominion of Jesus, show¬ 
 ing that all power is given to Him in heaven and in earth. 
 While this comes out in connection with the prophetic outline 
 of the fortunes of the church in all the course of time, Christ’s 
 official power is- throughout exhibited as a dominion based on 
 the atonement. It is as the Lamb that He prevails to open the 
 hook, and to loose the seven seals thereof (Eev. v.-vii.). The 
 perpetual allusion indeed to the Lamb has no other object in 
 view than to show that He was invested with this dominion 
 as the reward of His abasement, and that the cross is the 
 foundation of His throne. 
 
 The book is in this way naturally connected with the 
 Gospel of John. They are thus found to emanate from the same 
 
THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN. 
 
 469 
 
 writer: he who records the Baptist’s testimony to the Lamb, 
 and was himself a spectator of the sacrifice, links the Gospel 
 and the Apocalypse together. We could not have explained 
 the constant use of this title in the Apocalypse had there been 
 no preparation for it (John i. 29, 36, xix. 33). But now it is 
 not only natural, but highly significant. Christ is described as 
 a Lamb as it had been slain, implying that He bore the tokens 
 of having been a piacular victim (Eev. v. 6). His saints are 
 called to the marriage supper of the Lamb (xix. 9). The re¬ 
 deemed follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth (xiv. 4). 
 They who have a right to the city of God, and are arrayed 
 in white robes, have washed their robes in the blood of the 
 Lamb (vii. 14); the Lamb opened the seals (vii. 1) ; the church 
 is the bride, the Lamb’s wife (xxi. 9); the city had no need of 
 the sun, for the Lamb was the light thereof (xxi. 23) ; the 
 conquerors sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb, extol¬ 
 ling the holy strictness of the law and the dying obedience 
 of the Saviour (xv. 3) ; and the united hymn of earth and of 
 heaven—that is, of redeemed men and angels—was an anthem 
 to the Lamb (v. 12). The whole book, in a word, is replete 
 with the Lamb. But a few passages call for more special 
 commentary. 
 
 I. The first passage on the atonement is as follows: Unto 
 Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own 
 blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His 
 Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. 
 (Bev. i. 5.) After adducing a reference to the Bedeemer’s love 
 in general, the apostle specially mentions the cleansing effect 
 of His atoning blood. This washing is the same thing that is 
 meant in the Epistle of John by the cleansing of His blood 
 (1 John i. 7). The words teach the priestly dignity of Christ; 
 for the priest’s work was to sprinkle the sacrificial blood (Heb. 
 ix. 22). The whole statement intimates that Jesus, in self- 
 sacrificing love to the unworthy, offered Himself as the priest 
 offered the sacrifices to atone for guilt, and thus washes our 
 
470 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 sins away. And the apostle, inflamed by the contemplation 
 of the love of Christ, closes with an ascription of praise. 
 
 An ntter violence is done to the language, when it is said 
 that the blood of Christ must be understood as shed for the 
 confirmation of His testimony, and to assure us of the truth of 
 what He taught. We may despair of discovering what words 
 mean, if we do not see that they -contain the statement that the 
 blood of Christ washes His people from their sins. How feeble 
 and unmeaning would they be, if they did not intimate that 
 Christ’s vicarious death puts away sin, delivers us from punish¬ 
 ment, and restores us to the near relationship from which sin 
 exiled the human family ! The phraseology is to be understood 
 by the sacrificial ceremonies of the Jewish worship, according 
 to which, one defiled by trespass was freed by the blood of 
 sacrifice from merited punishment and from estrangement, the 
 consequence of sin so long as it was unexpiated. 
 
 But why may not the allusion be to moral amendment or 
 inward holiness ? So some expositors choose to view the ex¬ 
 pression. But it may suffice to reply that the language is 
 figurative, and borrowed from the Mosaic ceremonies. Wher- 
 ever we find the phrase to wash from sin, to cleanse from 
 sin, it never alludes to moral amendment, but to deliverance 
 from guilt, and the estrangement from God which sin has 
 caused. Passages sometimes adduced in the acceptation of in¬ 
 ward holiness are all incorrectly interpreted (1 Cor. vi. 11; 
 Tit. iii. 5 ; 1 John iii. 5 ; Ezek. xxxvi. 25), and are rightly 
 explained only when we take them in their sacrificial refer¬ 
 ence. This is evident, if we consider any of the passages 
 where the sacred writers use this phrase (see Ps. li. 2, 7). The 
 Psalmist twice prays that God would wash him or sprinkle 
 him from sin; and what he means by the petition becomes 
 plain by the whole context, which contains a prayer for mercy. 
 In these passages (vers. 2, 7, 9), the washing, purging, or 
 cleansing for which he prays, is not an allusion to inward 
 holiness, but to sacrificial expiation, by which sin was atoned 
 
THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN. 
 
 471 
 
 for, and regarded as if it had never been. In that acceptation 
 the apostle takes the phrase here. 1 To remove all doubt on 
 this head, the addition of the term blood, as sacrificial blood, 
 intimates that it is not inward cleansing by renovation. We 
 owe the washing here mentioned to the Saviour’s bloody death. 
 
 Not content with alluding to the removal of guilt, the 
 apostle mentions the further benefit of priestly dignity and 
 service which Christians owe to the Lord’s atoning death: “ and 
 hath made us kings and priests unto God.” They are in virtue 
 of His atonement made kings and priests, just as Israel was 
 designated a kingdom of priests (Ex. xix. 6), because the Lord 
 Jesus, in whom they stand, and to whom they are united, is 
 invested with these offices. They have this honour now, and 
 a higher measure of it in reversion. Their priestly standing 
 before God intimates that they are emboldened to come nigh 
 to God, and can daily approach Him, so that every action they 
 perform may have a priestly character and be acceptable to 
 God (1 Pet. ii. 5). Their sins are covered (1 John i. 2), and 
 their active services are welcome, whether it be worship, fruit¬ 
 fulness, or social activity in any form (Heb. xiii. 15; Bom. xii. 1; 
 Col. iii. 17). 
 
 II. Another significant passage in reference to the atone¬ 
 ment is the hymn of the four living creatures, and the four 
 and twenty elders who fell down before the Lamb, and sung a 
 new song, saying: Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open 
 the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to 
 God by Thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, 
 and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: 
 and we shall reign on the earth (Bev. v. 9). They who sing this 
 song are the redeemed from among men, represented as singing 
 when the Lamb took the book out of the hand of Him that sat 
 upon the throne. The inadequate commentary, that nothing 
 
 1 They who interpret the Xov<ra.vn of moral amendment appeal in vain to such 
 passages as Ezek. xxxvi. 25-27, 1 John iii. 5, 1 Cor. v. 11, Tit. iii. 5 ; for the 
 meaning in all these is washing from guilt by expiation. 
 
472 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 more is meant than Christ’s knowledge of the future fortunes 
 of the church and the mysteries of God’s kingdom, can no 
 longer satisfy any mind: a further and a deeper idea must he 
 developed. The allusion was to the actual commencement of 
 the mediatorial kingdom and the carrying into execution of the 
 divine purposes, evoking that new song from the redeemed in 
 glory. The blessed in their heavenly glory unite before the 
 throne of the Lamb in this song of redemption. The language 
 of heaven cannot be measured by the feebleness of our ex¬ 
 pressions. But their words communicated to us in human 
 speech testify to the fact of the atonement as still the topic of 
 adoring contemplation. And if this is so, far from charging 
 their song, as some have done, with want of meaning or com¬ 
 prehension of the subject on which they dwell with so much 
 wonder, love, and gratitude, the part of those who are per¬ 
 mitted to read it is rather to follow their example of humility 
 and triumph, as they recall the pit from which they were 
 rescued, and the glory to which they are raised. 
 
 1. The first thing expressed in this song is, that the Re¬ 
 deemer’s kingdom over all was based on His atoning sacrifice. 
 He is extolled as worthy to receive this dominion, because He 
 was slain,—language proving that, though the possession of a 
 divine nature alone fitted Him for the exercise of so vast a 
 sway, its foundation was laid in His atoning death. It was 
 based on His passion, and on the fact that He bought a people 
 to be His. 
 
 2. Another thing which the redeemed mention in their 
 hymn of adoring love is the purchase of a people, and the 
 payment of a ransom, or adequate price: and hast redeemed 
 us to God by Thy blood. As they beheld the Redeemer in 
 His majesty and glory, they recalled the abasement to which 
 the Supreme Potentate had descended for us men and for our 
 salvation, borrowing their language, if not from the nail-prints 
 and spear-mark which He may still bear, at least from some¬ 
 thing which recalled His wounds and the death He underwent 
 
THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN. 
 
 473 
 
 in paying our ransom. Not only so : they describe themselves 
 as redeemed to God ; the meaning of which is, that they have 
 passed from one master to another, like those who were bought 
 in classical times to be the servants of their purchaser. And 
 the blood of Christ, regarded as blood sacrificially shed, or the 
 blood of atonement, is described as the price or ransom by 
 which they became the property of Christ and of God. The 
 notion of guilt leading to captivity under the holy wrath of 
 God, and the infliction of His justice, is presupposed. The 
 sacrificial blood, and the further idea of a ransom paid to 
 liberate men from bondage, are closely connected in many 
 passages of Scripture, and easily suggest each other. It is only 
 natural to find them together again in this passage. The 
 ransom by which He that sitteth on the mediatorial throne 
 bought them, was His own blood. And when they are said to 
 be redeemed to God, the words imply that He won them for 
 Himself, or bought them to be God’s, as slaves were bought 
 with a price in ancient times to be the property of a new 
 master—the obedient servants of him who paid the price for 
 them. In this case they are bought TO be free, but not to be 
 without A master, or to be independent—which man, from his 
 mental and moral constitution, can never be—but to be the 
 Lord’s: “Thou hast redeemed us to God.” The thought is, 
 that He has bought us to be God’s, to live to Him, and not to 
 another or to ourselves. This idea, uttered consciously in the 
 name of all the saved, implies that, as the blood-bought pro¬ 
 perty of God, the ransomed of the Lord correspond to their 
 name, and to the new ownership into which they have passed. 
 The phrase has respect to the holy ends of man’s redemption, 
 being redeemed to God. They verify their title, or correspond 
 to it, when they live to Him whose they are: they falsify it, 
 or deny the Lord that bought them, by a course of disobedience. 
 
 Here, however, it is necessary to obviate the Socinian 
 evasion. Many argue in modern days, as did the Socinians of 
 old, that the word redeem is to be taken in the acceptation of 
 
474 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 simple deliverance, without a price or ransom. Snclr a com¬ 
 ment is inadmissible, as the ransom is expressly named. That 
 passages may be found, such as the figurative expression “ re¬ 
 deeming the time,” where a metaphorical use of the word 
 occurs, no one ever denied. But whatever ground exists for 
 admitting such a use of the word where the notion of price is 
 scarcely perceptible, or but a shade of that meaning remains, 
 there can be none for attaching a metaphorical signification to 
 the term where the ransom is in so many words expressed. 
 When we are here said to be PcEDEEMED by blood, there cannot 
 be two opinions that we have a definite statement of the price 
 paid, as well as of the deliverance procured. 
 
 3. A further privilege won by redeeming blood, is the 
 dignity of being kings and priests to God. This, too, is caus¬ 
 ally connected with the blood of the Redeemer; and, as here 
 expressed, it differs from the allusion to the same privilege in 
 the previous passage (Rev. i. 5) in this respect, that the former 
 is the earthly phase of the royal priesthood, while this is the 
 heavenly aspect of the same dignity. 
 
 4. The elders further mention in their song, that they shall 
 reign on the earth; that is, when renewed and delivered from 
 the bondage of corruption. Of this privilege, too, the death of 
 the Lamb is the procuring cause; and hence they fully express 
 their adoring gratitude, announcing that the Lord’s atoning 
 death was the ground on which the Lamb is counted worthy 
 to be the Mediatorial King to take the book and open the 
 seven seals, or, in other words, to execute the divine counsels. 
 
 Other allusions might be adduced from the Apocalypse of a 
 more figurative kind. Thus the saints seen in glory are de¬ 
 scribed as having “ washed their robes, and made them white 
 in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. vii. 14). This language at 
 first sight appears strange, because affirming that their robes 
 were made white by blood, but is intelligible when we reflect 
 that it is an allusion to the acceptance of their persons, to 
 their priestly privilege and attire, as procured by the cross. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN. 
 
 475 
 
 Another phrase, “ redeemed from among men” (xiv. 4), recalls 
 the deliverance from Egypt and the separation of the peculiar 
 people. And if the reading which modern editors prefer is 
 adopted in that verse, which describes the right to the tree 
 of life (xxii. 14), “Blessed are they that have washed their 
 robes,” an important doctrine is stated. 
 
 We have thus proved against modern theories, that, accord¬ 
 ing to the uniform teaching of the apostles, the atonement 
 stands in causal connection with forgiveness. Many ends are 
 effected by the Lord’s death, but the remission of sins and the 
 acceptance of our persons are the immediate fruits. We do 
 not contend for any human phrase, and are willing to abandon 
 current nomenclature for a better when it is pointed out; but 
 the fact is attested by every apostle, that Christ’s vicarious 
 death alone, and without addition, effects the remission of our 
 sins and our standing before God. This is of such import¬ 
 ance, that it touches the security of the ground on which a 
 Christian lives, and on which he can die. Let us survey it. 
 
 (1.) What is the import of the term forgiveness ? ISTo 
 passage can be adduced where the idea of forgiveness is used 
 by the apostles in any but the common acceptation familiar to 
 every mind, lettered and unlettered, in every nation, viz. the 
 remission of deserved punishment. Sin, as an offence against 
 God, carries with it a reference to positive law as an expression 
 of the divine nature and will, and the further thought that 
 God in His capacity of Legislator threatened punishments, 
 which He actually inflicts in his capacity of Judge, from love 
 to His own perfections,—that is, from regard to Himself. 
 Every mind has a sense of guilt or liability to deserved punish¬ 
 ment,—a feeling which they try to remove, but which the 
 atonement alone meets. There is no necessity for explaining 
 guilt, because it is familiar to every nation where there is law 
 and justice; an innate belief, which no man can shake off by 
 all his elaborate speculations. Though some would make sin 
 
476 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 an infirmity ratlier than a fault, a calamity rather than a 
 crime; though others would represent the Most High as in¬ 
 finitely loving, and repudiate divine anger as an unworthy 
 Jewish conception, this is opposed to natural as well as re¬ 
 vealed theology: for man, by the very constitution of his 
 being, is so made, that he cannot but retain it among his innate 
 convictions, that God visits sin with the punishment of death 
 (Rom. i. 32). 
 
 According to biblical ideas as well as ordinary language, 
 forgiveness means the remission of punishment. Where false 
 ideas of forgiveness prevail, this must be traced to incorrect or 
 superficial views of guilt; and wherever justice is done to the 
 great truth of men’s guilt, they entertain different views of the 
 connection between forgiveness and the Lord’s death. The 
 theory of unconditional pardon, the great untruth of the modern 
 theology, is opposed to natural as well as revealed theology, 
 and at open war with every correct idea of moral government. 
 Absolute pardon supposes that the punishment which we re¬ 
 present to ourselves as connected with evil actions in a moral 
 kingdom, is removed. But guilt and demerit are not removed. 
 The man failing to observe divine laws is still punishable or 
 blameworthy. If nothing more were to come into considera¬ 
 tion but the consequences of a sinful life, these might be 
 removed by mere absolution. But if demerit comes from a 
 violation of moral law, this would remain as much as ever, 
 though physical evils were removed. But would God be then 
 the source of ethics, ruling by moral laws ? There would, 
 
 according to the supposition, be no regard to moral conduct, 
 
 » 
 
 and thus absolute pardon overthrows all moral laws. But our 
 judgments as men are based on immutable moral principles, 
 and the theory is opposed to natural theology. 
 
 (2.) The nature of the connection between the Lord’s death 
 and the remission of sins is immediate, and of the same kind 
 with that which obtained in the Mosaic law between the 
 death of the sacrifice and the forgiveness of the worshipper. 
 
THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN. 
 
 477 
 
 That it is a connection of the same nature, a few words will 
 suffice to prove. On the day of atonement, the principal design 
 of which was to offer a solemn sacrifice for the priests and 
 people in their national capacity, forgiveness was procured by 
 means of the sacrifice for the entire people. Now, was for¬ 
 giveness only mediately the fruit of the sacrifice, as it presup¬ 
 posed an amendment ? No ; they received forgiveness directly 
 in connection with the sacrifice, and irrespective of amend¬ 
 ments subsequently made; and it is in the same way that we 
 receive forgiveness from merited punishment by the death of 
 Christ. Sin is put away as the direct consequence of Christ’s 
 death, previous to any amendments, as the Mosaic sacrifices, 
 simply in the course of being offered, turned away the penalty 
 threatened in the law. Forgiveness followed as the immediate 
 effect of the atonement, the sacrifice in the sinner’s place satis¬ 
 fying the law. This fact, of which there can he no doubt, was 
 intended to regulate our conception as to the immediate con¬ 
 nection between the death of Christ and pardon, and to supply 
 a vocabulary which we might use. Our Lord Himself uttered 
 this connection (Matt. xxvi. 28); the apostles repeated it. 
 
 But another inquiry presents itself: Granted that the con¬ 
 nection between the death of Christ and remission of sins is 
 immediate, are we to conceive of it only in a subjective sense ? 
 Are we to represent to our minds the sufferings and death of 
 Christ as an event with which God has connected the forgive¬ 
 ness of sins, merely to meet a weighty moral necessity of our 
 natures, that require an assurance of the forgiveness of sins ? 
 That notion, often propounded, also undermines the atonement, 
 as it reduces it to the subordinate office of giving us a persua¬ 
 sion or assurance that forgiveness is received by this channel. 
 It supposes that the change is all effected on man’s side, who 
 is suspicious and backward to trust, but that no change takes 
 place on God’s relation to sinners by means of the atonement. 
 The pardon is still supposed to be absolute and unconditional, 
 but conveyed through the dying Messenger to undo our sus- 
 
478 
 
 apostles’ sayings on the atonement. 
 
 picious distrust. If the matter stood thus, if all were only 
 subjective, how could the Lord’s death have any relation to 
 those who lived before He came in the flesh ? 
 
 When we use accurate language, the atonement will always 
 be distinguished from forgiveness. The atonement is the act 
 of Christ as Surety; forgiveness, the act of God as Judge. The 
 atonement is therefore the foundation on which the acquittal 
 of the sinner is based, the cause of which forgiveness is the 
 effect. This deserves notice, the rather because the confound¬ 
 ing of atonement and forgiveness may be called the chief 
 source of those erroneous opinions, which allege that in Hew 
 Testament times men are no longer to pray for pardon, because, 
 as they express it, their sins were put away in one day. So 
 far as the atonement is an act done once for all, and eternally 
 valid before God, that is true. But it is not true, so far as 
 forgiveness is considered as an act of God, in His judicial 
 capacity, which is extended from time to time to every be¬ 
 liever. It is self-evident that sin is not forgiven, and cannot 
 be, before it is committed. Hence the remission of sins, as 
 contradistinguished from the atonement, is a continuous act, 
 and from time to time dispensed to the same persons. 
 
 The act of forgiveness has a positive as well as a negative 
 side: it absolves one from the charge of violating the law, 
 and pronounces him as having actually fulfilled it; the latter 
 being its positive aspect. In forgiveness, the two sides come 
 into view as the two elements or co-ordinate parts of the judi¬ 
 cial sentence. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 —♦— 
 
 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 I PURPOSE in an Appendix, which must now he limited, 
 to subjoin a historical outline of the doctrine in its salient 
 points, from the apostolic age to the present time. As my 
 object is not so much historical as dogmatic, this will lead me 
 to be sparing of facts, dates, and personal allusions, having no 
 particular reference to the atonement. 
 
 A new study of all the elements that enter into the syste¬ 
 matic form which the doctrine assumed as a subject of thought, 
 is one of the great necessities of our age. If it continues to be 
 studied only in connection with modern tendencies that look 
 askance on the positions which former centuries took up in 
 reference to God’s moral government, law, penal justice, and 
 the necessity of vicarious satisfaction, only partial and peril¬ 
 ous conclusions will be adopted. Next to the primary duty of 
 establishing the doctrine on a biblical foundation, and secur¬ 
 ing for it an independent place beyond the fluctuations of 
 opinion, attention is due to the historic course of the doctrine 
 in its way to symbolic recognition, and the various elements 
 that from time to time entered to vindicate its* truth, or give it 
 systematic form. 
 
 While the ultimate decision depends on the authority of 
 Scripture, interpreted by sound rules and without wayward 
 caprice, at this day it is useful and necessary to retrace the 
 principal points of the older discussions. The importance of this 
 will appear from the circumstance, that they who break loose 
 from previous conclusions commonly drop some essential ele¬ 
 ments of the question. They throw the whole subject into the 
 crucible again, as if it had never taken form before, notwith¬ 
 standing the arguments employed for centuries by some of the 
 greatest minds that ever acted their part in handling the 
 doctrines of the church; not to mention that the creeds and 
 confessions express the Christian consciousness of the church 
 collective. The modern theories dismissing whatever has been 
 adduced to prove the necessity, rationality, and inward con- 
 
480 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 sistency of the atonement, and proceeding as if these considera¬ 
 tions had never occupied the minds of earnest thinkers, deny the 
 forensic element. Instead of satisfaction to divine justice, we 
 hear of moral redemption, or deliverance from the power of evil, 
 with a tendency to discountenance and throw overboard the 
 judicial side of Christianity altogether. One important inquiry, 
 therefore, is, How did the Christian consciousness utter itself 
 during eighteen centuries of past history ? We find, when we 
 make due allowance for erratic tendencies, either of individuals 
 or of sects, through all this time, one harmonious testimony to 
 divine justice and the judicial aspect of Christianity. This might 
 he expected, indeed, from the uniformity of human conscience. 
 
 Hot only so: historical investigation shows that, on the 
 side of the advocates of vicarious satisfaction, some integral 
 parts of truth are at one time more prominent, and at another 
 time less so, while certain parts occasionally have been allowed 
 to drop. As another ground, then, for reviewing the historic 
 formation of the doctrine, it must be added that half-truths and 
 one-sided views were sometimes advanced,—as, for instance, by 
 Piscator, Grotius, and others; and certain elements of the ques¬ 
 tion, to which the highest importance must justly he attached, 
 have occasionally fallen into the background, and, if not denied, 
 have at least disappeared. It cannot he unimportant to recall 
 the grounding elements of the doctrine in a historical way. 
 
 1. We shall notice the testimony of the post-apostolic age 
 to the atonement. The doctrine was held and taught, during 
 the first century of the Christian church, with great simpli¬ 
 city and purity, by the men who immediately succeeded the 
 apostles. From the first, the doctrine of the atonement by 
 the death of God’s Son was a central article never impugned. 
 The whole worship was based upon it. The first Christians, as 
 is well known, commemorated the Lord’s death in the Holy 
 Supper every Lord’s day; and from the peculiar theory which 
 made the worship culminate in the Supper, the atonement 
 was constantly before the mind of the worshippers. This gave 
 colour to primitive theology. The atoning death of Christ was 
 central and fundamental. This accounts for the fact that the 
 atonement never was a subject of discussion among the early 
 Christians, and consequently never came within those cur¬ 
 rents or controversies which gave precise symbolical expres¬ 
 sion to other topics. The doctrine was so fully recognised and 
 accepted, that heresy durst not assail it, and only sought to 
 undermine the articles which lay at its foundation. We must 
 not suppose, then, that the primitive Christians had vague con¬ 
 ceptions of the mode of deliverance from guilt, and of the way 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 481 
 
 of restoration to divine favour. No one can read the early 
 Fathers, without feeling that a deep conviction of the nature 
 and efficacy of Christ’s atonement animated them with zeal in 
 all those discussions and debates which referred to Christ’s 
 person. An error admitted there, tended at the next remove 
 to overthrow the redemption-work of the God-man; and they 
 felt that, if Christ was not very God and very man, an atone¬ 
 ment was impossible. 
 
 The Apostolic Fathers speak much of this fundamental 
 article of Christianity. The authenticity of some of these 
 documents is disputed, and interpolations have crept into the 
 text of others; but they are beyond doubt monuments of the 
 post-apostolic age, bearing witness to the reality of Christ’s 
 coming in the flesh, and to His sufferings, in opposition to 
 Docetism, with its representation of a phantom body and a 
 semblance of suffering evrufev). The Apostolic Fathers 
 
 bring out different sides of Christ’s atoning work, against Juda- 
 izing Ebionism on the one hand, and Gnosticism on the other. 
 
 Clemens Bomanus’ Letter to the Corinthians, the oldest 
 monument that has come down to us, and written, as all 
 authorities agree, before the close of the first century (a.d. 
 92-96), gives a clear testimony to the atonement. We have 
 in Clement this statement: “ For the love that He bore toward 
 us, our Lord Jesus Christ gave His own blood for us by the 
 will of God —His flesh for our flesh, His soul for our souls' 
 (ch. 49). The statement asserts, against Docetism, that Christ 
 assumed whatever was to be redeemed. If, then, any part of 
 humanity was not assumed, neither was it redeemed. We see 
 in these words the idea of substitution, or vicarious satisfaction. 
 Deliverance, too, in body and soul, by His self-surrender in 
 both the elements of His humanity, is equally marked. And 
 the whole is traced to the will of God, or to divine appoint¬ 
 ment. Another passage is thus expressed: “ Let us look sted- 
 fastly to the blood of Christ, and see how precious His blood 
 is in God’s sight ( [nfliov too 0s£) ; which, being shed for our 
 salvation, has brought the grace of repentance to 
 
 all the world” (ch. 7). Atonement by vicarious satisfaction is 
 plainly taught. But in whose eyes was the blood of Christ so 
 precious ? In the eyes of God, who alone knew its value. 
 The redemptive-act, satisfying the claims or justice of God, is 
 further described as producing repentance,—viz. making room 
 for it, and procuring it. According to Clement’s theology, 
 repentance presupposes the atonement as a divine fact. He 
 also calls the blood of Christ a ransom: “ that by the blood of 
 our Lord there should be redemption (hvrfooTig) to all that 
 
482 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 believe and hope in God” (ch. 12). We have here the idea of 
 substitution and deliverance by exchange of places. 
 
 The remark is sometimes hazarded, that Clement recog¬ 
 nised in the death of Christ only a moral example,—a deed 
 of humility and patience,—not a redemptive fact. That con¬ 
 clusion is drawn from the fact that Clement, after quoting the 
 entire fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, adds: “You see, beloved, 
 what the pattern is (rig 6 VTro'ypccfjjf/jog) that has been given us” 
 (ch. 16). But when he urges love, patience, and humility, by 
 an appeal to the redemption-acts of Christ, that is only what 
 Peter does in his epistle, and does not prove that Clemens had 
 no right idea of the atonement. The atonement is the first and 
 principal object: the example is the second. If it is a perver¬ 
 sion of Scripture to interpret Christ’s sufferings merely as an 
 example, it is also a perversion not to make them an example 
 at all. 
 
 Two monuments of the post-apostolic age, the genuineness 
 of which is admitted by the best critical investigators— Poly- 
 caep’s Letter to the Philippians, and the Circular Letter of 
 the Church of Smyrna —deserve attention. Polycarp’s letter, 
 written on the occasion of excommunicating a presbyter and 
 his wife for a dishonest administration of church funds, and 
 breathing the spirit of the holy man, bases his exhortation on 
 the fundamental truths of the Christian faith (ch. 1, 2). With 
 regard to the Lord’s death, he represents our sins as the procur¬ 
 ing cause of it: “ who suffered Himself to be brought even to 
 death for our sins” (ch. 1). Of the Docetic opinions of his day 
 he speaks with stern denunciation, like the Apostle John: 
 “Whosoever does not confess His suffering (/ mprvpiov ) upon 
 the cross, is of the devil” (ch. 7). No one can question Poly¬ 
 carp’s distinct testimony to Christ’s vicarious satisfaction, who 
 ponders the following words (ch. 8): “ Hold stedfastly to Him 
 who is our hope and the earnest of our righteousness, who is 
 Jesus Christ, who bore our sins in His own body on the tree; 
 who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, but 
 suffered all for us (5/’ 7]{/ja,g), that we might live through Him.” 
 The addition made to the quotation from Peter shows how he 
 understood the apostle, and the connection between the atone¬ 
 ment and life. He alludes to those witnesses who preceded 
 them, thus: “ who loved not the present world, but Him who 
 died for us, and was raised again by God for us” (ch. 9). 
 
 The Circular Epistle of the Church of Smyrna, prepared 
 after Polycarp’s death (-f- 168), allowed to be genuine even by 
 those who take exception to the passage which betrays the 
 marvellous in its narrative of the flames, is very explicit. The 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 483 
 
 atonement is represented as having a definite reference: “ not 
 considering that neither will it he possible for ns ever to for¬ 
 sake Christ, who suffered for the salvation of the saved (rcvv 
 Gcv^o[jjivcov) of the whole world, or to worship any other. For 
 Him, indeed, as being the Son of God, we adore” (ch. 17). 
 Here we observe the special destination of the atonement. 
 
 To the other documents of the post-apostolic age—the 
 Letter of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the 
 Epistles of Ignatius— I might next appeal; but I forbear, as 
 their authenticity is questioned by some, and their integrity by 
 others. They do not show equally pure doctrine, or equal 
 balance of judgment on the part of the writers, though they 
 belong probably to the first quarter of the second century. 
 Barnabas’ letter is too anti-Mosaic in tone to have emanated 
 from the fellow-labourer of Paul, though containing valuable 
 references to the death of Christ, and the ritual of sacrifice as 
 typical of Him. The Shepherd of Hermas, evangelical in 
 several respects, is extravagant and visionary in others. It 
 refers in only one passage to atonement by the death of Christ 
 (Sim. 6). The seven Letters of Ignatius (*f* 116), all mentioned 
 by Eusebius, seem to have been much interpolated. They 
 who reduce the authentic letters to three, have still to confront 
 the question of interpolation. The letters contain important 
 anti-Docetic statements and striking allusions to Christ’s death, 
 and breathe much which probably emanated from the saintly 
 Ignatius; but I will not appeal to letters which are doubtful, 
 and which exaggerate the difference between the Old and New 
 Testament, so that readers feel themselves removed from the 
 Pauline equipoise and sobriety. 
 
 The Epistle to Diognetus, the production of an unknown 
 author about the middle of the second century, though some 
 make it much earlier, is j ustly regarded as a patristic gem. It 
 gives us one of the most striking delineations of the atonement 
 in ecclesiastical antiquity. The passage, which I shall give in 
 full, is as follows: “ When the measure of our iniquity was 
 filled up, and it was perfectly manifest that punishment and 
 death awaited us as a reward, and the time came which God 
 had fore-ordained for now manifesting His own goodness and 
 power, because God’s love, according to His abounding kind¬ 
 ness, is unique, He neither hated nor rejected us, nor re¬ 
 membered our wickedness, but showed long-suffering and for¬ 
 bearance, saying, 1 ‘ He bore our sins.’ He Himself gave His 
 
 1 x'tyuv is in tlie text of the Paris edition ; hut whether it is retained, as it 
 is by some editors, or rejected, as by others, it is absurd to say, as Balir does, 
 that a . vuS ' iZ'Xro is ascribed to the Father. 
 
484 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 own Son a RANSOM for ns, the Holy for transgressors, the Inno¬ 
 cent for the guilty, the Bighteous for the unrighteous, the In¬ 
 corruptible for the corruptible, the Immortal for the mortal; 
 for what else could cover our sins but His righteousness ? In 
 what but in the Son of God alone could we, transgressors and 
 ungodly, be justified ? O sweet exchange ! O unsearchable 
 work ! 0 beneficence beyond expectation ! That the iniquity of 
 many should be hid in one righteous person, and the right¬ 
 eousness of One should justify many transgressors!” (ch. 9.) 
 The idea of substitution, or exchange of places, the essential 
 element of the atonement, is explicitly expressed; and nothing 
 can be conceived more precise. We do not hesitate to assert 
 that thi§ noble passage, reproducing the substance of St. Peter’s 
 statement, is a proof that vicarious satisfaction was held by 
 the writer. It will not admit the idea of a mere moral redemp¬ 
 tion. Bahr, 1 however, with a special pleading, which suggests 
 important lessons on the ethics of quotation, argues against 
 this conclusion on many grounds, and especially because re¬ 
 demption by Christ is not deduced in the epistle from punitive 
 justice, but from the ineffably great love of God, and because 
 the phrase “ He bore our sins,” as he supposes, is ascribed to 
 the Father, and cannot be taken in the Anselmic sense. In 
 other words, Bahr compels a writer in the beginning of the 
 second century to think the theories arid speak the words of 
 the mediating theology of Germany in the nineteenth century! 
 No special pleading of this nature can invalidate this testimony 
 to Christ’s satisfaction in room of His people. If the meaning 
 of the terms ransom and sin-bearing is not doubtful in the 
 epistles of Paul and Peter, this must determine the sense here 
 to be attached to them. 
 
 We here add a few remarks generally on the Apostolic 
 Fathers, and the theology of the second century. 1. They, 
 with one accord, connect man’s salvation with the death of 
 Christ, considered in the twofold light of a ransom and a 
 sacrifice, —terms that came with a divine impress on them, 
 and were used in the church from the beginning with the 
 same meaning. A ransom and a sacrifice, notwithstanding 
 their peculiar shade of difference, agree in this, that they in¬ 
 volve intervention, substitution, and satisfaction from without; 
 and no man is warranted to efface the meaning which belongs 
 to them, as Bahr has ventured to do. 2. The idea of divine 
 justice, and the necessity of satisfying it in its penal and 
 preceptive aspect, underlies these statements. The Apostolic 
 
 1 Die Lehre dev Kirche vom Tode Christi in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten. 
 Yon K. Balir. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 485 
 
 Fathers and the author of the Epistle to Diognetus presuppose 
 the forensic side of Christianity, viz. moral government, Iuav, 
 sin, penal infliction,—elements which are all fully recognised. 
 Modern notions were unknown; and we may say the early 
 church was secured against them by high conceptions of 
 Christ’s divine dignity, naturally leading men to an objective 
 atonement. 3. They laid stress on Christ’s sinlessness as part 
 of His vicarious work; for voluntary service and moral perfec¬ 
 tion on the part of Christ are made prominent in the Epistle to 
 Diognetus. This side of the atonement, on which too many 
 modern schools look with disfavour, is emphatically asserted 
 by the Fathers of the second century. 4. They maintained the 
 special reference of the atonement, and its unfailing efficacy, or 
 the property of carrying with it the element of its own applica¬ 
 tion. The first is found in the Circular Letter of the Church 
 of Smyrna. The other comes to light in such statements as 
 those of Clement, affirming that Christ’s death procured the 
 grace of repentance. 
 
 II. We come now to the period of the patristic theology. 
 In the writers of the second century we find constant reference 
 to the blood of Christ as the ground of redemption, not to His 
 doctrine or example. This is a peculiarity of Justin Martyr, 
 who suffered under Marcus Aurelius (f 161-8). His chief pro¬ 
 ductions, the first and second Apology in behalf of the perse¬ 
 cuted Christians, and the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, when 
 we consider the nature of those compositions as meant for 
 readers without the Christian church as well as within it, con¬ 
 tain very express passages on Christ’s atonement, more indeed 
 than our space permits us to quote. Deducting some overdone 
 typical references, the testimony of this Father is very emphatic. 
 At the end of the second Apology he thus expressed himself, 
 without the fetters of theological nomenclature, which was not 
 yet invented: “ Next to God [the Father] we adore and love 
 the Word of the unbegotten and ineffable God, because for our 
 sakes He became man, that, being partaker of our sufferings, 
 He might bring us healing” (ch. 13). Deliverance from death 
 is happily likened to deliverance in Egypt by means of the 
 passover blood: “ And as the blood of the passover saved 
 those in Egypt, so shall the blood of Christ save from 
 death them that believe” (Dial. 111). Victory over Satan is 
 a marked feature of his theology. 
 
 Erom such explicit mention of the effects of Christ’s 
 death, Ave anticipate equal accuracy as to its nature; and 
 Ave find it so. His favourite mode of representing the atone¬ 
 ment is that of a sacrifice ( grpoacpopcc ),—a vieAV that recurs con- 
 
486 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 stantly, more frequently indeed than the cognate term ransom, 
 though we see the two ideas merging into each other (Dial. 
 40, 111). Justin notices Christ’s active obedience as an ele¬ 
 ment in His vicarious work. Thus, by a typical allusion to 
 Jacob’s service, Justin argues that Christ served a service unto 
 death for men of every description (Dial. 134). His doctrine 
 of the atonement assumes its special destination, and the 
 receptivity of FAITH. As to its destination, modern investi¬ 
 gation overlooks this aspect of early patristic theology ; nay, 
 some are ill-informed enough to suppose that this involves the 
 insertion of conditions to be done on man’s part. Justin re¬ 
 garded the atonement as specially destined for the church, or 
 for Christ’s people, describing it as a “ sacrifice for all sinners 
 who are willing to repent, and fast the fast that Isaiah speaks 
 of” (Dial. 40). 1 Such expressions, which are often repeated, 
 intimate a definite connection, and that our sins were the 
 cause of Christ’s suffering and death. As to the receptivity of 
 faith, we find that in Justin’s time the application of redemp¬ 
 tion was considered as depending, not on works, preparations, 
 or ritual ordinances, but on faith simply as receptive. Thus, 
 in the first Apology, he says that Christ became man by a 
 virgin, according to the Father’s will, for the salvation of 
 them that believe in Him (rm niGTivovroov avroj, ch. 63); and 
 this frequent phrase means, as in Scripture, that works are 
 excluded, and that all hinges on faith alone. Later corrup¬ 
 tions made something else necessary. Hor does he make the 
 Eucharist other than commemorative, 2 and subsidiary to faith 
 (zlg uvtt[jjVYj(nv tov Ku&ovg ov vcrep tmv z 
 
 '^v'fcag, ch. 41). 
 
 Attempts have recently been made by Bahr, Ritschl, and 
 Pressense, to turn aside Justin’s testimony, and make him 
 speak in favour of what is called a moral redemption, but in 
 vain. Hot to dwell on Ritschl’s 3 remark, that Justin conditions 
 the forgiveness of sin by repentance, obedience of works, and 
 the sinless life of the baptized,—an utter mistake of his theo¬ 
 logical views,—let me advert to the plausible assertion of Bahr 
 and Pressense, 4 that Justin knew nothing of vicarious satisfac¬ 
 tion to divine justice. This is an allegation based on his com¬ 
 ment on the apostle’s words, that Christ was “ made a curse for 
 us.” This text Justin was the first among the Fathers to ex- 
 
 1 So Dial. c. 134 : xoc.) ftuirrripiou tov TTocvpov xTyi<roif/.tvo ? oovtov;. 
 
 2 The attempts of Romanists to prove that Justin lends countenance to the 
 eucharistic sacrifice are refuted by Hofling, clie Lehre vom Opfer, 1857. 
 
 3 Ritschl, die Entsteliuncj der Altkatholischen Kirche, 1857. 
 
 4 Pressense, Bulletin Theologique, No. 1, 1867. 
 
 aQaipogjivcov Tag 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 487 
 
 pound, raising a question which he did not succeed in solving. 
 Referring to the Jewish cavil, that Christ was crucified as an 
 enemy of God, and accursed, he maintained that Christ’s death 
 by crucifixion was analogous to another fact in Jewish history, 
 viz. that God commanded Moses to prepare the brazen ser¬ 
 pent, though He had told the nation that they were not to 
 make an image of anything in heaven above or in the earth 
 beneath, and proceeds as follows {Dial. 94, 95): “ As God there¬ 
 fore ordered the image of the serpent to be made in brass, and 
 was blameless, so is there in the law a curse against crucified 
 men, but no more curse (ovk en hfj) against the Christ of 
 God, by whom He saves all those who did things worthy of 
 the curse. For, according to the law of Moses, the whole 
 human race will be found subject to the curse: c Cursed is 
 every one that continueth not in the things which are written 
 in the book of the law to do them.’ Ho one has perfectly ful¬ 
 filled the law: you [Jews] will not venture to deny this: some 
 have kept the commandments more, and others less. If they 
 who are under the law are manifestly under the curse because 
 they have not kept all things, shall not all the Gentiles much 
 rather be under the curse, who are idolaters, youth-corrupters, 
 and perpetrators of other enormities ? If, then, the Father of 
 the universe purposed that His Christ, for the sake of men of 
 every tribe, should take upon Him the curses of all, know¬ 
 ing that He would raise Him up again when He was crucified 
 and dead, why do you speak of Him who undertook to suffer 
 these things according to the Father’s will, as if [or, on the 
 supposition that] He was accursed, and not rather bewail your¬ 
 selves ? For if His Father, if He Himself brought it to pass, 
 that He suffered these things for the human race, you 
 certainly did not do it as obeying the will of God. And let 
 none of you say: If the Father willed that He should suffer 
 these things that the human race might be healed by His 
 stripes, we have done nothing amiss.” 
 
 Justin did not successfully solve the difficulty which he 
 raised, but he made the honest effort, with his mind plainly 
 imbued with the doctrine of satisfaction. To any one who 
 puts the two statements together this is evident: for, on the 
 one hand, he says that there is no more curse to the Christ 
 of God,—that is, it does not properly extend to Him; and, on 
 the other, that Christ took upon Him the curses of all. 
 Similar statements are repeated, to the effect that Christ was 
 not accursed. The two affirmations are easy of explanation, if 
 we distinguish the direct and indirect, the personal and official, 
 which Justin, however, does not pause to do. Ho one, when 
 
488 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 maintaining that the Lord took the curse upon Him, ever 
 spoke as if Christ were to be represented as the direct object 
 of the curse. Justin does not expressly say, that in His death 
 Christ directly bore the penal infliction of the curse from the 
 hand of God; but neither does he, in the style of shallow 
 modern theories, limit the curse to what was inflicted by 
 wicked men. His comment, imperfect though it is, amounts 
 to this, that in some sense Christ took on Himself the curse, 
 atoning for our sin and removing our curse; and that Israel 
 were the wicked instruments of carrying it out. Plainly, 
 vicarious satisfaction is involved in the statement. 1 
 
 Thus, at the earliest time, the essential elements of the 
 atonement were held with full conviction, and it was accepted 
 as the great saving fact before discussions and debates arose 
 as to its nature. Christ’s deity did not become an article of 
 belief with the ecclesiastical confession of it at the Council of 
 Nice; and in like manner the atonement, kept before the view 
 of the church in the weekly Eucharist, had always been from 
 the beginning the great central truth of Christianity. 
 
 We come now to Iken^us, Bishop of Lyons and Vienne, 
 who suffered in the persecution under Septimius Severus (*f* A.D. 
 202). In him the doctrine of the atonement reached a de¬ 
 velopment beyond which no advance was made for a very long 
 period. ETay, it receded from Irena3us’ view-point, much to its 
 disadvantage. We do not hesitate to say, that Irenaeus appre¬ 
 hended the doctrine more profoundly than any patristic writer 
 whose works have come down to us. So definite, indeed, is 
 his outline of the atonement, that we might almost make a 
 transition from him to Anselm, without feeling any great gap 
 in the development. So long a vista before us reminds me to 
 curtail quotations as much as possible, and avoid repeating 
 from other writers what has already been exhibited in those 
 who preceded. This sketch might be amplified indefinitely; 
 but we cannot, in the limits at our disposal, give an exhaustive 
 statement, and shall restrict ourselves to the landmarks of 
 history, or new phases of opinion, whether an advance or 
 deviation. 
 
 With Irenaeus the doctrine entered on a new or second 
 stage. He exhibits its positive side; regarding it as a pro¬ 
 vision indispensably necessary, according to his ideal of hu¬ 
 manity. He speaks of the death of Christ as a ransom (v. 1), 
 and as a sacrifice (iv. 20), connecting the remission of sins with 
 it, as do all the previous writers. Irenaeus, however, deVelopes 
 
 1 Semiscli denies tlie element of substitution here ; Corner, On the Person of 
 Christ, more correctty, maintains it. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 489 
 
 the doctrine of the atonement from two apostolic thoughts 
 in a way not expressly done before. The first of these is, 
 that Jesus was the second Adam. From this point of view he 
 surveys the entire field, showing that the disobedience of the 
 first man entailed the forfeiture of all things, bringing with it 
 death, rejection, and subjection to Satan; while the counterpart 
 obedience of the second Man reversed all this, and brought with 
 it the opposite blessings. The expositions of Irenseus have this 
 Pauline thought constantly in view (Rom. v. 12-19). Conse¬ 
 quently these elucidations have a completeness and a positive 
 character, which serve to show how necessary the atonement was, 
 according to Iremeus, from the very idea of man. He connects 
 the unity of the represented and the representative, after the 
 Pauline style of description (Rom. vi. 1-11), when he expresses 
 himself thus: “ In the first man we sinned, not keeping the 
 commandment; but in the second Adam we were reconciled, 
 becoming obedient unto death: for we were debtors to no other 
 but to Him whose commandment we had transgressed at the 
 beginning” (v. 16. 3). This great thought, introduced into the 
 subject of the atonement, gives Irenseus’ view a breadth and 
 elevation far beyond all the statements of his predecessors. He 
 .considered Christ’s entire obedience from the incarnation to the 
 crucifixion as the vicarious work of the second Adam entering 
 into the position of the first. This, therefore, is, according to 
 him, the constituent element of the atonement. Speaking of 
 the Mediator, Irenseus says : “ He united man to God; for un¬ 
 less man had conquered the enemy of man, the adversary 
 would not righteously have been conquered. Again, had not 
 God gifted (edapjjo'ccTo) salvation to us, we should not securely 
 possess it. And unless man were united to God, he could not 
 have been partaker of incorruption. For it was necessary that 
 the Mediator between God and men should, by His peculiar 
 affinity with both, bring both to friendship and concord, and 
 at once present man to God, and manifest God to men” (iii. 
 18. 7). Irenseus, in a very profound way, views the second 
 Adam as entering into man’s place, and accomplishing all that 
 was necessary to propitiate God, and redeem man from the 
 tempter. The great fact of satisfaction by substitution, though 
 neither of these terms actually occurs, is thus described : “ the 
 Lord having ransomed us (^vrpu(yoc[jAvov) by His own blood, 
 and given His soul for (d^rsp) our souls, and His own flesh 
 for (avri) our flesh” (v. 1). We have in these terms an explicit 
 description of a ransom paid by the Lord in His own person, 
 without addition or aid from external sources; and the several 
 elements of our nature are thus made constituent parts of the 
 
490 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 ransom. No man without arbitrary caprice can construe the 
 language otherwise. Not only so: we find Irenseus explicitly 
 asserting that Christ was a high priest oh earth, as He fulfilled 
 the divine law 1 (iv. 8). 
 
 The second apostolic thought with which Iremeus’ mind 
 was imbued, and from which his whole theology takes its 
 peculiar tincture, was that Christ, for the overthrow of Satan, 
 became partaker of the same flesh and blood with us (Heb. ii. 
 14). To this deep conviction he was particularly conducted 
 by the gnostic theories of his age. His views of redemption 
 from Satan are more copiously developed than by any previous 
 writer. But there is no ground for the assertion sometimes 
 hazarded, that Irenseus maintained the notion that the ransom 
 was paid to Satan. No statement to that effect is found in his 
 writings, though he strongly maintains that man’s deliverance 
 from Satan was effected in a way of justice; that is, by that 
 which rendered it right for a just God to liberate us. Irenaeus 
 proves (v. 1. 1; 21. 1-3; iii. 18. 2. 7) that man, by complying 
 with the tempter, fell under his power. His liberation was 
 impossible for sinful men; and as little could God liberate him 
 but in conformity with His immutable rectitude. Man must 
 conquer his deceiver in a way of rectitude, and revoke his dis¬ 
 obedience ( 'solvere , replasmare ) by a free obedience. As man 
 was incompetent for this, the Logos became incarnate for this 
 end (iii. 18). Irenteus vehemently insists on the identity of 
 the Lord’s flesh with ours, but in terms which expressly make 
 room for the maintenance of Christ’s absolute sinlessness in 
 contrast with our defilement (v. 14. 3). Thus, referring to the 
 apostle’s statement that we are reconciled in the body of His 
 flesh, Irenaeus says: “ Righteous flesh reconciled that flesh 
 which was held captive in sin, and put it on a friendly footing 
 toward God” (v. 14. 2). After making the distinction already 
 noticed, he acids: “ If any one ascribes to the Lord another 
 substance of flesh, the word of reconciliation will no longer last 
 for him; for that which was once at enmity is reconciled. But 
 if the Lord took flesh of a different substance, it is no longer 
 that which had been made an enemy by transgression that is 
 reconciled to God. But now the Lord has reconciled man to 
 God the Father by fellowship with Himself” (iii. 14. 3). He 
 views the obedience of the second man as the ground of accept¬ 
 ance, cleansing, victory, and Life (iv. 10. 2). 
 
 1 Non enim solvebat sed adimplebat legem summi sacerdotis opera perficiens, 
 propitians pro hominibus Deum et emundans leprosos (iv. 8). This profound 
 allusion by Irenseus to the fulfilling of tlie law shows that he in part anticipated 
 what the Reformers displayed. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 491 
 
 Not to adduce other passages, we call attention to the fact 
 that Irenaeus, one of the profoundest minds of all antiquity, in a 
 thoroughly biblical way took in all the previous development, 
 and assimilated it, but made a great advance upon it. He 
 penetrated more fully into the Pauline thoughts, and it would 
 have been well had no distracting theories subsequently come 
 in to draw the church aside from the ground he occupied. 
 
 Clemens of Alexandria did nothing to advance the doctrine 
 of the atonement, and refers to it only incidentally, though 
 with a full appreciation of its value. We advance to his more 
 distinguished pupil Origen, whose vast influence, mixed indeed, 
 and subject to many deductions, was felt for many ages (*f* A.D. 
 254). This remarkable man speaks in one character when he 
 utters the simple faith of the Christian, and in another when 
 he presents himself to us as the speculative divine. He has 
 interwoven into his works as many allusions to the atonement, 
 and with as deep a sense of its importance, as are to be found 
 in almost any writer. The fact of sin-bearing, and the infinite 
 acceptableness of the sacrifice, are everywhere described with 
 singular freshness. Thus, in his Homilies on Leviticus, Origen 
 says : “ He who was made in the likeness of men, and found 
 in fashion as a man, doubtless for sin which He had taken from 
 us, because He bore our sins , offered a young bullock without 
 blemish—that is, an undefiled flesh—as a sacrifice to God ” 
 (Horn. 3). Speaking of the acceptableness of the offering 
 because He did no sin, he adds : “ AVhat was so acceptable as 
 the sacrifice of Christ, who offered Himself to God ? ” (Horn. 
 Lev. 1.) In his Commentary on John he often mentions sin- 
 bearing. Thus he says, on John xii. 50 : “ God the Word, the 
 truth, the wisdom, and the righteousness, did not die : for the 
 image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature, was 
 incapable of death. But this Man died for the people, the 
 purest of all creatures, who bore our sins and infirmities, inas¬ 
 much as He was able (art bvvd[M\tog) to take upon Himself the 
 sin of the whole world, to destroy, consume, and delete it: for He 
 did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. Nor did 
 He know sin ; and for this reason I think Paul spoke thus : 
 ‘ He made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we 
 might be made the righteousness of God in Him : 9 for, said he, 
 He made Him to be sin, though He knew no sin, by His taking 
 on Him the sins of all, though He sinned not Himself; and by 
 becoming, if we must boldly say so, much more than His 
 apostles, the filth of the earth, and the offscouring of all things 
 unto this day.” As to the necessity of the atonement, Origen 
 says : “ Had there been no sin, it would not have been neces- 
 
492 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 sarv for tlie Son of God to become the Lamb, nor would He 
 
 1/ y 
 
 have needed to appear in the flesh to be immolated, but would 
 have remained what He was in the beginning—God the Word. 
 But as sin entered into this world, and the necessity of sin 
 demands propitiation, and propitiation is not effected but by 
 sacrifice, it was necessary that a sacrifice for sin should be pro¬ 
 vided” (Horn, on Hum. xxiv. 1). Perhaps none of the Fathers 
 did more than Origen to exhibit and circulate this great central 
 thought of VICARIOUS SIN-BEARING. 
 
 The cognate idea of the vicarious bearing of punishment is 
 not less prominent in Origen. Nothing can be more express 
 than Origen’s language as to Christ’s sin-bearing and curse¬ 
 bearing in His capacity of substitute; and his wide influence 
 circulated these precious thoughts, in a dogmatic form, more 
 fully throughout the Greek Church than had ever been done 
 before. Nor was this ever afterwards counteracted. Further, 
 he urges that the atonement rendered God propitious (see on 
 Rom. iii. 23). He shows, on Leviticus, that Christ, both priest 
 and sacrifice, accomplished in fact what the types foreshadowed 
 and foretold. 
 
 But there is another side of Origen’s theology on the atone¬ 
 ment, so faulty and mischievous, that, were we to adjust the 
 balance between his services and demerits, we should almost 
 be at a loss to say whether he more established the truth or 
 undermined it. AVhen he comes to ground the doctrine and 
 portray the effects of the atonement, he discovers a faulty 
 theology, an ill-balanced judgment, and great temerity. Some 
 of the best elements of Irenseus’ exposition, especially the great 
 thought that the atonement was the obedience of the second 
 Adam, fall into the background, or are altogether dropped. 
 Hot only so; the indispensable necessity of the atonement, 
 involved in Irenseus’ first principle, becomes but a relative 
 necessity. This could not be otherwise, when we reflect on 
 two peculiarities of Origen’s theology,—his view of justice, and 
 his view of punishment. As to his view of justice, though it 
 is more definite and biblical than the Platonic theory expressed 
 by Clemens Alexandrinus, it is still in the highest degree de¬ 
 fective. He makes it a form of manifesting goodness, another 
 side of goodness. He does not speak of the atonement as the 
 equipoise of justice and goodness, but in the same style with 
 Bonaventura, Grotius, and the semi-philosophic theories of after 
 ages. He sometimes, indeed, strongly speaks of the love of 
 God as exercised in no arbitrary way, but through the channel 
 of justice ; but his avowed principle as to justice is in the last 
 degree faulty, though he is often, happily, inconsistent with 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 493 
 
 himself; and this appears especially in the way in which he 
 speaks of Gethsemane, and the cup which Christ, as the vicarious 
 sin-hearer, of necessity must drink {Com. on Matt). Origen’s 
 notion that punishment is disciplinary and corrective, must be 
 noticed as a further flaw which tended to sap and undermine 
 biblical doctrine. These philosophizing speculations were cor¬ 
 rected in himself, however, by the deep piety and biblical 
 study which were the element of his life, but were still hurtful 
 to the church. 
 
 There were other speculations of Origen, however, which 
 were doctrinally and practically mischievous. * 
 
 1. One was the wayward theory which he engrafted on 
 the admirable statements of Iremeus as to the victory over 
 Satan. Origen’s baseless fancy was that the ransom was paid 
 to Satan ; that Satan demanded the soul of Jesus, the most 
 precious thing that ever was; and that God, from love to us, 
 delivered Him, or, more strictly, that the Logos gave up His 
 human soul to Satan. This was a foolish fancy ; and our only 
 wonder is that it was ever accepted by others, and dressed up 
 by such able men as Gregory of Nyssa, and other followers of 
 Origen in the Greek Church, and then transferred as a discovery 
 to the Western Church. According to Origen’s theory, Satan 
 had legitimate authority to hold men in the domain of death, 
 but forfeited that right as soon as he brought it to bear against 
 a sinless man. He held that, by a certain artifice practised on 
 the adversary, Jesus, who could not long have been holden of 
 him, was for a time surrendered up, that Satan might be misled 
 into an abuse of his authority—legitimate only within a given 
 sphere—and forfeit his right altogether. This preposterous 
 notion, unbiblical in itself, and a complete misconception of 
 God, the prime fountain of law and justice, and also of Satan, 
 a mere subordinate official, is not really worthy of a grave re¬ 
 futation. To state is to refute it. The apostles leave us in no 
 doubt that the ransom or sacrifice was offered to God (Rev. v. 
 9 ; Eph. v. 2). 
 
 2. It was another error of Origen, that he extended the 
 efficacy of the atonement to all the universe. Up to this time 
 the Fathers, as we have already noticed, spoke of the atonement 
 as efficacious for the church, and destined for the church. Nor 
 did they perplex themselves and others with fruitless and in¬ 
 soluble problems as to the bearing of the atonement on the class 
 outside. The blood of Christ was the full and adequate ransom 
 for the church, and there, with spiritual wisdom, they stopped. 
 Origen, however, speculated on its possible applications ; and 
 not content with saying what it could by possibility be con- 
 
494 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 ceived as capable of accomplishing had God so willed, he 
 extended its actual range to the whole universe, maintaining 
 that all creatures, and even devils, shared in its redemptive 
 power. He made it co-extensive wdth creation, the stars, 
 angels, and man; engrafting upon it the theory of the restora¬ 
 tion of all things. This may show the high value which Origen 
 attached to the atonement as the achievement of the God-man ; 
 but it was a mischievous perversion of biblical doctrine. 
 
 3. Another error of Origen, which he did not mean to put 
 in opposition to the atonement, but too soon came to neutralize 
 the doctrine of the cross in after ages, was that he began to speak 
 of forgiveness by good works ; and this evil leaven soon spread. 
 
 In the fourth century, to which we now come, the greatest 
 name is Athanasius, whose services in defence of Christ’s 
 deity have rather hid his contributions to the doctrine of the 
 atonement (*f*A.D. 373). But no man, in the whole compass of 
 patristic theology, with the exception of Irenseus, rendered 
 more important service in connection with this doctrine. His 
 theory, superior to Origen’s, and not liable to so many de¬ 
 ductions, seasonably met the wants of men repelled by the 
 notion that the ransom was paid to Satan. Two treatises of 
 Athanasius —On the Incarnation 1 of the Logos , and the Orations 
 against the Arians, especially the former—contain a digest of 
 his opinions on the atonement. I shall give a brief outline of 
 his theory, with a notice of its merits and defects. 
 
 Athanasius does not start, as Irenseus and Anselm do, 
 from sin itself, but from its effects ; but he has a profound 
 view of death as the wages of sin. The theory, traced to its 
 fundamental principle, though it is not based on the deepest 
 foundation, is the equipoise of God’s veracity and love. A 
 few passages will exhibit this. The death threatened at the 
 beginning as the penalty of sin, consists in estrangement from 
 God, the principle of life (avro&r ]); and the problem to be solved 
 was this : The divine veracity threatening death as the inevitable 
 penalty of sin must be maintained, while divine goodness could 
 not allow the creatures of God to fall into annihilation: “ God 
 would not have been true, if, after saying that we should die, 
 man had not died. On the other hand, it was not befitting 
 that rational beings, once created and partakers of His Logos, 
 should perish, and through corruption return to non-being. 
 
 1 Though this book is adduced under different titles by subsequent writers, 
 it was never doubted that it was a genuine work of Athanasius. I am surprised 
 to see M. Pozzy, in his effective reply to Pressense, speaking of it as a work 
 attribuC a Athanase,” and adding, “ D’apres Pauteur quel qu’il soit de ce 
 Libre.” Ample quotations from it as Athanasius’ work by Theodoret (see third 
 Dialogue, entitled ct.va.6-hs) put its authenticity beyond doubt. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 495 
 
 For it was not worthy of God’s goodness, that creatures made 
 by Him should be destroyed because of the fraud practised on 
 men by the devil” {de Incar. ch. 6). He then proceeds to 
 show that none but the Logos was competent to renew all, to 
 suffer for all, to intercede for all (ch. 7); and thus forcibly 
 describes the mode of the incarnation with a view to the atone¬ 
 ment : “ Taking a body from us similar to ours, because we 
 were all subject to the corruption of death, He offered it to the 
 Father, delivering it to death, in the exercise of the highest 
 love, in the room of all, that, since all died in Him, the law as 
 to man’s corruption might be dissolved, inasmuch as its power 
 was exhausted in the Lord’s body, and had no more place 
 against men in the same body” (ch. 8). The two elements 
 of veracity and love are exhibited in the same way in the 
 Orations against the Arians (Or. i. 44, ii. 14), where he argues 
 that it was unworthy of God to let His workmanship perish, 
 and His love would not permit it. 
 
 He gave prominence to the Lord’s vicarious death, as the 
 actual fulfilment of the threatened penalty. No more explicit 
 statement of substitution can be expressed, than when he speaks 
 of death, the common lot of man, as a universal principle hold¬ 
 ing the race in captivity, and of Christ assuming a body to die 
 this death in the room of others, allowing it to assail and hold 
 Him under its power: “ Since it was necessary that the debt of 
 all (to otpeiXof/jevov rrotpd Toivrav) should be paid, — for, as I said 
 before, all were subject to death, and this was the main reason 
 of the incarnation,—therefore, after manifesting His deity by 
 miracles, He at last offered the sacrifice for all, surrendered His 
 own temple to death in the room of all, that on the one hand 
 He might discharge and free all from the old transgression, and 
 on the other evince Himself superior to death, exhibiting His 
 own incorruptible body as the first-fruits of the general resur¬ 
 rection” (ch. 20). He adds that, the common Saviour of all 
 having died for us, we who are believers in Christ no longer 
 die as of old according to the threat of the law : for such a 
 judicial sentence has ceased 1 (20, 21). 
 
 1 That the quotations from the Fathers are by no means unimportant, Priestley 
 showed when he actually had the confidence to appeal to patristic theology to 
 countenance his Socinian opinions. A crushing reply was given by three Dutch 
 ■writers—Velingius, Segaar, and Gavel— 1787, in one thick volume, and by 
 Bishop Horsley. For those who have not the Fathers, I' may refer to the 
 quotations given by Grotius, Stein, and Seiler, at the end of their works on 
 Christ’s Satisfaction ; by Thomasius, Christi Person und Weric, p. 157 ; Philippi, 
 Glaubenslehre, p. 48 ; Shedd, History of Doctrine; Pozzy, Histoire du Dogma 
 de la Redemption, 1868. But second-hand references are always unsatisfactory ; 
 and all who have access to the Fathers themselves will find that a belief in 
 Christ’s expiation was part of the Christian consciousness of all ages. 
 
496 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 These passages clearly evince Athanasius’ views as to the 
 mode in which death was overthrown, and this paved the way 
 for the communication of life by Christ’s resurrection. He 
 shows that Death was annihilated by invading this body, and 
 that life flowed in ; that martyrs trample on death, and that 
 women and children can triumph over him. The doctrine of 
 Athanasius is, that the Logos, to destroy death and remove the 
 curse, took a mortal body (Qvtjtov) ; meaning mortal not by the 
 law of its being, but in the sense of being capable of under¬ 
 going death. 
 
 While Athanasius asserted the elements of the doctrine 
 already mentioned with great power, and gained general re¬ 
 cognition for them in the Greek Church, his theory has defects 
 which it is proper to mention. 1. He did not, with Irenseus 
 and Anselm, put the atonement in relation to sin itself, but 
 surveyed it in connection with the consequences of sin. He 
 fixed on death, and sees the atonement as its destruction; 
 giving an important contribution so far as he goes, but stopping 
 short at man’s liberation from the penal consequences of sin, 
 and not referring to the reparation of the divine honour. 2. 
 Athanasius did not put the necessity of the atonement on its 
 true foundation: with him, as with Origen, it is only a relative 
 necessity. Thus he says: “ God could have simply spoken, and 
 destroyed the curse without any incarnation at all. But it is 
 necessary to consider what is profitable for men, and not reckon 
 in all things what it was possible for God to do” (3d Orat. against 
 the Arians). However much these statements were approved 
 among the Fathers, and even by Calvin, they were unsatis¬ 
 factory, and found to be no bulwark against Socinianism. 3. 
 In Athanasius’ theory the positive element of vicarious obedi¬ 
 ence, and the position of the second Adam under the law, were 
 not allowed to come to their rights. It acknowledges the curse, 
 and sees a provision for its removal: but it leaves untouched 
 the positive demand or inflexible claim of the law, which the 
 entrance of sin neither revoked nor modified. 1 
 
 One thing demands notice in connection with the deve¬ 
 lopment of the early patristic doctrine of the atonement: the 
 discussions on the dignity of Christ’s person exercised an im- 
 
 1 See Dr. Baur’s Christliche Lelire von der Versohnung, Tiibingeii 1838,—a 
 work of great learning and historical research. Of his impartiality and com¬ 
 petence I had a higher opinion sixteen years ago, when I first perused the book, 
 than further study will permit me to express now. Not that he intends to be 
 unfair. He states the views of different writers as honestly as can be expected 
 from a man who had no belief in the historic fact of the atonement; but all too 
 plainly he sees many things with a jaundiced eye. The main use of the book is 
 to prompt and direct independent research. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 497 
 
 portant influence of a favourable kind. The Fathers first 
 argued from the work of redemption*to the necessity of a divine 
 Eedeemer. Afterwards, when the Council of Nice gave eccle¬ 
 siastical sanction to the doctrine of the Lord’s deity, they set 
 forth the infinite value of His person as essential to His 
 vicarious work. Throughout the fourth century, and still more 
 so after the rise of Nestorianism in the fifth century, we find 
 the Fathers maintaining with one voice that Christ’s sufferings 
 were of infinite value, in virtue of the union of the divine and 
 human natures in His one person. His divine dignity, they 
 argued, put Him in a position such as a mere man could never 
 occupy, conferring infinite value on His sacrifice or ransom,— 
 the two terms by which they designated the death of Christ. 
 This truth, though held from the beginning, was now brought 
 out prominently. Finite creatures, it was shown, could not 
 have brought a sacrifice of infinite value; but when a divine 
 Eedeemer undertook it, His infinite dignity brought it to a 
 successful issue. A brief notice of the views of the great divines 
 who adorned the Greek Church during the fourth and fifth 
 centuries will fully exhibit this. 
 
 Eusebius of Caesarea, surnamed the friend of Pamphilus 
 (*[* a.d. 340), and a member of the Nicene Council, though giving 
 a reluctant consent to the distinctive expressions of its creed, 
 brings out with precision the main elements of the atonement. 
 Without multiplying quotations, a few passages from Eusebius 
 will sufficiently prove this. Thus he says (.Demonstratio Evan- 
 gelica, book x.) : “ Certainly the Lamb of God, who beareth the 
 sin of the world, was made a curse for us, whom God made sin 
 for us, though He knew no sin, delivering Him as a substitute 
 for the life (avrttyvj(pv) of us all, that we might be made the 
 righteousness of God in Him.” Then, two or three sentences 
 afterwards, he puts this question : “ But how does He make our 
 sins His own, and how is He said to bear our iniquities ? ” In 
 answering this, Eusebius bases his remarks on the saying of 
 Paul, that we are the body of Christ, and thus proceeds : “ As, 
 when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; so, 
 when many members suffer and sin, He also, on grounds of 
 sympathy—since it pleased Him, who is the Word of God, to 
 take the form of a servant and to be united to the common 
 tabernacle of us all—takes upon Himself the sorrows of the 
 suffering members, and makes our diseases His own, and suffers 
 grief and trouble for us all, according to the laws of philan¬ 
 thropy ; and that Lamb of God, not only by doing these things, 
 but by being punished for us {vtt \p qfJbZv xokotffQug), and en¬ 
 during the retribution (riftcopiccv) which He did not owe, but 
 
 2 I 
 
498 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 which we owed by reason of the multitude of our offences, 
 became to us the author (a’mog) of the forgiveness of sins, as 
 He bore death for us, and transferred to Himself the stripes, 
 insults, and dishonours due to us, and drew upon Himself the 
 curse merited by us, being made a curse for us. And what else 
 was this but giving life for life (zoct ri yap aXKo rj avTr^vyov) ? 
 Hence the oracle, speaking in our person, says, ‘ By His stripes 
 we are healed.’” 1 
 
 One of the most pleasing and practical writers of the fourth 
 century is Cyrill of Jerusalem (*f‘A.D. 386), whose sermons on 
 the Creed ( Catctcheses ), though bearing to have been delivered as 
 extemporary expositions, contain much precious, well-expressed 
 truth. In his discourse on the words crucified and buried, 
 Cyrill refers to the atonement in terms nearly similar to those 
 of Athanasius, laying stress on the divine dignity of Christ: 
 “And do not wonder if the whole world was ransomed ( IXvrpaO y\) ; 
 for He was not a mere man , but the only-begotten Son of God. 
 Yet the sin of one man Adam prevailed to bring death upon 
 the world. But if, by the offence of one, death entered the 
 world as a king, how shall not life much more reign by the 
 righteousness of one ?” (13. 2.) 
 
 Then, towards the close of the same discourse, Cyrill ex¬ 
 presses himself to this effect: “We were by reason of sin God’s 
 enemies, and God appointed that the sinner should die. One 
 of two things, therefore, must happen: either God must main¬ 
 tain His veracity {akyifovovra), must cut off all, or in His 
 philanthropy revoke the sentence. But behold the wisdom of 
 God! He at once maintained the truth of the sentence, and 
 gave effect to His philanthropy. Christ took sins in His own 
 body to the tree, that through His death we might die to sins 
 and live to righteousness. It was no insignificant one (fjbinpog) 
 that died for us: it was not an animal victim (wpofiaTov 
 ulcrOriTov ): it was not a mere man: it was no mere angel: but 
 God incarnate. The guilt of sinners was not so great as the 
 righteousness of Him who died for us. We did not sin to such 
 an extent as He accomplished righteousness; who laid down 
 His life for us,—laid it down when He pleased, and took it 
 again when He pleased” {Cat. 13. 33). The outline of the 
 atonement given by this judicious thinker, though severely 
 practical and disinclined to speculation, bears a certain affinity 
 to that given by the equally practical Chrysostom. 
 
 The three Cappadocians, allied by friendship and culture— 
 Basil, Gregory of Hyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus—did not 
 
 1 Book x. of Eusebius’ Demonstratio is full of similar statements. See espe¬ 
 cially bis comment on the twenty-second Psalm. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 499 
 
 advance beyond tlie views of Origen. Basil and bis younger 
 brother Gregory Nyssen were but reproducers of Origen’s 
 opinions on this subject. Gregory Nazianzen repudiated the 
 notion of a ransom paid to Satan, but in other respects adhered 
 to the peculiarities of Origen’s doctrine on the atonement; but 
 all three evince the importance of the Lord’s divine person as 
 an essential prerequisite to the ransom. 
 
 Basil (•(* a.d. 379) brings out his views on the atonement 
 in his homily on the forty-ninth Psalm (vers. 7, 8),—a rather 
 conflicting combination of two things—the persuasion 1 of Satan 
 and the propitiation of God (g %thouruiM toj @s<y). Thus he says : 
 “ Do not seek a brother for redemption, but one who exceeds 
 your nature—not a mere man, but a God-man (ccvQpcoTfov 0s ov )— 
 Jesus Christ, who alone is able to make a propitiation to God 
 for us all.” Then, after a few sentences, he adds: “ But one 
 thing was found that was equivalent ( avra^iov ) to all men, 
 and given for the price of our soul’s redemption—the holy and 
 precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He poured out 
 for us all ” (sec. 4). 
 
 Gregory Nyssen, more of a systematic divine than his 
 brother, attempted an exposition of the deeper grounds of the 
 atonement, so far as was consistent with the views of his 
 master Origen. Baising the question why God did not de¬ 
 nude Satan of his possession by simple power, he shows that 
 the divine goodness, wisdom, justice, and power were all 
 equally to be displayed, if the redemption of mankind was to 
 be worthy of God. In his Catechetical Oration (ch. 15-26) he 
 expatiates on the exercise of God’s perfections, while we see 
 in the background the idea of the deception or artifice which 
 he supposes practised upon Satan. He says (ch. 24): “Good¬ 
 ness is apprehended in the choice to save that which was lost; 
 wisdom and righteousness are displayed in the mode of our 
 salvation; and power in His being made in the likeness and 
 fashion of men, according to the meanness of our nature, and 
 in the hope ( tkKiffdrjmi , i.e. on Satan’s side) that He could, after 
 the similitude of men, be held captive by death.” Gregory 
 widens the circle of the divine attributes called into exercise, 
 as compared with his master Origen, who chiefly referred to 
 the divine justice. He firmly held the great fact of the 
 atonement, though theories are interspersed; and the atone¬ 
 ment stands out as the great saving fact for mankind. Thus, 
 in his elaborate work against Eunomius, the able champion of 
 Arianism, Gregory rebuts an argument derived from Christ’s 
 
 1 Basil speaks of the devil being persuaded (xwrhis) by a ransom of equal 
 value to consent to the exchange. 
 
500 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 obedience in tlie following terms (lib. ii.):—“ He became 
 obedient for our sakes, when He was at once made sin and 
 a curse by reason of the divine plan in our behalf; not being 
 such by nature, but made this by loving-kindness.” Ho one 
 can fail to see how closely he connected Christ’s deity and 
 atonement, recognising in the fullest manner the fact of the 
 atonement, its nature, and consequences. 
 
 Gregory Hazianzen (•(* A.D. 389), the attached friend of 
 Basil, differed from the theory of Origen in one point. He 
 repudiated the doctrine to which the two last-mentioned 
 Bathers attached themselves, viz. that a ransom must be paid 
 to the enemy of mankind, such as the possessor of the cap¬ 
 tives demanded. Thus, in his forty-fifth Oration, delivered 
 in the year 385, he rejects it as an audacious thought (pgy rijg 
 vfipzoog): “ We have to examine a doctrine neglected by many, 
 but by me diligently investigated. To whom was the blood for 
 us [offered], and for what reason was the great and precious 
 (Tsptfioqrov) blood of God, at once high priest and victim, shed ? 
 Bor we were held in bondage by the wicked one, sold under 
 sin, receiving pleasure in return for vice. But if the ransom 
 ( \vrpov ) does not belong to any other party but to him who 
 holds the captive, I ask, to whom was this paid, and for what 
 cause ? If it is paid to the evil one (fie upon the audacity!)— 
 if the robber not only receives a ransom from God, but receives 
 God Himself as a ransom, and such exorbitant wages for his 
 tyranny as the reason why it is just to spare us —. But if it is 
 paid to the Bather, then, first, how was it so ? for we were not 
 held in bondage by Him; and secondly, what is the reason that 
 the Bather was pleased with the blood of the Only-begotten, 
 whereas He did not receive Isaac, offered by his father, but ex¬ 
 changed the sacrifice, substituting a ram for a rational victim ? 
 It is manifest that the Bather receives it, not that He either 
 demanded it or needed it (!), but by reason of the divine scheme, 
 of salvation, and because man needed to be sanctified by the 
 humanity of God, that He Himself might deliver us, over¬ 
 coming the tyrant by force, and bringing us back to Himself 
 by His Son as Mediator” (ch. 22). Gregory Hazianzen abides 
 by the other conclusions of Origen as to overreaching Satan; a 
 preposterous theory, which had a strange fascination for many 
 of the Bathers in the East and West. 
 
 Chrysostom (f a.d. 407), distinguished for his eloquence 
 and the fervour of his piety, gives us positive biblical doctrine, 
 without any theories or speculations beyond what the absolute 
 necessity of the case required. He was a biblical divine, with 
 an instinctive recoil from speculations which he seems to have 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 501 
 
 felt would be exploded by a wider survey of the relations of 
 truth. The doctrine developed by this great man is singularly 
 balanced, because for the most part traced out from apostolical 
 ideas, and an expansion of them doctrinally and practically. 
 We make a few extracts from his Commentaries, or more pro¬ 
 perly Homilies, on the Pauline Epistles. Deferring to the bene¬ 
 fits conferred through Christ as a divine Saviour, Chrysostom 
 remarks (Com. on Bom. v. 17) : “For Christ has paid far more 
 than we owed—as much more as a boundless ocean compared 
 with a drop of water. Doubt not therefore, 0 man, when you 
 see such a wealth of benefits; nor inquire how that spark of 
 death and sin can be extinguished, when such a sea of blessings 
 is let in upon it.” Few commentators in any age have appre¬ 
 hended more profoundly than Chrysostom the great mutual ex¬ 
 change of places between Christ and His people, according to 
 which He was made our sin, and we His righteousness. On 
 this point, which may be called the core of the atonement, the 
 statements of Chrysostom deserve special consideration. Thus, 
 in commenting on the passage in Corinthians (2 Cor. v. 21), in 
 connection with the previous context, he says: “ Eeflect how 
 great a thing it was to give His Son for those who insulted 
 Him. But now He has accomplished great things, and, be¬ 
 sides, permitted Him who did nothing amiss to be punished 
 (zoXuffQ/jvcci) for offenders. But he (the apostle) did not 
 merely say this, but affirmed what is much more than this: 
 He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, who was absolute 
 righteousness (uvrohxouoffvvrjv) ; that is, left Him to be con¬ 
 demned as a sinner, to die as accursed: for cursed is every 
 one that hangeth on a tree.” Then, after a few sentences, 
 he refers to the apostle’s words as follows : “ He [the apostle] 
 says, He made the Bighteous One a sinner, that He might 
 make the sinners righteous. Hay, he not only said this, but 
 what is a much greater thing; for he did not affirm the con¬ 
 crete (g|/v), but the abstract itself (sro/or^ra). He did not say, 
 He made Him a sinner, but sin.” It appears, too, that the 
 positive element of Christ’s obedience entered into Chrysostom’s 
 theology. Thus he says (Horn, on Eom. x. 4): “ Do not fear, 
 then, as if you transgressed the law when you came to faith; 
 for you transgress it when, by reason of it, you do not believe 
 on Christ. When you have believed on Him, you have ful¬ 
 filled IT, AND DONE MUCH MORE THAN IT COMMANDED : for you 
 have received a far greater righteousness.” 
 
 The last great movement within the pale of the Greek 
 Church, which contributed powerfully to develope the doc¬ 
 trine of the atonement, was the Hestorian Controversy. In 
 
502 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 opposing the division or separation of the natures of Christ, 
 the church saw how fatal Nestorianism would soon prove to 
 the atonement; and in proportion as the church teachers laid 
 emphasis on the unity of the person, and asserted that Jesus 
 was the Son of God incarnate, in the same proportion did they 
 attach infinite value to His work of atonement. It was the act 
 of the person, not of a mere man. 
 
 Anion" the teachers whose influence was most felt in this 
 
 O 
 
 direction, Cyrill of Alexandria (ff a.d. 444) was prominent. He 
 constantly raises the objection to Nestorius’ views, that Christ’s 
 atoning death owed its validity to the fact that He who suffered 
 in our stead was the divine Logos, and that His blood was the 
 blood of God’s Son; and he asserts that it would have been 
 no equivalent had Jesus been a mere man. But His ransom 
 suffices to meet the wants of all mankind. Let me adduce a 
 specimen of the mode in which he brought this truth to bear 
 on the atonement. Thus, in his second Oration de recta fide 
 (sec. 7), Cyrill says on Gal. iii. 13 : “ The law having pro¬ 
 nounced him accursed who is in transgression and sin, He 
 who knew no sin—that is, Christ—has been subjected to 
 judgment, bearing an unjust sentence, and suffering what was 
 due to those under the curse , that He who was equivalent to 
 the universe (o tojv ohojv uvrufyog ), dying for all, might dis¬ 
 charge all from the charges of disobedience, and purchase all 
 that is under heaven with His own blood. Therefore one 
 would not have been an equivalent for all, had he been a 
 mere man. But if He is considered as God incarnate, and 
 suffering in His own flesh, the entire creation is small in com¬ 
 parison ; and the death of one flesh is sufficient for the ransom 
 of the human race ( ryjg vff oupavov ), for it belonged to the Logos 
 (/5/a tov hoyov ), begotten of God the Father.” Many similar 
 passages occur in Cyrill (see Cyr. on John i. 29, and reply to 
 Julian, lib. 9). 
 
 Theodoret, the contemporary of Cyrill, does not give such 
 express testimonies to this aspect of truth, as might indeed have 
 been expected from his Antiochian tendencies. We find the old 
 doctrine of Origen as to the defeat of Satan combined with the 
 reference to death on which Athanasius dwelt; but he lays 
 emphasis on substitution and curse-bearing as much as Cyrill. 
 In his tenth Oration on Providence, Theodoret eloquently di¬ 
 lates on Christ our substitute, and represents the Saviour as 
 addressing Satan subsequently to the crucifixion, and previous 
 to His resurrection: “You have been taken ( IdChojg ), 0 wicked 
 one, and snared in your own toils.” He challenges him to 
 point out a flaw in His life or heart; bids him withdraw from 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 503 
 
 his authority and desist from his tyranny, and says that He will 
 deliver all from death, using righteous mercy (eXeco htxuicS). 
 
 After the age of Cyrill and Theodoret, little fresh thought 
 was exercised within the pale of the Greek Church on the 
 doctrine of the atonement. The thinking of previous ages was 
 handed down, hut never reduced to a unity. But the doctrine 
 of vicarious sacrifice was the received view throughout the 
 flourishing period of that church for five centuries. Man’s 
 captivity and his ransom by a representative were never ques¬ 
 tioned, even when the ransom was supposed to have been paid 
 to the enemy of the human race. The elements were all there, 
 though not fused into a unity; and John Damascene, the dog¬ 
 matic divine (*)" 750), gathered up the thinking, but did not go 
 beyond Athanasius’ views. When we said that the elements 
 were all received, we meant to add that the Greek Fathers did 
 not ground the atonement sufficiently in the absolute necessity 
 of satisfying divine justice. With them it was a positive 
 arrangement, suited to man’s wants, and worthy of God, not 
 an absolute necessity on the supposition of man’s salvation. 
 From the time of Origen, whose philosophy of justice was too 
 plainly derived from Clemens Alexandrinus, all the great 
 Fathers ,of the Greek Church were much less decided than 
 Irenaeus in regarding the atonement in the light of sin itself, 
 and more inclined to connect it merely with the consequences 
 of sin. They speak of the atonement as if God had been 
 pleased to appoint this positive provision for man’s salvation. 
 Origen, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory Nyssen, Theo¬ 
 doret, all assert that it was positive, not based on a deeper 
 necessity than man’s welfare and God’s free choice. State¬ 
 ments, it is true, occur in Cyrill of Jerusalem and Chrysostom, 
 which, if fully thought out, would have led them, and it may 
 be did lead them, to occupy the deeper ground of Irenseus, 
 with whom Chrysostom at least had much in common. But 
 as a school of theology, the Greek Church, while firmly main¬ 
 taining the fact of the atonement, stopped short at what has 
 been called its relative necessity. We shall see that the Con¬ 
 fessions of the Deformation took better ground. The inde¬ 
 cision on the part of the Greek theologians arose from the 
 circumstance that they recoiled from a definition which seemed 
 to interfere with the absolute dominion and unconditional free¬ 
 dom of God. But they did not give full justice to the forensic 
 and ethical aspect of the question in the divine moral govern¬ 
 ment in connection with the fact of sin. 
 
 Our notice of the Latin Fathers may be much more suc¬ 
 cinct. They add nothing, in fact, to the outline of the doctrine 
 
504 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 furnished by the Fathers of the Greek Church; nay, sometimes, 
 as in the case of Origen’s theory, imported what might much 
 better have been left behind. It would be a tedious repetition 
 to adduce large extracts from their works, when they are quite 
 similar to those already given. The death of Christ was viewed 
 as a ransom and a sacrifice : the modern notion of moral re¬ 
 demption and absolute pardon, irrespective of expiation, was 
 utterly unknown. 
 
 Tertullian (*J*a.d. 220), contemporary with Origen, but 
 formed by earlier writers, assails the gnostic phantom-theory of 
 Christ’s humanity. He treats it as subversive of the atonement, 
 because a phantom could not suffer. Thus, in his work against 
 Marcion, he says : “ Christ’s death, the entire weight and fruit of 
 the Christian name, is denied; the death which the apostle so 
 strongly asserts as certainly real, making it the very foundation 
 of the gospel and of our salvation, and of his own preaching” 
 (book iii. ch. 8). The Latin word satisfaction, it is commonly 
 said, was first applied by Tertullian to the atonement, though 
 Bahr casts a doubt upon this, on the ground that the term 
 satisfy was used for a voluntary submission to the discipline of 
 the church. He does not deny, however, that this juristic term 
 found its way into the nomenclature of the Western Church 
 from Tertullian, an eminent jurist before his conversion. 
 Cyprian (a.d. 250), who had many things in common with 
 Tertullian, is as explicit on vicarious sin-bearing. Thus he 
 says: “ Christ bore us all {nos omnes portabat), who also bore 
 ('portabcit ) our sinslanguage proceeding on the assumption 
 that Christ sustained our persons as a surety, and incurred our 
 responsibilities (Epistle 63). 
 
 Ambrose (j* a.d. 397), a man of Greek culture, speaks of 
 Christ’s atonement as a payment or ransom, as emphatically as 
 Origen, who was in no small measure his master: “ He owed 
 nothing, but paid for all, as He Himself bears witness, saying, 
 Then I restored what I took not away” {Lib. de Tob. 10). Again, 
 in his elucidations of Genesis, he speaks in a style recalling the 
 Epistle to Diognetus and Irenseus: “ God, therefore, took flesh 
 that He might abolish the curse of sinful flesh, and was made 
 a curse for us, that the blessing might swallow up the curse, 
 sinlessness sin, benevolence condemnation, and life death. 
 For He underwent death that the sentence might be fulfilled, 
 that A satisfaction might be made (< scctisfierit )” (ch. 7). 
 
 When we come to Augustin (j- a.d. 430), the greatest Western 
 teacher, the same doctrine of sin-bearing and satisfaction by a 
 sinless surety is explicitly asserted. We are, no doubt, surprised 
 that so little is said by him on the subject of the atonement, com- 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 505 
 
 pared with its prominence in Scripture and in the theology of 
 the Beformation. But that may he explained by the fact that 
 the church recognised the truth, and that the Supper kept it 
 before men’s minds. Besides, polemical discussions had never 
 called substitution in question. Augustin expresses himself 
 thus, on John (Tract 41): “We are reconciled only by the 
 taking away of sin, which is the separating medium. But the 
 Mediator is the Beconciler. Therefore, that the wall of separa¬ 
 tion might be taken down, the Mediator came, and the Priest 
 Himself was made a sacrifice.” In his exposition of Ps. xcv. 
 he says: “ Men were held captive under the devil, and served 
 devils, but were redeemed from captivity. Bor they could sell 
 themselves, but they could not redeem themselves. The Be- 
 deemer came and gave the price, shed His blood, and bought 
 the world. Do you ask what He bought ? See what He gave, 
 and find what He bought. The blood of Christ is the price: 
 what is of so great worth ? What, but the whole world ? 
 What, but all nations ? ” In speaking of Christ’s priestly obla¬ 
 tion, Augustin lays emphasis on the incarnation, regarded as a 
 something taken from our humanity: “ Our Priest received 
 from us what He might offer for us, for He took flesh from us: 
 in that very flesh He was made a victim, a burnt-offering, a 
 sacrifice” (on Ps. cxxix.). In perusing Augustin, we are at 
 times made to feel, as we feel in the perusal of the Greek 
 Bathers generally, that the elements of the question, though 
 recognised, are not yet fused into a unity, nor so practical as 
 they ought to be. Augustin’s view looks like a modified 
 Origenism on the atonement. Thus, in his work on the Trinity, 
 he says: “ What is the righteousness by which the devil was 
 conquered ? What, but the righteousness of Jesus Christ ? 
 And how was he conquered ? Because, though he found no¬ 
 thing worthy in Him of death, he yet killed Him; and certainly 
 it is just that the debtors whom he held should be liberated 
 when they believe in Him whom he slew without any obligation 
 to die” (book xiii. ch. 12-15). In the same strain, speaking 
 of death, Augustin says: “ Death could be overcome only by 
 death; therefore Christ suffered death, that an unjust death 
 might overcome just death, and might deliver them that were 
 justly guilty, while He was unjustly slain for them” (Serm. li.). 
 He starts from the correct view, that man is liberated from 
 Satan’s dominion by means of a ransom or atoning death offered 
 to God; but, to our surprise, comes in the course of his dis¬ 
 cussion to what seems tantamount to the doctrine of a ransom 
 offered to Satan. But it is obviously more a mistake in manner 
 and expression than in doctrine. He plainly means that the 
 
506 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 ransom was displayed and exhibited to Satan rather than offered 
 to him. He seems, indeed, to vacillate or to go over from one 
 mode of representing the matter to another. But in reality he 
 was much more on Athanasius’ ground than Origen’s; and his 
 language may he interpreted as meaning only a display or re¬ 
 presentation to Satan, so that the enemy must acknowledge 
 the rectitude of the liberation of believers. Augustin had all 
 the elements of the doctrine, though a certain reference to 
 Satanic injustice, as in the case of the Greek Fathers, inter¬ 
 cepted his view to some degree (see our remarks on Acts 
 ii. 23). 
 
 In this historical outline our aim is to trace with all brevity 
 the development of the doctrine of the atonement in history, and 
 to exhibit its successive phases; and we therefore next advert 
 to the most marked aspect which it assumed in the West. The 
 discussions of Augustin on divine grace were not without a 
 special influence. It was now definitely represented as offered 
 for the elect or redeemed church. Hot that this originated with 
 Augustin, or was peculiar to the West; for the Greek Fathers, as 
 we have already noticed, bring out the same element. But it 
 was polemically maintained in the West against Pelagian and 
 semi-Pelagian views. Prosper, the friend of Augustin, first con¬ 
 tended in a definite form for special redemption, that is, for a 
 specific ransom for the elect of God. But long before his time 
 we find echoes of the same thing. Thus Cyprian, in his treatise 
 addressed to Demetrianus, says: “ Christ imparts this grace. He 
 gives this gift of His mercy, by subduing death with the trophy 
 of His cross, by redeeming the believer with the price of His 
 blood” ( redimendo credentem). Ambrose, too, in a definite way, 
 speaks of a certain totality constituted by the people of God as 
 taken by themselves: “ God’s people,” says he, “ have their own 
 fulness. For there is reckoned to be a certain special uni¬ 
 versality in the elect and fore-ordained, distinguished from the 
 generality of all; so that the whole world seems to be delivered 
 from the whole world, and all men taken out of all men” [ad 
 Gratianum). Augustin, whose views of special grace are well 
 known, distinguishes in the same way with Ambrose between 
 two totalities—a world at enmity with God, and a world which 
 is reconciled. Thus, in commenting on 1 John ii. 2 (a.d. 416), 
 he says : “ The whole world, then, is the church, and the whole 
 world hates the church. The world, then, hates the world: 
 that which is at enmity hates the reconciled, the condemned 
 the saved, the defiled the cleansed. But that world which God 
 reconciles to Himself in Christ, and is saved by Christ, and 
 which has all sin forgiven by Christ, is elected out of the world 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 507 
 
 which is at enmity, condemned, and defiled. For out of that 
 mass which is entirely ruined in Adam, are formed vessels of 
 mercy, in which is the world belonging to the reconciliation ” 
 (Tract 87 on John). 
 
 Prosper, in his correspondence with Augustin, referring to 
 a class of men of semi-Pelagian sentiments, complains: “ They 
 would affirm that our Lord Christ died for all mankind, and 
 that no man is excepted from the redemption of His blood.” 
 Without referring to Prosper’s verses (de ingratis), we find him 
 in different passages of his works declaring explicitly the 
 doctrine of special redemption. Thus he says (a.d. 440): “ He 
 was not crucified in Christ who is not a member of the body of 
 Christ. When the Saviour, then, is said to be crucified for the 
 redemption of the whole world by reason of the true assumption 
 of human nature, He may nevertheless be said to be crucified 
 for those only to whom His death was made available ” ( resp . 
 ad Carp. Gal. c. 9). In another work Prosper thus defines the 
 special reference : “ The propriety in redemption doubtless be¬ 
 longs to them from whom the prince of this world is cast out. 
 The death of Christ was not so expended for the human race, 
 that they also belonged to His redemption who were never to be 
 regenerated ” (resp. obj. Vincen. 1). The school of Augustin, while 
 its salutary influence pervaded the Western Church, uniformly 
 proceeded on the supposition that Christ’s atonement was offered 
 for a chosen people given by the Father to the Son. The notion 
 that the atonement was for mankind indiscriminately was un¬ 
 known. They explained the terms which express universality, 
 by accepting the language as descriptive of a definite self-con¬ 
 tained whole, terminated in itself. They speak of that totality 
 as a compact body, designated in Scripture the all or the 
 many; and undoubtedly this explanation is in some passages 
 appropriate. The great names of Western Christendom for a 
 considerable time confessed to Augustin’s and Prosper’s views 
 on particular redemption, as emphatically as the Synod of Dort 
 long afterwards. Four centuries after Augustin’s death, how¬ 
 ever, Godsehalk (a.d. 847) encountered persecution and im¬ 
 prisonment for asserting the very opinions which Augustinian 
 theology had triumphantly vindicated. The age was then no 
 longer capable of maintaining the sovereignty of grace amid the 
 current legalism. Isolated witnesses indeed appeared, such as 
 Eemigius at Lyons and the Council at Valence (a.d. 855), to do 
 what in them lay to maintain the truth and protect its oppressed 
 champion. But they could not turn the tide. 
 
 Here we may fully notice the principal defects attaching to 
 the patristic theology as an exhibition of the doctrine of the 
 
508 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 atonement. The essential elements of the doctrine are all 
 found in the Greek and Latin Fathers. Certainly they had not 
 the remotest conception of the modern theory of moral re¬ 
 demption and absolute remission, however they philosophized 
 on possibilities. They all maintained the fact of the atone¬ 
 ment. It must be confessed, however, that important desi¬ 
 derata and neutralizing influences came in to mar the effects 
 which it was fitted to produce; and three principal defects or 
 misleading tendencies may be mentioned. 
 
 1. The patristic theology, considered as a whole, directed 
 attention more to the bearing of the atonement on men as 
 captives under Satan and death, than to its bearing on the 
 divine rights. It was too exclusively considered in connection 
 with the consequences of sin, and too little with sin itself. 
 Irenseus was an exception. He apprehended the propitiation for 
 sin, we think, more profoundly than any of the Fathers. He 
 described it as a manifestation of divine goodness and righteous¬ 
 ness, but held that it was the obedience of the second Adam, 
 entering by appointment into the position of the first, that Satan 
 might justly be overcome (3. 20). All the others took lower 
 ground. Hence patristic theology, as a whole, surveyed the 
 atonement in relation to man, but did not insist on its absolute 
 necessity as seen in connection with the rights of God. Athana¬ 
 sius makes the atonement a satisfaction of the primeval menace 
 against sin, but in such a way as argues that he had no idea of 
 anything beyond a relative necessity. All the eminent Fathers 
 of the Eastern as well as Western Church—Origen, Athanasius, 
 Gregory Nazianzen, Augustin, and Theodoret — expressly de¬ 
 clare that God, in the exercise of His free-will and absolute 
 dominion, could have redeemed men from their captivity with¬ 
 out atonement. Augustin speaks of innumerable other ways 
 which the Almighty might have adopted to deliver us (de Trin. 
 lib. xiii. c. 16). Theodoret, in his Orations against the Greeks, 
 maintains that it would have been easy for Christ to deliver 
 men by His mere will, but adds: “ He would not display His 
 power, but the righteousness of His divine administration” 
 (Orat. vi.). To the same purpose John of Damascus, the dog¬ 
 matic divine of the Eastern Church, says : “ All is in His power. 
 He could by His almighty power rescue men from the captivity 
 of the devil; but the latter would have had ground for accusing 
 God,” etc. (i. 3, c. 18). While they argued for the absolute do¬ 
 minion of God, they united to set forth that the actual method 
 of redemption selected was adapted to man’s necessities, and 
 worthy of God. In short, it was a speculation in which they 
 indulged, as later divines also did, without sufficient ground; for 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 509 
 
 they separated God’s free-will from the moral perfections of 
 His nature—rectitude, wisdom, and goodness. This speculation, 
 which we find resuscitated after the Eeformation, assumed too 
 much. It was not a question of mere power, for God always 
 acts in character. Patristic theology, in short, did not give the 
 atonement the deep grounding which it must of necessity re¬ 
 ceive. Hence the later divines, who merely aimed to revive 
 patristic thought, naturally went no further than the relative 
 necessity of the atonement, and asserted that God chose this 
 way because it seemed good in His sight. 
 
 2. We notice another marked defect in patristic theology, 
 which began at a very early age, viz. the theory of the remission 
 of sins subsequent to conversion, by prayers, alms, good works, 
 and penitential exercises. This unscriptural notion lost sight 
 of explicit statements which ascribe forgiveness after conversion 
 as well as before it to the blood of Christ alone (1 John i. 7, 
 ii. 2). This was one of the most mischievous mistakes of the 
 ancient church. It began at an early period. We find it in 
 Origen, and earlier; for Clemens of Alexandria expresses him¬ 
 self in this perilous way: Christ’s blood was supposed to atone 
 for sins committed before conversion, and to secure remission; 
 but after conversion or baptism something else was required— 
 good works and satisfactions. Certain terms originally applied 
 to the discipline of the church, such as satisfaction and the 
 like, came in process of time to be applied to God, as if some 
 satisfaction was to be made by the Christian. This tended to 
 neutralize the atonement, and to cast it into the shade. The 
 comparatively limited allusion to the cross in the patristic 
 literature, as compared with the Reformation age, must strike 
 every one. This is the reason: and Augustin, the great champion 
 of grace in its inward operations, was here as wide of the mark 
 as any of the others. The forgiveness of sins after conversion 
 was, according to him, ascribed in no small measure to good 
 works, prayers, alms, and fasts. Numerous passages of this 
 nature might be produced from his works. 1 He explains his 
 sentiments on this point at large in the epistle addressed to 
 Macedonius (Ep. liii.). His doctrine was, that in baptism pre¬ 
 vious sins are forgiven, but that sins committed afterwards are, 
 to a large extent, expiated also by sacrifices of mercy. That 
 unscriptural and mischievous position is found in the Fathers 
 before the times of Augustin. That it tended to intercept the 
 
 1 Of many passages that might be adduced, I give the following: “Non enim 
 sufficit mores in melius commutare, et a factis malis recedere ; nisi etiam de his 
 quse facta sunt satisfiat Deo per poenitentise dolorem, per humilitatis gemitum 
 per contriti cordis sacrificium, co-operantibus eleemosynis” (tom. v. p. 950, edit, 
 con. S. Maur). 
 
510 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 benefit of tlie atonement, and to neutralize its effects, needs no 
 proof. The notion descended to the Church of Rome, where we 
 find it in all its force to this day. The Reformation swept it 
 away. 
 
 3. A third neutralizing influence was the doctrine of the 
 eucharistic sacrifice, which came to light about the middle of 
 the third century. Cyprian, the first of the Fathers who speaks 
 of the blood of Christ in this doubtful way, expressed the thought 
 that Christ offered Himself a sacrifice at the institution of the 
 Supper (Letter 63). The Fathers used the term sacrifice in 
 the general sense, that everything given to God may be bibli¬ 
 cally called a sacrifice. It was an unhappy application of the 
 word when the Supper came to be so designated; for a sacrifice 
 and sacrament are different, — the former implying what is 
 offered by us, the latter implying what is given to us. Pro¬ 
 perly viewed, the Lord’s Supper is not a sacrifice, but a sacra¬ 
 ment, as all the Reformers correctly represented it. Cyprian’s 
 use of this unhappy term soon found access everywhere; but it 
 had nothing in common with the perversion of later days. The 
 Fathers meant only a commemoration of Christ’s sacrifice, when 
 speaking of Christ’s body and blood as present in the Supper as 
 a victim and propitiatory sacrifice. They meant nothing more 
 than to set forth by symbolical language what was the reality 
 to which the sacramental symbols pointed, and what were the 
 effects of Christ’s propitiation. In process of time that style 
 ceased to be hyperbole, and came in between the worshipper 
 and the atonement of the cross. The emblem more and more 
 threatened to supersede the reality : sacraments were made the 
 means of applying the atonement; and gradually became a 
 substitute for it, till the remedial scheme was identified with 
 sacraments. 
 
 III. We come now to medieval doctrine. The true theory 
 of the atonement, not in full development, but in its funda¬ 
 mental principles, or in that which gives it systematic form, 
 was propounded by Anselm, well termed by one the Grotius 
 and Leibnitz of his age, and by another Wolf and Augustin 
 united. Any correct view of the medieval period will always 
 place Anselm at the fountainhead. He stands between two 
 epochs, inheriting the one, moulding the other. Our present 
 object is to discuss the merits of his theory of the atonement. 
 At the time when he taught theology at the monastery of Bee, 
 of which he was prior (a.d. 1063-1093), many minds, literate 
 and illiterate, had a desire to obtain an explanation on dogmatic 
 grounds of the nature of the atonement, to meet speculative 
 wants, not unlike the theories of our own day. Anselm him- 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 511 
 
 self was quite dissatisfied with the current modes of explana¬ 
 tion that had descended from the patristic theology, for no 
 attempt had been made to demonstrate on solid grounds the 
 inward necessity of the atonement. 
 
 A remedy was necessary, more especially as the speculative 
 tendencies were beginning to develope themselves on all sides. 
 The doctrine of the atonement had long occupied Anselm’s 
 mind. He was solicited to give his solution of the difficulties 
 then widely discussed; and none was more importunate than 
 a favourite pupil, Boso, who had come to him engulphed in 
 theological difficulties. Anselm’s work took the form of a 
 dialogue between him and Boso, and was entitled, Cur Deus 
 Homo, describing the reasons why none but God incarnate was 
 competent to the work of propitiation. It must be translated, 
 Why a God-man ? The treatise consists of two parts, of which 
 the first was prepared after his translation to the See of Canter¬ 
 bury (1093); and it was finished by its author in the summer 
 of 1098, during his exile from England, at a country-seat in 
 Campania. It has, during nearly eight centuries, directed and 
 influenced opinion in the most remarkable way on the subject 
 of the atonement. As a large quotation was inserted in the 
 former volume, there is the less necessity for multiplying ex¬ 
 tracts from the treatise, and it will suffice briefly to notice its 
 scope and merits. 
 
 Anselm dismisses the defective representations of the pa¬ 
 tristic theology, especially the theory that a satisfaction was 
 made to the legitimate claims of Satan (i. 7). He sees in the 
 actual dominion of Satan the righteous sentence of God, and 
 the well-deserved doom of mankind, but repudiates any legiti¬ 
 mate claim on the part of the adversary to receive a satisfac¬ 
 tion. Anselm goes back to the idea of sin, and sketches a 
 theory of the atonement, of which we may say that it took in 
 all the scattered parts of truth found in the previous discus¬ 
 sions, but made an immense advance on them, as it put the 
 atonement in connection with the magnitude of guilt. This 
 was an important advance on the patristic theology generally, 
 which surveyed the atonement only in the light of our cap¬ 
 tivity, or from the view-point supplied by the effects of sin. 
 The fundamental thoughts of Anselm are the following :—Sin is 
 nothing else but not rendering to God His due. He who does 
 not render to God this due honour, withdraws from God what 
 is His, and dishonours God; and this is to commit sin. Every 
 sinner must repay the honour which he took from God, and re¬ 
 store it. This is the satisfaction which every sinner must make 
 to God (lib. i. ch. 11). Beferring to divine justice, which is de- 
 
512 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 scribed as nothing but God Himself, Anselm asserts : There is 
 nothing which it is more just for God to maintain than the 
 honour of His majesty (ch. 13); and he adds: It is indispens¬ 
 ably necessary that every sin should be followed either by 
 satisfaction or punishment (ch. 15). And as to the satisfac¬ 
 tion, Anselm’s position is: Man cannot receive what God pur¬ 
 posed to bestow on him without restoring the whole of what 
 he took away from God (ch. 23). He brings out, in the most 
 emphatic way, that God alone was in a position to render this, 
 and consequently that He must perform it as God-man, which 
 evinces the necessity of the incarnation. From this circum¬ 
 stance the satisfaction possessed infinite value, not only com¬ 
 pensating for human guilt, but completely restoring the injured 
 or insulted honour of God. 
 
 The influence of this treatise on subsequent centuries is 
 mainly due to the fact that it gave such a happy statement 
 of the indispensable necessity of satisfaction. The ampler 
 statements of the Eeformers as to the constituent elements of 
 the atonement did not subvert in any degree this unanswer¬ 
 able proof of its indispensable necessity, but fitted in to it with¬ 
 out any incongruity. The theory has defects, as we shall see ; 
 but in respect of the great demonstration which it furnishes as 
 to the necessity of satisfaction, the work is as seasonable and 
 valuable as when it first appeared. The peculiar distinction 
 belonging to Anselm’s theory, contrasted with all that preceded 
 it, and with most theories that succeeded it to this day, was, 
 that he viewed the atonement in connection with sin as such, 
 and not merely in connection with the consequences of sin. 
 He based his argument on the magnitude and enormity of 
 sin (nondum considerasti quanti ponderis sit peccatum , i. 21). 
 The infinite evil of sin is the great thought that at once con¬ 
 fronts us at the commencement of the treatise. The patristic 
 theology, especially in the Athanasian type and doctrine, had 
 been wont to connect the atonement with the original threat 
 against sin, and viewed the penalty as the result of the divine 
 veracity. Anselm viewed the necessity of the atonement far 
 more profoundly than any of the Fathers, not even excepting 
 Irenmus, though he wants elements which the latter enforced. 
 The elements of the atonement, as we have seen, existed in the 
 church in an isolated form, but needed to be fused and molten 
 together by one who could apprehend it in its inward neces¬ 
 sity ; and this Anselm performed. 
 
 With regard to the distribution of matter introduced into 
 the treatise, it is as follows:—After the first preliminary chap¬ 
 ters, he demonstrates the absolute necessity of satisfaction as a 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 513 
 
 condition of forgiveness (i. 11-19). This first division of the 
 work may he called the enunciation of the problem. He 
 establishes the necessity of the atonement on grounds which 
 have only to be stated to constrain the assent of every spiritual 
 mind imbued with any adequate apprehension of the creature’s 
 relation to its Maker. He puts this necessity on the ground 
 that God’s rights must be restored, and His honour repaired; 
 and that to pronounce pardon without reparation would vio¬ 
 late God’s declarative glory. Then, in what may be called the 
 second division of the treatise, Anselm shows that unaided 
 man is incompetent to restore God’s honour, and that this very 
 inability is criminal (i. 20-24). After this he proceeds in the 
 second book to establish what may be called the third point 
 of his argument, that only a divine person or God-man was 
 competent to make the satisfaction that repairs God’s injured 
 honour (ii. 1-22). This is followed by a brief outline of the 
 events of Christ’s historic life, considered as essential requisites 
 to the solution of the problem, which was in harmony with 
 God’s perfections, as well as with the dictates of enlightened 
 reason. 
 
 We have thus put together the integral parts of the theory. 
 Anselm may be said to stand alone in all antiquity in the clear 
 enunciation of the problem that was to be solved on behalf of 
 humanity. As to the positive elements or actual fulfilment of 
 the divine claims, the theology of the Eeformation far exceeded 
 all that this treatise contains,—nay, in this respect, superseded 
 it. But, in the statement of the necessity of satisfaction, An¬ 
 selm has never been surpassed, and in this respect the treatise 
 is still invaluable. The Theodiccea of Anselm is replete with 
 those lofty conceptions of God’s excellency and claims with 
 which we are brought in contact in Augustin and Edwards—- 
 minds of the same family ; and we feel that nothing but divine 
 teaching, united to great holiness and intimate communion with 
 God, could have put him in possession of such views of sin. 
 Assuming the existence of sin as an experimental fact, he 
 regards it as an infraction of the divine rights, a spoliation of 
 that declarative glory for which the universe exists, and a 
 disorder or criminal rebellion in the moral universe. His dis¬ 
 cussion commences with the relation which the moral Governor 
 occupies to sin, showing that sin is a fact for which provision 
 must be made in God’s moral government,—a disharmony that 
 must be reduced to order. The atonement is not with him as 
 with Grotius, a governmental display before the universe ; nor 
 a merely positive device, which waives the essential claims of 
 justice and offers but the semblance of satisfaction. On the 
 
514 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 contrary, the satisfaction, according to Anselm, is grounded on 
 deep inward necessity, and is a provision for sin, and not 
 merely for its consequences. He particularly excels in ex¬ 
 hibiting the necessity of satisfaction for such a tremendous 
 disorder and evil as sin, or of punishment as the only other 
 alternative. Compared with other theories before or since his 
 day as to the ground of the atonement, this outline is im¬ 
 mensely more commanding, and better fortified by evidence. 
 He knows no court but that of God Himself, and the harmony 
 of His attributes. In this great transaction there is no human 
 nor angelic public before which God makes a governmental 
 display : His public is Himself, or His own perfections, which 
 are inviolable. 
 
 As I dislike the modern mode of representing another man’s 
 views by a mere artificial construction from a reviewer’s point 
 of view, without sufficient extracts, I would request the reader’s 
 perusal, of the passages at large, extracted from this treatise in 
 our former volume, as they serve to exhibit Anselm’s views 
 in their natural order (pp. 383-398). Let me now enter on a 
 critical estimate of the merits of this treatise. 
 
 Ho work perhaps on the atonement ever encountered such 
 determined opposition at the hand of modern Rationalism, and 
 not less so from the champions of that new theory which is 
 termed moral redemption, opposed to the juristic view of 
 theology. When Anselm declares that God can no more fail 
 to maintain His honour and justice than He can lie, they de¬ 
 nounce him as giving a representation of God as if He were an 
 implacable and vindictive tyrant. In spite of all these charac¬ 
 teristic denunciations of modern Rationalism, this theory for 
 eight centuries has given repose and comfort to the most earnest 
 minds. of all churches: it was accepted by every Protestant 
 church, and, we think, God will not let it die. The reason of 
 the opposition it has encountered may in large measure be 
 traced to the fact that it establishes the perfect rationality of 
 the atonement as a satisfaction to divine justice. Rationalism, 
 with its reasons of a low order, is here met on its own ground, 
 and disarmed by reasons to which no spiritual mind takes ex¬ 
 ception. Enlightened Christian rationality is brought face to 
 face with natural reason; grounds are assigned for an atone¬ 
 ment sufficient to commend it to every one alive to the fact of 
 sin as a disorder in the universe; and the reasons to which 
 Anselm appeals in opposition to the exceptions of which 
 Rationalism avails itself, are based on inward necessity in the 
 moral government of God. It is not difficult, perhaps, to ex¬ 
 plain why Rationalism has so keenly opposed this demonstra- 
 
HISTOKICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 515 
 
 tion. Eationalism arrogates all reason demanding a WHY and 
 wherefore for every truth; and it here encounters reasons more 
 than it has ever answered. 
 
 Starting from the fact of SIN which must he expiated, 
 Anselm, as the preface purports, undertakes to prove by neces¬ 
 sary reasons apart from the historical Christ (remoto Christo), 
 that man could not he saved without such a satisfaction as a 
 God-man alone was competent to offer. As it is a demonstra¬ 
 tion conducted against a certain phase of speculative unbelief, 
 he proceeds on common grounds in reason. What gave the 
 treatise its importance, w 7 as his conception of sin as an infinite 
 evil, arguing a singularly realizing view of God. God, he main¬ 
 tains, is wronged by sin, and His rights taken away (aufert Deo 
 quod suum est); and the Creator owes it to Himself to vindi¬ 
 cate His declarative glory, and secure the honour due to Him 
 as the personal God. This is the central point of Anselm’s 
 theory,—one of those elements too much displaced by •subse¬ 
 quent speculations. Frequently Anselm’s critics have not ap¬ 
 prehended it. But it is comprehensive enough to take in all 
 the more definite statements as to the divine law furnished by 
 the Beformation theology. Some disparage the notion of re¬ 
 storing the divine honour as an outward view-point of abstract 
 reflection; and it has been said that the mode adopted by the 
 Protestant Church, of referring Christ’s work to the divine law, 
 is more practical, living, and experimental. But, in point of 
 fact, these two modes of representation do not exclude each 
 other: Anselm’s principle comprehends the other. The one is 
 from the view-point of Christian experience; the other from 
 the view-point of the divine right. 
 
 The inward necessity of the atonement, on the supposition 
 of pardon, was evinced by Anselm as had never been exhibited 
 before. He put it in a new light when he based his theory on 
 the great truth that man was made to honour God by a pure 
 nature and sinless obedience; and that the restoration of this 
 honour to the full, nay, to a larger degree, is a tribute or 
 claim which the Supreme Justice owes to Himself. Anselm 
 starts from God’s declarative glory,—a conception not only 
 biblical in its import, but necessary in an experimental point 
 of view, and comprehending under it all the more definite state¬ 
 ments subsequently made in the church on the subject of im¬ 
 puted righteousness. There is a biblical foundation for the 
 position that the divine honour was taken away, and must 
 needs be restored as an indispensable condition for forgiveness: 
 for the apostle plainly exhibits it in his • statement of redemp¬ 
 tion. He connects the glory of God with sin and satisfac- 
 
516 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 tion. 1 Nor could conscience be satisfied with any method of 
 atonement not securing the divine honour, but involving a mere 
 connivance at defects. 
 
 This shows that, far from propounding mere abstract reflec¬ 
 tion as the guiding principle of his theory, as has been alleged, 
 Anselm derived it from the centre of biblical and experimental 
 truth. Against the tenor of his theory it has been argued that 
 man cannot be said to give to God, or to take away from Him. 
 That would be true, were it a question as to man’s rebellion 
 tending to the prejudice of God’s essential blessedness. But 
 it is a question of His declarative glory, and of His relation to 
 the world, existing only to bring back to Him a revenue of 
 praise. All this Anselm puts in a form arguing the deepest 
 views of God’s personal relations to the universe. 
 
 A certain surprise is justly occasioned by the fact that he 
 makes no express mention of the law, which must always be 
 taken in as the standard of obedience. Whether that arose 
 from the fact that he had undertaken to argue on grounds of 
 reason, or to avoid the supposition of a law standing above 
 God, or because he thought it best to run up the whole ques¬ 
 tion to the relations immediately occupied by the personal God 
 to the world, and without a true conception of which neither 
 sin nor punishment can be adequately apprehended, it is diffi¬ 
 cult to determine. But he does not treat of sin, of punish¬ 
 ment, and of the will of the Supreme, in the impersonal way 
 in which these points are often viewed in discussions of this 
 nature. The Supreme Justice is, according to Anselm, God 
 Himself (Suprema Justitia non est aliud quam ipse Bens, i. 
 13). From this view of the intimate relation which the per¬ 
 sonal God occupies to the world, Anselm describes sin as an 
 infinite evil—an infraction of divine right—a spoliation of the 
 divine honour, of which God cannot be deprived; for either 
 men spontaneously comply with the preceptive will of God, or 
 fall under His punitive will,—the latter being an exaction of the 
 
 1 See Rom. iii. 23: “ For they all [sic] sinned and come short of the glory 
 of God.” What is the glory of God here ? Of four different views given by 
 exegetes, we decidedly prefer that exposition which involves the idea of ren¬ 
 dering to God His honour. Without adducing the other opinions, let it 
 suffice to say that the old Lutheran expositors, Chemnitzius, Flacius, Seb. 
 Schmid, Calovius, and also J. Alting, among the reformed, as well as Ruckert 
 and Olshausen more recently, interpret the Zoi'a. rod ©sod of a glory originally 
 imparted to men, but lost—viz. the divine image. That is nearer the truth than 
 any of the other three interpretations (viz. 1. future glory ; 2. the commenda¬ 
 tion of God ; 3. glorying before God). But, instead of limiting it to the divine 
 image, we must extend the idea to all the declarative glory to be rendered to the 
 Creator by a pure nature and God-glorifying obedience ; and, taken in this sense, 
 there is a complete correspondence between the want of the and the provision 
 of 'SiKociotrvvyi: they are counterparts to each other. (Comp., too, John xvii. 4.) 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 517 
 
 divine honour from the sinner against his will, and in some 
 sort a satisfaction; and from this, says Anselm, a sinner can 
 no more flee than he can flee from the circumambient heaven, 
 which he recedes from at one point only to approach it at 
 another. But we should misapprehend his view of sin were 
 we to conclude that he regarded it as a mere transient act—• 
 the mere time-act, so to speak, of a creature on one occasion 
 transgressing the will of God. Bather, sin is the perpetual 
 contrariety of a nature which is enmity against God {nequciquctm 
 potest velle mentiri voluntas, nisi in qua corrupt a est veritas, i. 
 12). This demonstration of the necessity of satisfaction was 
 a new epoch in the history of the doctrine; and it connects 
 Anselm’s name with the atonement much in the same way as 
 Athanasius’ name is recalled in connection with the proof of 
 Christ’s deity, or Augustin’s with the doctrines of efficacious 
 grace, or Luther’s with justification hy faith alone. 
 
 Another objection to this theory is, that Anselm gives pro¬ 
 minence to divine justice at the expense of divine love. This 
 is wholly without foundation, and can he adduced only by those 
 who will see nothing in the Divine Being but love. Unques¬ 
 tionably love is the source of the atonement; for when God 
 spared not His own Son, that delivery of Christ can be re¬ 
 garded in no other light than as a manifestation of sovereign, 
 self-moving love. But Anselm demonstrates the necessity of 
 satisfaction to shut men up to unmerited love, which is no¬ 
 where called in question, but presupposed as the originating 
 element of the whole satisfaction. But the greater the obstacle 
 surmounted, and the greater the price paid, the greater obvi¬ 
 ously is the love. A reference to Anselm’s work shows that 
 he comprehended in his exhibition of justice not only what 
 was punitive, but all that the Divine Being owed to Himself. 
 He shows that the necessity demanding the incarnation and 
 humiliation of the Son of God for the restoration of the divine 
 honour, was nothing but the demand of justice; but that, in¬ 
 stead of obscuring divine love, this only magnified and exalted 
 it, for love is commended by the greatness of the satisfaction. 
 And we find Anselm winding up his demonstration by ex¬ 
 pressly placing mercy and justice in harmonious concert. 
 
 The relation of this theory to later modes of representation, 
 and especially to that of the Beformation theology, which sup¬ 
 plemented it, is worthy of notice. The difference between the 
 two corresponds to the peculiar elements of the two schools 
 of theology. Anselm is less happy in filling up his outline 
 than in defining the boundary lines of that necessity which 
 could not be modified. He has, however, laid down principles 
 
518 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 of such general application as comprehend the ampler positive 
 doctrine supplied by the Reformation, and even necessitated in 
 a manner a better exposition of the truth than he himself had 
 supplied. He fails to fill up his own outline. 
 
 An objection has been made to the general character of the 
 reasoning. But for this there is no foundation, for he brings 
 enlightened reason to disarm the prejudices of natural reason, 
 and introduces a higher rationality. Starting from the infinite 
 guilt of sin as his view-point, he exhibits the adaptation of 
 the divine economy to the wants of fallen nature—the true 
 rationale of every gospel doctrine. 
 
 Three points of difference, however, may be traced between 
 this admirable treatise and the Reformation theology, and these 
 we shall briefly notice. 
 
 1. Anselm, following out a speculation derived from Augus¬ 
 tin, embarrassed the question by an unnecessary reference to 
 the fall of angels. He argued that the number of fallen angels 
 must be compensated by an equal number, perhaps a greater 
 number, of redeemed men. The introduction of this specula¬ 
 tion, which can neither be affirmed nor denied, as it is beyond 
 the circle of our knowledge, mars the symmetry of Anselm’s 
 work (lib. i. 16-18). But it is a mere episode, which may be 
 separated from the theory itself; and the Reformation theology 
 happily disembarrassed the question of all reference to the fall 
 of angels, and limited the scope of the atonement to man alone. 
 
 2. A second point of difference, to which it is necessary to 
 refer, is, that the active and passive obedience of Christ was 
 never correctly stated in any of the explanations furnished by 
 Anselm in connection with the atonement. A further expan¬ 
 sion of truth was reserved for the Reformation, by penetrating 
 more deeply into the nature of the divine law than was ever 
 discovered to the great scholastic. What his theory wanted, 
 indeed, was a full recognition of the claims of the divine law, 
 and of the atonement as a satisfaction of these claims in all 
 their breadth and extent. Anselm, on the contrary, stopped 
 short at an indefinite equivalent, content to forego all more 
 explicit statement. He contemplated the work of Christ in 
 concrete connection with His divine person, and concluded 
 that on this account it was an ample reparation of the divine 
 honour. 
 
 The theory of Anselm may be said in one respect to make 
 provision for the active and suffering obedience of Christ; and 
 in another respect, from the cause assigned, to allow neither of 
 these elements to come to their rights. He seems to have been 
 deterred, in common with much of the patristic theology, which 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 510 
 
 lie inherited, from fully adopting the conclusion that Christ 
 made an exchange of places with us under the law, to the 
 extent that He entered unreservedly and without exception 
 into all the obligations of His people. He drew too wide a 
 distinction between punishment and satisfaction, as if they 
 had nothing in common. He considers the death of Christ 
 only as a voluntary deed. In defining satisfaction he did not 
 inquire what is included in the obligation, nor read off the 
 satisfaction from the claims of the divine law, of which it is 
 but the fulfilment. The suffering obedience does not come 
 to its rights in Anselm’s theory, though he held that the satis¬ 
 faction involved the spontaneous offering up of Christ’s life. 
 The reason of this was, that he considered the indefinite 
 equivalent an ample reparation of the divine honour. Hor 
 does the 'active obedience of Christ come to its rights in 
 Anselm’s theory. Some provision was undoubtedly made for 
 the active obedience, as an indispensable prerequisite; but it 
 was not fully developed. He fixed attention too exclusively 
 upon the death of Christ, without taking into account the life 
 of the Lord Jesus, as we should have expected from his de¬ 
 lineation of the necessity of satisfaction. But, not guided by 
 the more correct views of divine law to which the church 
 arrived in the days of the Beformation, Anselm stopped short 
 at an indefinite satisfaction, which he saw in connection with 
 the God-man surrendering Himself to death. He regarded this 
 as a compensation for the divine honour, without analysing it 
 in detail. He did not occupy that point of view which alone 
 could lead him to give due prominence to the elements of 
 active and passive obedience; and without deeming more pre¬ 
 cision necessary, he held that the surrender of life by a divine 
 person was of worth and dignity sufficient to countervail the 
 evil of sin, and make full reparation to the divine honour. 
 
 3. We must add a third point of difference. The Befor¬ 
 mation theology on the doctrine of the atonement starts from 
 man’s personal relation to Christ by justifying faith. It was 
 anthropological. Man’s consciousness of guilt, derived from 
 apprehending his position under the law, coupled with the 
 conviction that the law must be fulfilled by a mediator bear¬ 
 ing the penalty and complying with the positive requirement, 
 was the view-point of the Beformation theology. Anselm’s is 
 rather systematic. He omitted the experimental application 
 of the atonement, and confined himself to the objective side. 
 The Beformers looked at it from another view-point—from the 
 subjective side of union to God in Christ by justifying faith. 
 But in Anselm’s Meditations the doctrine of exchange is 
 
520 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 brought out in an experimental way, with scarcely less clear¬ 
 ness than by Luther himself, and in a manner which presup¬ 
 poses that the application . of the atonement is by faith alone. 
 His views of the infinite evil of sin are expressed from his own 
 consciousness ; and though he says little of the application of 
 the atonement by faith alone as the receptive hand, no one can 
 read Anselm without the conviction that this truth underlies 
 all he says, though it was reserved to the Beformation age to 
 find full expression for it. 
 
 The immediate cause of the vast influence exercised by 
 Anselm’s treatise was due to the statement of the absolute 
 necessity of the satisfaction, more than to the exposition of 
 its essential elements. He laid the formation for all the 
 subsequent grounding of the doctrine; and the advances made 
 at the Beformation did not subvert the foundation’ laid, but 
 fitted into it without incongruity. 
 
 On the views of medieval writers after Anselm it is un¬ 
 necessary to dwell at large. Their speculations, with the 
 single exception of Aquinas, did not tend to advance the 
 knowledge of the doctrine ; and without being aware .of any 
 abrupt transition, we might pass from Anselm to the Be- 
 formers. Anselm, in his atonement-theory, stood very much 
 alone. The far-reaching consequences of his views were not 
 discerned. We hear no more, it is true, of a ransom paid to 
 the devil; that whole theory now disappeared. But what was 
 done subsequently was rather a return to patristic views of the 
 relative necessity of the atonement; and during the course of 
 four centuries, in which scholasticism had full play, excepting 
 a few patches from Anselm, elements of a neutralizing or nega¬ 
 tive character went on increasing. A few notices will suffice, 
 for our object is rather to point out the stages and landmarks 
 of the history of the doctrine, than to accumulate individual 
 opinions. 
 
 Abelard, sympathizing neither with the holiness of Anselm’s 
 life nor the soundness of his doctrinal opinions, was a direct 
 antithesis in every respect. He has been of late more can¬ 
 vassed than he deserves. Eloquent, logical, but ethically lax, 
 he has been well termed the precursor of modern Bationalism. 
 His views of redemption were the logical result of his Pelagian 
 view of sin. He allowed only sinful deeds, but no sinful 
 nature, and no representative position of the first man, or any 
 imputation of his sin : views naturally leading him to deny the 
 necessity of satisfaction. He represented pardon as absolute, 
 without regard to a mediator’s work. His shallow view of sin 
 disjointed everything. Hence, according to him, reconcilia- 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 521 
 
 tion was all on man’s side ; and God’s anger needed not to be 
 appeased, but man’s. This was but the prelude of modern 
 nationalism. The well-known Bernard, deeply offended by 
 Abelard’s audacity, controverted his views with all the energy 
 of his character, but did nothing to advance the doctrine. He 
 held that sin could not be forgiven without a satisfaction, but 
 did not insist on its absolute necessity. In a word, Bernard 
 took up Augustin’s ground, which was a modification of the 
 theory of Origen. Peter Lombard, magister Sententiarum 7 whose 
 compend was long classical in the Western Church, furnished 
 a compilation of sayings from the Fathers, digested into system. 
 He reproduced the indefinite type of the patristic theology, 
 after Anselm had overthrown its insecure positions; and was 
 little influenced by either Anselm or Abelard, though he dis¬ 
 covers marks of living in a period when the old form was in 
 process of dissolution. His starting-point was the notion of 
 merit {Lib. Senten. iii. 18); and he held that Christ merited for 
 Himself and for us,—for Himself by His humility, love, right¬ 
 eousness, and other virtues, which He exercised from His con¬ 
 ception ; and for us by His sufferings. Lombard’s Booh of 
 Sentences became the text-book on which teachers and writers 
 commented for many centuries, and we thus see the ideas 
 current on the atonement in Western Christendom. There 
 was much uncertainty and vacillation in his views. He held 
 that we are justified by the love which redemption awakens in 
 us in return {et per hoc , says he, justificamur ). 
 
 Three scholastic divines plainly exhibit the influence of 
 Anselm’s theory: Hugo a Sancto Victore, Alexander Hale- 
 sius, and Bonaventura. They cannot be said, however, to have 
 rendered any service in the further elucidation of the doctrine. 
 
 Hugo of St. Victor makes some approach to the distinction 
 between the active and suffering obedience of Christ ( Sacr . c. 4). 
 He speaks of Christ discharging man’s obligation to the Father 
 by His birth, and expiating man’s guilt by His death {reatum 
 hominis ),—a crude statement of the two constituent elements 
 of the atonement; but, had they been taken in earnest, and 
 carried out, the germ of a fuller development was there. He 
 discovers plain marks of Anselm’s influence, though not assert¬ 
 ing the absolute necessity of the atonement. It might, he 
 alleges, have been effected in a different way, though this was 
 most appropriate on many grounds stated. The necessity of 
 the incarnation for the atonement appears, according to him, 
 from the fact that man must offer a reparation to God for his 
 apostasy, and suffer an adequate punishment as a satisfaction 
 for the indignity. 
 
522 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Alexander of Hales adhered to Anselm still more closely 
 than the former, adducing frequently the words of Anselm. 
 Hales lays down the position that, according to divine justice, 
 sin is never remitted without punishment ( Summa , iii. 16. 3, 4); 
 and he distinguishes, like Lombard, between merit and satis¬ 
 faction, affirming that Christ merited glorification for Himself, 
 and for us the cancelling of guilt. There is, however, the 
 usual confusion which we everywhere encounter in this period 
 from the neutralizing elements of good works. 
 
 For Bonaventura’s views, let me refer to Shedd’s excellent 
 outline. He came under the influence of Anselm’s opinions. 
 Bonaventura acknowledged that God, equally merciful and 
 righteous, revealed these two divine attributes in their harmony 
 and equipoise. He did not affirm the absolute necessity of 
 satisfaction, though, like the Fathers, he acknowledged that, of 
 all the possible modes, this was the most appropriate. These 
 writers were afraid of invading the free-will or absolute power 
 of God, when they might have thought out the matter to an 
 end, and seen that it is not a mere question of omnipotence, 
 but one involving God’s moral perfections ; and we can, with 
 Anselm, affirm the absolute necessity, on the same ground on 
 which we affirm that He cannot lie. 
 
 The Tliomist and Scotist opinions fill up the remainder of 
 the Scholastic period. 
 
 Thomas Aquinas, the great systematic divine of medieval 
 times, exercised considerable influence in connection with the 
 doctrine of the atonement. He is represented by Lutheran 
 divines, such as Tliomasius and Philippi, as contributing 
 nothing of value. We cannot concede this; but his services 
 lay chiefly in a sphere to which Lutheran divines discover no 
 favourable inclination,—viz. the special destination of the 
 atonement. 
 
 Having much in common with Anselm, he differs from him 
 in maintaining that the satisfaction was wholly of free-will 
 on the part of God, and that justice is based on the positive 
 will of God. He will not allow that satisfaction was of abso¬ 
 lute necessity, though the most appropriate means for the end. 
 As to the elements of the satisfaction, two points may be termed 
 peculiar to him. (1.) As to the suffering, he is not content 
 merely to name the death of Christ: he shows that He encoun¬ 
 tered human suffering for men of all tribes and all ranks, in 
 mind and body, in honour and estate; and that the amount of 
 pain which He endured was the greatest that could be borne in 
 this present state (Quest. 46. 4-7). But he adds, that what 
 contributed to make it an adequate satisfaction, was the great- 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 523 
 
 ness of His love, the dignity of His person as God-man, and the 
 magnitude of His sorrow. One noteworthy position was, that 
 the Redeemer’s obedience was a fulfilment of the moral precepts 
 of love to God and man, as well as of what was properly cere¬ 
 monial ; and this suffering obedience was free and voluntary. 
 (2.) Another peculiarity of Thomas’ doctrine was, that the 
 Lord’s satisfaction was superabounding,—that is, exceeding the 
 requirement. Though this position was afterwards sadly per¬ 
 verted to the purposes of superstition, yet, as put by Aquinas 
 himself, it expressed what was often uttered by orthodox 
 divines, such as Quenstedt and Dannhauer, in the Lutheran 
 Church. (3.) There is another point to which great value at¬ 
 taches : he demonstrates that the atonement was made for the 
 church. Substitution in the room of others was based by 
 Aquinas on the position that there was an organic unity 
 between Christ the Head and the church His body. He con¬ 
 ceives of Christ as the Head of a mystic body—viz. the church 
 of redeemed men—and sets forth this great truth in a manner 
 worthy of a disciple of Augustin. “ The whole church,” says 
 he, “ which is the mystic body of Christ, is accounted as one 
 person with its Head, which is Christ ” (Summa Th. Q. 8). The 
 analogy between the head as the ruling part, the seat of the 
 senses, and the source of the entire movements of the members, 
 is consistently carried out. Christ comprehends in Himself 
 the whole company of redeemed men through all time ; and, 
 by this conjunction between Christ and His church, all that 
 the Head performed redounds to the advantage of the members. 
 Aquinas maintained and carried out this position to its legiti¬ 
 mate consequences in respect of the Lord’s sufferings, so far as 
 they fall under the idea of merit. Satisfaction was destined 
 for all believers, and belongs to them as His members {Quest. 
 48. 2). His sufferings won the forgiveness of sins and the 
 remission of punishment {Art. 3). 
 
 The importance of this contribution to the doctrine of the 
 atonement, will not be questioned by any one who takes its 
 dimensions. It has always been accepted, from Aquinas’ days 
 down to the present time, by every advocate of substitution in 
 its special reference, as the only tenable explanation. This 
 presupposes not a vague, indefinite, hap-hazard relation, but 
 an actual oneness of a peculiar nature between Christ and the 
 people of God. Suretyship presupposes this relation ; imputa¬ 
 tion proceeds upon it: the penalty which Christ endured could 
 not otherwise have been inflicted ; and they for whom this was 
 done naturally share in the benefit, or receive what was des¬ 
 tined for them. 
 
524 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Aquinas conceived of Christ as the Head of His mystic 
 body, and not as the mere Head of humanity. The objection 
 urged against this position by the above-named Lutheran theo¬ 
 logians, is that it puts to hazard the importance and value of 
 redemption, by limiting its compass. The theory proceeded on 
 the Augustinian doctrine of election; and, so far from under¬ 
 mining the value of the atonement, it secures its efficacy to the 
 church of redeemed men; and this is in harmony with all 
 biblical statements. What the atonement was to unsaved men 
 we spare to inquire; but Scripture proclaims that the death of 
 Christ redeemed the church. By this mode Aquinas explained 
 two things. First, he met the cavil that only the guilty, and not 
 the innocent, should satisfy : his answer was, that the Head 
 and members are one mystic person {Quest. 48. a. 2). And, 
 next, he explained the transfer of the merits of Christ’s suffer¬ 
 ings to the redeemed. 
 
 The last of the Scholastics to whom we refer as a moulder 
 of opinion, was Duns Scotus, a great speculative and dialectic 
 mind, but lacking spiritual elements to regulate thought in 
 divine things. He occupied very much the same relation to 
 Aquinas as did Abelard to Anselm. 
 
 Notwithstanding his acknowledged mental power, the theory 
 of Scotus was superficial. Properly speaking, he has no atone¬ 
 ment at all. This ceases to cause surprise when we apprehend 
 his Pelagian view of sin. He denied the infinite evil of sin 
 (peccatum a se formaliter est actus finitus). He consequently 
 impugned the infinite merit of Christ, describing it as belong¬ 
 ing only to His human nature. Scotus’ view of the atonement 
 differs only by a shade from the absolute redemption or abso¬ 
 lute forgiveness of modern Eationalism. 
 
 Scotus’ theory reduces man’s redemption to a mere accepta¬ 
 tion on the part of God. God was pleased to account Christ’s 
 work as a fit medium of salvation by an act of acceptance 
 (acceptatio divina). He denied the necessity of satisfaction, and 
 would overthrow the theory of Anselm, which he examined 
 more fully than any other of the scholastic writers. So shal¬ 
 low are his views of what was necessary to satisfy the claims 
 of God, that he asserts: A good angel or a good man was 
 competent to render satisfaction; and he does not deny the 
 possibility of a man satisfying for himself. A mere man, by 
 a meritorious act of love, could have offered the satisfaction, 
 according to Scotus, for he viewed it as depending wholly on 
 divine acceptance. 
 
 The superabounding satisfaction ( Christi p>assio non solum 
 sufficiens , sed etiam superabundans satisfactio) was the point 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 525 
 
 of discussion between tlie Thomists and the Scotists. The 
 Thomist position as to the infinite merit of Christ’s satisfac¬ 
 tion received ecclesiastical sanction in 1343; but it was per¬ 
 verted to lend sanction to the figment of a treasury of merits 
 at the disposal of the church. 
 
 After Aquinas the confusion in the church as to the atone¬ 
 ment became extreme, Scotus’ followers tending largely to 
 complicate opinion. An exception may be made in favour of 
 Gerson, who knew how to distinguish mercy and justice, and 
 to harmonize them in the atonement; and also in favour of 
 medieval mystics, such as Tauler and Wessel. The latter is 
 supposed to have approached to the definition of Christ’s work 
 as an active and suffering obedience; at least he uses terms 
 almost equivalent (satisfaciendo and satispatiendo ). But we 
 cannot open the later Scholastics without feeling that they 
 are wholly away from Bible ground. They agitate questions 
 of grace and merit, satisfaction and redemption, guilt and 
 punishment, which are but a tangled skein of nomenclature. 
 They are on a wide sea of legalism, remedial sacraments, and 
 philosophical terminology, confounding objective and subjec¬ 
 tive—the work of Christ and the work of man. William 
 Occam, in his Commentary on Peter Lombard's Compend., 
 omits the atonement altogether. 
 
 IV. We come now to the Beformation period, which 
 brought back theology to its true centre. The great ques¬ 
 tion of that age turned on the justification of the sinner; and 
 the atonement therefore, as the material cause of justification, 
 was the turning-point of the whole discussions. The atone¬ 
 ment was now set upon a candlestick to give light to all the 
 house. The merit and satisfaction of w 7 orks were wholly re¬ 
 moved from the ground of man’s justification; deep views of 
 the infinite guilt of sin, as seen in the light of the divine 
 law, were diffused; and the sole mediatorship of Christ was 
 fully recognised. The Beformation, turning on these points, 
 began in Luther’s own heart, and may be traced in his memor¬ 
 able experience before it became the great moving force in the 
 world’s history. The deep consciousness of guilt, derived from 
 vividly apprehending his position under the law, coupled with 
 the conviction that the law must needs be fulfilled, shut him 
 up to the one Mediator between God and man, presented in 
 the gospel as bearing the penalty, and complying with the posi¬ 
 tive requirement, of the law. This was Luther’s view-point 
 personally, and this was the view-point of the Beformation 
 theology. Previous theories wanted a full recognition of the 
 claims of the divine law, and of the atonement as a satisfac- 
 
526 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 tion of these claims in all their extent; and this became the 
 element in which the theology of the Reformation moved, and 
 by which all other truth was coloured. On the subject of the 
 atonement, the divines of the Reformation period were in the 
 habit of arguing from man’s obligations to the nature of Christ’s 
 undertaking, and then conversely from the latter to the former. 
 Their main position, to which they were conducted by deeper 
 views of the extent of the law, and of its unbending claims, 
 was, that Christ’s satisfaction was perfectly identical with that 
 which men should themselves have rendered; and in the atone¬ 
 ment they read off the unalterable claims of the divine law. 
 
 A brief sketch of the doctrine of the Reformation, for 
 obvious reasons, may suffice. Every theological reader may 
 safely be presumed to have an adequate acquaintance with the 
 views of at least some of the Reformers—Luther, Melanclithon, 
 Calvin, Knox, or Cranmer. Besides, all the symbolic books, 
 articles, confessions, and catechisms of the Protestant churches, 
 whether Lutheran or Reformed, contain a full expression of the 
 Reformation doctrine. Without exception, it is the common 
 doctrine of all evangelical churches. Every Protestant church 
 embraced the Reformation doctrine on this point as the ulti¬ 
 mate tkuth. They held it as the adequate expression of bibli¬ 
 cal doctrine, in the same way as they all accepted the Nicene- 
 Constantinopolitan doctrine of the Trinity, and the doctrine of 
 Christ’s person, ratified at Chalcedon, and many of them the 
 Augustinian doctrine of grace, as the ultimate truth on these 
 different topics. As there is such a general recognition of the 
 doctrine of the Reformation on the subject of the atonement in 
 all the churches, it would be superfluous to give a detailed out¬ 
 line of what is generally known. The sound elements in the 
 development of previous centuries were all combined into a 
 unity, and placed in a new setting or connection. The doubt¬ 
 ful and neutralizing elements, interfering with the meritorious 
 ground of acceptance, were thrown off; and the question was 
 canvassed in an experimental interest, from which everything 
 extraneous was of necessity removed. 
 
 We begin with a brief survey of Luther’s opinions. Ho 
 man since Paul’s days seems to have ever apprehended so pro¬ 
 foundly the great fact of the Mediator’s substitution, or His 
 bearing of imputed sin, in the room of others whom He was 
 commissioned to represent. Luther makes it the most real ex¬ 
 change of persons and places between the Son of God on the 
 one hand, and sinful man on the other ; though always giving 
 it to be understood that the substitution was a relative ex¬ 
 change, but not identity. His language sometimes seems 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 527 
 
 extreme, but it is that of a man who had to bend opinion in an¬ 
 other direction; and accordingly he reiterated and enforced the 
 great truth with all the energy of language, by metaphor and 
 similitude, and a dramatizing representation of the transaction. 
 Thus, in his commentary on Gal. iii. 13, where we have a 
 condensed view of his opinions on the atonement, he represents 
 Christ as transferring our sins to Himself, and expounds the 
 confession of sin in two Messianic psalms (Ps. xl. 1, and lxix. 
 5) as the utterances of Christ sustaining the persons of sinners 
 and bearing their sins (voces non innocentis seel patient is Christi). 
 He denounces the Sophists of his day, who separated Christ 
 from sins and sinners, and proposed Him to mankind merely 
 as an example; “ whereby,” says he, “ they make Him useless.”' 
 To show how Christ’s suretyship was understood by him, the 
 Pather is represented as saying to His only-begotten Son: 
 “ Be Thou Peter the denier, Paul the persecutor, blasphemer, 
 and injurious, David the adulterer, the sinner who ate of the 
 fruit in paradise ; in short, be Thou the person (tu sis persona) 
 that committed the sins of all men; therefore, consider how 
 you may pay and satisfy for them. Then comes the law and 
 says: I find Him a sinner, and such a sinner as has taken on 
 Himself the sins of all men; and I see no sin besides but in 
 Him: therefore, let Him die on the cross ” ( luth . Oper. tom. 
 iv. p. 91). A few passages afterwards we find the following 
 memorable passage : “ The sole way of evading the curse is to 
 believe and say with sure confidence : Thou, 0 Christ, art my 
 sin and curse ; or rather, I am Thy sin, Thy curse, Thy death, 
 Thy w r ratli of God, Thy hell; Thou art, on the contrary, my 
 righteousness,” etc. (p. 95). It may safely be conceded that, 
 when Luther permits himself, as Calvin also does (see Calvin 
 on Gal. iii. 13), to call Christ a sinner, and the greatest of 
 sinners, this is language rather to be avoided than imitated, for 
 it grates on the Christian sensibilities. It has no Scripture 
 warrant; and we must always distinguish, in thought and 
 phrase, between what is relative and real, between the legal 
 and the moral. But this style of speech, which in Luther’s 
 energetic description cannot be misunderstood, may show the 
 reckless assertion to wdiich those men commit themselves who 
 would represent Luther as holding similar sentiments with 
 those who deny vicarious satisfaction. He is the absolute an¬ 
 tithesis of this. 
 
 Another point must be noticed. Under the influence of 
 view T s derived from that doctrine of exchange, Luther never 
 disjoins Christ’s actions from His sufferings,—that is, His vica¬ 
 rious obedience from His death. He takes in both. To this 
 
528 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 point I the rather refer, because it is common among the 
 writers who object to the element of active obedience in 
 Christ’s atonement, and call it an ecclesiastical notion, to allege 
 that it formed no part of Luther’s testimony, but was a mere 
 subsequent addition, dating from the composition of the Con¬ 
 cordias Formula. That is very far from being a correct view of 
 the Beformation doctrine; and to me it is matter of no small 
 surprise that writers, pretending to any accurate acquaintance 
 with Luther’s works, either in Latin or German, could enter¬ 
 tain a moment’s doubt of this fact. In a remarkable sermon on 
 Gal. iv. 1-8 (vol. vii. p. 438, Erlangen edition of his German 
 works) Luther speaks explicitly on the point. After remarking 
 that no man can fulfil the law unless he is free from the law, 
 and not under it (p. 265), and that Christ fulfilled the law 
 spontaneously, and not by necessity or constraint, he goes on 
 to say (p. 470): “ But, that we may the better perceive how 
 Christ acted under the law, we are to understand that He put 
 Himself under it in a twofold way. First , under the works of 
 the law: He permitted Himself to be circumcised, and sacri¬ 
 fices and purifications to be made for Him in the temple : He 
 was subject to His father and mother, and the like: and yet 
 was under no obligation; for He was a Lord above all laws. 
 
 . Secondly , He 'put Himself under the punishment 
 
 and agony of the law spontaneously : Hot only did He perform 
 the works to which He was not bound, but He spontaneously 
 and innocently suffered the penalty which the law threatens 
 and pronounces upon those who do not keep it.” (Luther adds, 
 after a few sentences, Uns, uns hat ers zu gute gethan, nicht zu 
 seiner Notlidurft). In like manner, he elsewhere says (xv. p. 
 59): “When the law comes and accuses thee for not keeping 
 it, point to Christ and say: ‘ Yonder is the Man who has ful¬ 
 filled it, to whom I cling, who fulfilled it, imparted His fulfil¬ 
 ment to me; and it must be silent.’ ” 
 
 Hot less explicit is Melanclithon in many passages of his 
 works, and quotations might be multiplied to this effect from 
 his Apology for the Augsburg Confession, his Loci Communes, 
 and Commentaries. Equally express is the language of Calvin, 
 whether we consult his Institutes (book ii. ch. 17), the Geneva 
 Catechism, or his Commentary on the New Testament. Chemnitz 
 and his coadjutors, who composed the Concordia?. Formula, ex¬ 
 pressed the definite doctrine of the Beformation, when they set 
 forth that the active and passive obedience of Christ were 
 equally vicarious and equally essential. This was no new 
 theory nor addition. Protestant doctrine, alike in the Lutheran 
 and Beformed churches, with a wonderful harmony, set forth 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 529 
 
 that the entire human life of Christ, consisting of the ele¬ 
 ments of suffering and obedience, constituted the atonement 
 according to the twofold relation which man, as a creature and 
 as a sinner, occupies to the divine law; and that they were 
 equally indispensable. 
 
 We need not adduce the other points of the Eeformation 
 doctrine at any length. As to the importance of Christ’s divine 
 person for the production of the atonement, it was in full 
 accord with the patristic theology. All depended, according 
 to Luther’s exposition, on the fact that the Substitute was the 
 only-begotten Son. He illustrates this doctrine by the case of 
 two scales, in one of which are weighed our sins, with the 
 wrath of God due to them; and in the other the expiatory 
 sufferings, not of a mere man, but of the God-man (Dei passio 
 Dei mors, Dei sanguis). A happy coincidence obtained between 
 the two Protestant churches in this and in almost every point 
 bearing on the atonement. In the Lutheran Church the doc¬ 
 trine of the atonement was, for about a century, discussed 
 under the topic of Justification as its sole meritorious ground. 
 The merit of works was swept away; and faith was made 
 simply receptive. Thus it was elucidated by Chemnitz, Ger¬ 
 hard, and Hutter, till Calovius, by introducing the systematic 
 method, departed from the topical treatment of doctrine. In the 
 Reformed Church Calvin had, from the first, appended the dis¬ 
 cussion of the atonement to the person and office of Christ. 
 
 From the first the Lutheran Church never faltered as to 
 the absolute necessity of a satisfaction for sin. Nor did the 
 speculative question whether salvation was possible without 
 atonement, and which was too lightly conceded by the pa¬ 
 tristic theology, ever find favour within her pale. This was 
 the natural result of the profound views entertained by Luther 
 on the infinite evil of sin, and on the inflexible claims of the 
 divine law, as well as on the severity of divine wrath. On this 
 point Luther writes in the spirit of Anselm, though it does not 
 appear that he was acquainted with Anselm’s works. He re¬ 
 pudiates, with the utmost aversion, the notion of men being 
 pardoned by absolute omnipotence. Thus he says (vol. vii. p. 
 298, Erlang ed.): “ There are some, especially among the recent 
 high scholastics, who affirm, Forgiveness of sins and justifica¬ 
 tion of grace, lies absolutely in the divine imputation ; that is, 
 in God’s accounting it enough that he to whom God imputes or 
 does not impute sin should thereby be justified or not justified 
 from his sins, as Ps. xxxii. 2, and Rom. iv. 7, 8, seem to them 
 to say—‘ Blessed is the man to whom God imputeth not sin.’ 
 Were this true, the entire New Testament is already nothing, 
 
 2 L 
 
530 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 and to no purpose; and Christ has laboured foolishly and use¬ 
 lessly in dying for sin. God thus exhibited, without necessity, 
 a mere sham fight and juggle, since He might, without the 
 sufferings of Christ, have forgiven sin, and not imputed it; and 
 thus another faith might have justified and saved us than faith 
 in Christ, viz. his sins, who relied on this gratuitous mercy of 
 God, would not have been imputed. Against this hateful and 
 terrible notion and error, the holy apostle is wont to direct 
 faith perpetually to Jesus Christ; and so frequently does he 
 name Jesus Christ, that it is a marvel how any one can be 
 unaware of the necessary cause.” Whenever Luther adverts 
 to the idea that God might have adopted another mode of re¬ 
 demption, he does this to assign reason its limits. He says 
 he too could refine and speculate before God, but that he will 
 simply believe, and follow His word. Ho eminent divine, in 
 fact, in the Lutheran Church, till the rise of Bationalism, ex¬ 
 pressed himself with indecision on this point. 
 
 The same thing cannot be affirmed of the Beformed Church, 
 where we find for a considerable time a tendency to adopt the 
 language of Augustin. Thus Calvin, in his Institutes (ii. 12. 1), 
 and in his Commentary (John xv. 13), permits himself to speak 
 of the possibility of redemption in an absolute way, and to use 
 language directly the reverse of what would have been em¬ 
 ployed by Anselm and Luther. Similar language is found in 
 Zanchius and Musculus, as well as in various other Beformed 
 divines. Vossius, in vindicating Grotius’ statements to this 
 effect, against the strictures of Bavensperger, adduces quota¬ 
 tions from a large number of Beformed writers; and a leaven 
 of this description lingered among many Beformed divines, 
 down to the time of Twisse and Butherford, who both shared 
 in this opinion. But greater caution was imposed by the 
 rise and spread of Socinianism, which unquestionably was 
 aided by these undue concessions, and was able to appeal to 
 them. At a later time, however, the two Protestant churches 
 everywhere avowed the same principle as to the absolute 
 necessity of a satisfaction, in order to the salvation of sinful 
 men (see Owen’s Vindication of Divine Justice). 
 
 In another point the advantage decidedly lay with the 
 Beformed Church. While the Lutherans spoke loosely of the 
 universality of expiation, without limiting the destination of 
 the ransom by its efficacy, the Beformed divines more correctly 
 asserted and vindicated the special reference of the atonement. 
 This was from the first a characteristic of the Beformed Church 
 —a necessary result of the Augustinian views of grace with 
 which it was imbued. Calvin put it in the form in which it 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 531 
 
 liacl descended and was discussed in the schools: “ Sufficiently 
 for the whole world, but efficiently only for the elect ” (Calvin 
 on 1 John ii. 2). The Eeformed Church maintained that the 
 efficacy of Christ’s merits bore special reference to the elect. 
 This impress was stamped upon the church from its first origin, 
 and to this view she may be said to have continued generally 
 faithful. The Lutheran Church always held the universal ele¬ 
 ment, without formulating it. 
 
 The historical outline of the doctrine of the atonement, 
 which we have thus far sketched from the Apostolic age to 
 the Reformation, proves that, in every phase of what can 
 warrantably be termed ecclesiastical doctrine in the Eastern 
 or Western Church, the death of Christ was uniformly viewed 
 as standing in the closest relation to man’s salvation. The 
 sincere investigators of the divine word were always persuaded 
 that the remission of sins stood directly connected with the 
 Lord’s death, however much might be the influence of Christ’s 
 teaching, example, and constant care of the human family. But 
 a further inquiry arose : What was the nature of that connec¬ 
 tion, or could it be precisely ascertained ? We have seen, 
 whether we turn to the patristic theology, to the compara¬ 
 tively mixed or philosophical theology of the Middle Ages, or 
 to the more biblical theology of the Reformation, that every 
 century agreed with one consent in the conclusion that there 
 was a connection between Christ’s death and the remission of 
 sins; and that the connection was one of cause and effect, 
 whether they speak of ransom and deliverance, of sacrifice and 
 exemption from punishment, or of merit and reward. The 
 single exception of the rationalistic Abelard is scarce worthy 
 of notice. Here, then, we have the church-consciousness 
 of Christendom, if anything deserves that name. Though 
 opinions of a neutralizing tendency undoubtedly were fostered 
 in the East and West, yet the doctrine of the causal connection 
 between Christ’s death and pardon—in other words, the expia¬ 
 tion of sin by His blood—was not denied at any period either 
 by the Greek or Romish Church. This harmony of Christian 
 conviction and doctrine is not to be ignored or undervalued. 
 
 We have brought down the history of the doctrine to the 
 Reformation, at which time it may be said to have stood forth 
 in meridian brightness and full-orbed development. At that 
 date nothing interposed between the sinner and the atonement 
 —no merit of works—no preparation by ecclesiastic rites ; the 
 application of it was by faith alone. The Reformation doctrine 
 was, that the atonement alone saves, and that it is received 
 by faith alone. Christ’s twofold work of active and passive 
 
532 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 obedience was set fortli as something merely to be received 
 by faith for the remission of sin. 
 
 As true doctrine, however, is invariably followed by error 
 as its shadow, that exhibition of the ultimate truth on this 
 great article could not be expected to be preserved for any 
 length of time untarnished and unclouded. The atonement 
 was made central, and offered for men’s reception, without 
 preparations or conditions, in the purest form in which it had 
 ever been presented since the Apostolic age; but before the 
 century closed negations arose on every side, viz. Socinianism, 
 the rejection of the vicarious active obedience, Grotianism, 
 Arminianism, and the like. 
 
 As to Socinianism, it is not necessary, after the historic 
 sketch given in the previous volume, to enumerate its peculiari¬ 
 ties ; and the cognate views of the present day adverse to the 
 vicarious satisfaction, which, with Christian elements not to 
 be denied, are unquestionably Socinianizing in their theory of 
 Christ’s death. These were pretty fully exhibited and brought 
 down to recent times in the previous volume. In this historical 
 outline I deem it best to avoid that class of opinions, and to limit 
 myself to other theories, which, though deviating from Beforma- 
 tion doctrine in certain points, yet agree in ascribing to the death 
 of Christ the remission of sins, the acceptance of our persons, and 
 our redemption from the curse. This leads us into a different 
 class of theories, and among writers more pronounced in doc¬ 
 trinal opinions, and approaching nearer to the truth. The great 
 question which divided the schools of theology after the ap¬ 
 pearance of Socinianism, and divides the modern thinkers of 
 the German type from the class commonly regarded as evan¬ 
 gelical and biblical, is, whether remission of sins is an absolute 
 gift, or obtained by the death of Christ as its meritorious 
 purchase ? The theory of absolute pardon, which represents 
 Christ as preaching but not procuring pardon—the great untruth 
 of the modern theology, as contrasted with the general Christian 
 consciousness—we delineated historically already. We have de¬ 
 scribed it also dogmatically, as subversive of all moral laws, and 
 opposed to natural as well as revealed theology. But to enter 
 more into detail as to the peculiar views of this class of writers, 
 though it might have its interest, would be but a repetition or 
 enlargement of what has been done already. 
 
 1. The first negation which obscured the full-orbed doctrine 
 of the Beformation, was the rejection of the element of Christ’s 
 active obedience. This error assailed the Protestant Church in 
 three different quarters, and was particularly injurious, leaving 
 behind it a leaven never fully purged out to this day. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 533 
 
 Osiander of Konigsberg, in his treatise on Justification, 
 1550, immediately after Luther’s death, attacked the dis¬ 
 tinctive principle of Protestantism, by denying that justifica¬ 
 tion was to be regarded as a forensic act on the ground of 
 Christ’s righteousness. He allowed that mankind obtain 
 pardon and redemption from the curse of the law through the 
 blood of Christ, but divided between pardon and justification 
 in such a way as to make the former relative and the latter 
 inherent; and he charged the Lutheran teachers with ignorance 
 and indecision, inasmuch as they could not state or define what 
 Christ’s righteousness involved. This challenge to the Protes¬ 
 tant Church to become self-conscious led to definition. Hot 
 only Flacius Illyricus, Brentius, and others in the Lutheran 
 Church, but Calvin also, in replying to Osiander, explicitly 
 combined the active and passive obedience of Christ as equally 
 vicarious. They taught that Christ’s one complete obedience 
 w T as comprehended both in His actions and sufferings, and 
 that the matter of our redemption consisted of both. Flacius 
 Illyricus sets forth that Christ, as perfectly obedient to the 
 law, did and suffered all that the law required of us, and im¬ 
 puted to us His whole obedience as our righteousness. This 
 controversy, which shook the Lutheran Church in an extraordi¬ 
 nary way, led the way to clearer definition as contained in 
 the Concordiae Formula. It was maintained that sin consists 
 in omission as well as commission, and that remission of sin 
 necessarily involves not only the removal of guilt, but the 
 imputation of righteousness. Their conclusion was, that the 
 divine law must be perfectly obeyed by a mediator; and they 
 defined this righteousness sometimes as satisfaction and obedi¬ 
 ence, and at other times as Christ’s obedience in life and in 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 Another tendency originated by Piscator in the Reformed 
 Church, divided between Christ’s active and passive obedience, 
 hitherto regarded as equally belonging to His vicarious work. 
 Piscator maintained that the active obedience was necessary 
 for Christ Himself as man, and that only the passive obedience 
 was imputed to His people. The same theory, probably 
 suggested by a Socinian taunt (of a nimisfactio ), was pro¬ 
 pounded by Karg, a Lutheran divine, but soon recanted. It 
 was earnestly maintained by Piscator, and spread in all direc¬ 
 tions from him. It was taken up in the French Church by 
 Cameron, Cappel, Blondel, and La Placette; in the Palatinate 
 by Pareus and Scultetus; in Holland by Wendelinus, Henry 
 and James Alting, father and son; and the mischievous leaven 
 continues to work in many churches to this day. It could 
 
534 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 exist only in connection with a semi-lSTestorian view of Christ’s 
 person, and defective views of man’s double obligation as a 
 creature and a sinner, which is not to be expressed in the 
 formula, obey or suffer, but obey and suffer. Piscator ad¬ 
 mitted that, as a qualification for the work of redemption, or 
 indispensable condition, Christ’s active obedience w T as pre¬ 
 supposed ; but he denied that it was vicarious or imputed. 1 
 These views w T ere condemned by the National Synod of Gap, 
 and by several French Synods, from 1603 to 1612. The theory 
 continued to spread, and tended to undermine the great fact of 
 substitution, at least in the definite sense that whatever was in 
 man’s obligation formed part of the Eedeemer’s suretyship. It 
 is not necessary to adduce arguments in refutation of this 
 theory, as we have, in the discussions of this volume and of 
 the former, asserted from Scripture directly the reverse. It 
 would be a mere repetition to restate the biblical truth that 
 perfect obedience according to God’s legislative authority, con¬ 
 stitutes our sole ground or title to life. 
 
 2. The theory of Grotius, which comes next in order, 
 menaced the integrity of the doctrine* of the atonement in 
 another way. His well-known work, The Defence of the 
 Catholic Faith on the Satisfaction of Christ against Faustus 
 Socinus (a.d. 1617), was hailed by the most eminent divines, 
 and translated into various languages. It was made the basis 
 of Stillingfleet’s work on the sufferings of Christ. When fully 
 examined, however, in the light of the Eeformation doctrine, 
 and read according to its avowed principle, it is found to sur¬ 
 render almost as much as it retained. Differing from the 
 theory of Duns Scotus in maintaining that Christ’s sufferings 
 were of infinite value on account of the dignity of His person, 
 it yet decidedly approached his views in maintaining an accep- 
 tilation theory. The argument of Grotius proceeded on the 
 supposition that the divine claims were relaxed, that God 
 exercised His dispensing authority, and might have dispensed 
 
 1 Our great epic poet far more correctly writes :— 
 
 “-Nor can this be 
 
 But by fulfilling all which thou didst want, 
 
 Obedience to the law of God imposed 
 On penalty of death, and suffering death, 
 
 The penalty to thy transgression due, 
 
 And due to theirs which out of thine shall grow : 
 
 So only can high justice rest appeased. 
 
 The law of God exact He shall fulfil, 
 
 Both by obedience and by love ; though love 
 Alone fulfil the law: thy punishment 
 He shall endure.” 
 
 P.L. xii. 395. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 535 
 
 with any satisfaction, had He so pleased. It is sometimes 
 called the acceptilation theory— implying that the creditor 
 remits the debt without payment or compensation; and it is 
 sometimes called the governmental theory, because God is 
 considered only as a regent who adopted a certain wise mea¬ 
 sure in the way of punitive example, to impress His subjects 
 with a necessary respect for law and authority. That may be 
 used as a rough illustration, hut not as a theory of the atone¬ 
 ment. 
 
 The theory was not based on a satisfaction of divine justice, 
 for he allowed that God might have left sin to go unpunished ; 
 nor was the atonement regarded as effected by entering into 
 man’s responsibilities in their full extent, so that we can reason 
 from what man owed to what Christ rendered. Grotius re¬ 
 duced it to a mere expedient or measure of government. He 
 started in his inquiry from the question of punishment, as if 
 the infliction of punishment—a mere consequence of sin—were 
 all that was essentially involved. To bring down the question 
 into a yet lower region, he based punishment on purely positive 
 law or arbitrary appointment, which, being subject to no higher 
 law, might by possibility relax the obligations, remit the sanc¬ 
 tions, and remove the consequences. 1 Grotius retains the actual 
 satisfaction; and herein lies the service which he rendered, and 
 which the church gratefully accepted. His conclusions on the 
 atonement, however valuable so far as they are a statement of fact, 
 suppose no inward necessity in the divine government for such 
 a costly provision. They are thus very different from Anselm’s. 
 The latter starts, not from a punitive example, arbitrary and 
 capable of being dispensed with, but from sin as a violation of 
 the divine honour, a disharmony in God’s universe, and de¬ 
 manding punishment as well as reparation. 
 
 On this account, Grotius’ theory could not counteract the 
 Socinian views, because he gave up the main elements of the 
 ecclesiastical doctrine—the indispensable necessity of satisfac¬ 
 tion to divine justice, and of the complete fulfilment of man’s 
 obligations, in precept and in penalty. His views of sin were 
 shallow. He did not regard the personal God as sustaining by 
 its commission any wrong which the wisdom of the Moral 
 Governor could not undo by a mere punitive example. What 
 does a punitive example amount to in connection with human 
 guilt ? It means no more than that a certain expedient was 
 
 1 Milton, tlie theologian poet, far more accurately puts it thus :— 
 
 “ Die he or justice must ; unless for him 
 Some other able, and as willing, pay 
 The rigid satisfaction, death for death.”— P.L. iii. 210. 
 
536 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 adopted to deter from sin in future, or to influence other 
 orders of being in the universe. The guilt of past sin was thus 
 not affected by the atonement in the way in which the church 
 argued. Nor does the theory maintain the inward link between 
 sin and punishment, far less explain how the punitive justice of 
 God could approach such a person. Tor this is the problem. 
 If the death of Christ stands only as an example for the future, 
 then its necessity was not based in the divine nature. It was 
 the most inappropriate possible, because the punishment of the 
 innocent could not deter the guilty. Plainly, Grotius smuggled 
 in the notion of a punitive example for the true theory of 
 satisfaction. Justice must be done to Grotius, however, as 
 compared with Socinianism; for, though he acted unfairly by 
 the truth, and adopted a mediating policy, yet he still connects 
 remission of sins with the atoning death of Christ. 
 
 The Grotian theory has been largely accepted in America 
 under the name of the governmental theory. Hopkinsianism 
 was one phase of it; and it is sometimes designated the New 
 England theory, or the New School theory. We repudiate in 
 the strongest terms the designation lately given to it— the 
 Edwardean theory 1 of the atonement—because the honoured 
 name of Edwards, one of the greatest in church history, is not 
 to be identified with a theory of which not even the germs can 
 fairly be deduced from his writings. We could exhibit illustra¬ 
 tions from the President’s writings of almost every position we 
 have advanced in this volume; and mere stray expressions 
 occurring in his writings are not to be fitted in to the crude out¬ 
 line of the governmental scheme, from which his whole mode of 
 thought diverged. No writer more fully describes Christ as 
 entering into all the obligations of His people, both as to active 
 and passive obedience. The Hopkinsian or governmental scheme, 
 repudiating imputation in the proper sense, reduces the atone¬ 
 ment from the high ground of a propitiation to the level of an 
 empty pageant, however imposing, or a governmental display 2 
 for the good of other orders of creation. It is a scheme which 
 connects the death of Christ with some imaginary public justice, 
 not with the divine nature and perfections; as if God Himself 
 
 1 See a thick volume entitled The Atonement —discourses and treatises by- 
 Edwards, Smalley, Maxey, Emmons, Griffin, Burge, and others, with a preface 
 by Professor Park: Boston, 1859. This is one of the ablest defences of the 
 Grotian theory ; but we have right and reason to object to Professor Park’s title, 
 “The Edwardean Theory of the Atonement.” Whatever were the views of 
 Edwards’ son is of little moment comparatively. 
 
 2 Dr. Jenkyn on the Extent of the Atonement (English Congregationalist, 
 1842), reproduces the Grotian theory, and makes it universal. He calls the 
 atonement “an honourable ground or medium for expressing mercy.” 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 537 
 
 were not His own public, the only august public worthy of 
 regard in this great transaction. According to the Grotian or 
 Hopkinsian theory, the atonement is lit to impress the creation 
 of God, but is not necessary in respect of the divine attributes. 
 
 3. Next followed the theory of Arminius and the Arminian 
 type of theology—a tendency starting from the notion of uni¬ 
 versal grace, and allowing no special reference to the elect. It 
 deviated widely from biblical doctrine, and infected all the 
 Reformed churches at one period or another of their history. 
 Though different in kind from Socinianism, because it still 
 maintained a causal connection between the death of Christ 
 and pardon, it yet departed very far from the proper idea of 
 substitution and strict views of divine justice. The assertion 
 of universal atonement without suretyship in any true sense 
 of the term, led by necessary consequence to a new view of the 
 nature of the atonement, when the theory found it necessary 
 to complete itself. The Arminians, in their second distinctive 
 article, maintained that Christ, according to the Father’s pur¬ 
 pose and His own, died for all and every man alike: that He 
 made God placable and man salvable, but did not actually 
 procure reconciliation for any. They held that He merely 
 removed the obstacle on the side of divine justice, and acquired 
 power for God to form a new covenant with all mankind. It 
 was a theory which took in almost all the negative elements 
 already mentioned, and, under the guise of enlarging Christ’s 
 merits, tended only to undermine and diminish them. A few 
 considerations will prove this against the representations of the 
 Arminians. 
 
 (1.) They denuded the atonement of any efficacy, denying 
 that it carried with it the element of its application. They did 
 not shrink from the avowal that the ransom might have been 
 paid, and yet applied to none in consequence of intervening 
 unbelief; nay, that Christ’s atonement, though not actually 
 applied to any individual, would still have been complete in 
 all its parts. A gulf was thus drawn between the procuring of 
 redemption and the application of it, as if these were not of 
 equal extent and breadth. The application was thus suspended 
 on man’s free will, and humanity was thrown back on its own 
 resources, or on such aid as all equally receive, to apply the 
 redemption for themselves. 
 
 (2.) They held, as appears from the transactions of the Synod 
 of Dort, that the end of Christ’s death was to acquire a new 
 right, on the ground of which God might make a new covenant 
 with mankind; and that this new covenant consisted in this, 
 that God accepts faith as an imperfect obedience. How this 
 
538 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 menaced tlie atonement is obvious. A relaxation of the law 
 was assumed, and the immutable claims of God were supposed 
 to he reduced. This shows that it became a question as to the 
 nature of the atonement, as well as its extent. 
 
 (3.) They held that Christ, by His satisfaction, did not 
 secure redemption for any individual, or merit the faith by 
 which the atonement should he effectually applied. They 
 would not admit that the atonement carried with it the ground 
 of its own application. If we compare Arminian views with 
 biblical teaching on the subject of satisfaction, we soon find 
 that they can no more be harmonized than light and darkness; 
 for, according to apostolic teaching, the deliverance follows the 
 ransom. Thus the whole doctrine was put to hazard. It was 
 held that the death of Christ only made God capable of re¬ 
 conciliation, while the actual reconciliation was left to men 
 themselves working out their own salvation. 
 
 The Synod of Dort, though much decried, was a noble bulwark 
 of divine truth. It set forth that the death of the Son of God was 
 of infinite intrinsic value, and abundantly sufficient to expiate the 
 sins of the whole world. And after declaring that the death of 
 Christ derived its value from the fact that He was not only a 
 true and perfectly holy man, but the only-begotten Son of God, 
 it is added: “ That many who are called by the gospel do not 
 repent or believe in Christ, but perish in unbelief, is not from 
 the defect or insufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, but 
 from their own fault.” The admirably put statements of this 
 great Synod, equal as it was to any of the ancient Councils, 
 deserve special attention. It asserted sufficiency in respect of 
 intrinsic potency and value. But while asserting this, and 
 coupling it with human responsibility, the Synod maintained 
 at the same time that, in respect of proper destination and 
 efficacy, it was not universal, but appointed for certain definite 
 persons whom God freely chose from eternity. As to the 
 proper scope of Christ’s atonement, it was asserted that He 
 died as Mediator of the elect alone, to procure reconciliation 
 for them, and also to apply it. The sum of the matter, as stated 
 by the Synod, was, that the merits of Christ, considered in them¬ 
 selves, were of infinite value, or amply sufficient for all, but of 
 efficacious validity for the elect alone. Why all men are not 
 saved is not due to any deficiency in Christ’s merits—for He 
 would not have needed to do or suffer more than He has done 
 for the salvation of millions more,—but must be traced to the 
 purpose of God appointing who should be partakers of His • 
 merits. These truths are not inconsistent with each other: the 
 intrinsic value of the atonement did not affect the extent of its 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 539 
 
 saving efficacy, as a general of an army, capable of delivering 
 many captives, may receive from bis prince a command only to 
 deliver some; or a physician, having the means of healing many, 
 may apply the cure to a limited number. This was the position 
 which the church maintained against Arminianism. 
 
 About the time of the Synod of Dort, when the theological 
 mind of the age was intensely turned to the doctrines of grace, 
 the federal theology, as it was called, was propounded, and 
 contributed more powerfully than any other influence to pro¬ 
 mote the sound doctrine of the atonement.. We are told that 
 Luther anticipated that some pious and learned man would 
 arise to elucidate the doctrine of the covenant of God and its 
 various economies. Bullinger first broke ground on this topic 
 in his book on the Covenant. Olevianus and Cloppenburg 
 followed, the latter discussing the subject pretty copiously in 
 his third Disputation on the JSfeio Covenant of Grace and its 
 Surety (a.d. 1622). But it was reserved for Cocceius, in his 
 famous Treatise on the Covenant (a.d. 1648), to supply the key 
 which served to unlock the mystery of the covenant of grace. 
 After him a whole cloud of witnesses in England, Scotland, and 
 Holland supplied further elucidation of it. It formed one of 
 the distinctive peculiarities of the Puritan theology; and as a 
 scheme of thought developed by Witsius, Strong, Petto, Owen, 
 and others, it combined into a whole and in an organic way the 
 entire doctrines of sovereign special grace. 
 
 Nothing tended more to establish the true doctrine of the 
 atonement, because it brought out the counterpart relation of 
 the first and second Adam, and the work of the great Surety, as 
 read off from the obligations of the first man. It grounded the 
 legal conjunction between us and Christ, and the suretyship, 
 the substitution and imputation into which Jesus entered. Scrip¬ 
 ture shows a covenant or compact formed between God as the 
 source of law, and His own Son as head of the elect, whom He 
 represented. The Arminian scheme broke upon it as a wave 
 on the rock. That system directed the most strenuous efforts 
 against it, but in vain. No direct covenant could be immedi¬ 
 ately made between God and man; a surety alone was adequate 
 to bring the Creator and the sinner together. The Father made 
 the claim of full obedience upon His Son, and the Son now 
 claims the fulfilment of the stipulations. 1 Thus, the whole was 
 
 1 Thus Milton, in the true spirit of the federal theology, represents the Son 
 as saying:— 
 
 “ Behold me, then ; me for him, life for life 
 I offer ; on me let all Thine anger fall; 
 
 Account me man ; I for his sake will leave 
 Thy bosom, and this glory, next to Thee, 
 
540 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 removed from the region of the vague and indefinite by the 
 idea of special destination. Not only so ; it exploded the 
 Arminian notion that faith was the proper condition of the 
 covenant. That first principle of the Arminian scheme—a 
 legal element throwing men hack on themselves—was obvi¬ 
 ated by the federal theology, which showed that the conditions 
 were all fulfilled by the Mediator of the covenant, as the very 
 end of His incarnation, and that it is pure grace to us. If the 
 Mediator fulfilled the conditions, they cannot be a second time 
 required without undermining the unity between the Surety 
 and His seed. Christ’s atonement was thus the fulfilment of 
 the federal conditions. The Father, who in every part of this 
 great transaction was at once the Lawgiver and the Fountain 
 of the covenant, insisted on the full performance of the law, 
 and yet provided the surety, who was made under the law in 
 the proper sense of the term. It was a true command on 
 God’s side, and a true obedience on Christ’s side. He stood 
 in our covenant, which was the law of works; that is, the law 
 in its precept and in its curse. 
 
 4. Next in order we must notice the theory which ema¬ 
 nated from the divines of Saumur, which has been called the 
 Amyraldist theory. It was a revolt from the position main¬ 
 tained at the Synod of Dort, under the guise of an explanation ; 
 for the propounders of the theory would not allow that they 
 were out of harmony with its decrees. Not content to affirm, 
 with the canons of Dort, that the intrinsic value of Christ’s 
 atonement was infinite, and capable, had God so pleased, of 
 being extended to all mankind, they maintained that, along 
 with a sufficiency of value, there was a certain destination of 
 Christ’s death, on the part of God and of the Mediator, to the 
 whole human race. This theory owed its origin to Cameron, 
 a learned but restless Scotchman, Professor of Theology at 
 Saumur. He propounded the theory of hypothetic univer- 
 salism ; that is, that God wills the salvation of all men, on 
 condition of faith, and that Christ’s death was for all men, on 
 condition of faith. Cameron declares that Christ died for no 
 man simply, but on condition that we who are of the world 
 should be delivered from the world, and engrafted into Christ 
 
 Truly put off, and for him early die, 
 
 Well pleased : on me let death wreak all his rage ; 
 
 Under his gloomy power I shall not long 
 Lie vanquished : Thou hast given me to possess 
 Life in myself for ever : by Thee I live, 
 
 Though now to death I yield, and am his due, 
 
 All that of me can die. ” 
 
 — P.L. iii. 236. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 541 
 
 by true faith ( Opusc. Miecell. p. 533). This system, adopted 
 by a distinguished class of pupils, Amyraud, Testard, Cap- 
 pellus, and Placseus, widely leavened and corrupted the Re¬ 
 formed Church of France. Amyraldus digested it into system 
 in his Treatise on Predestination (a.d. 1634), and in various 
 publications. It was controverted by Rivetus (Op. iii. p. 830), 
 and F. Spanheim in his Exercitations on Universal Grace. 
 
 When we examine the theory minutely, it will not hang 
 together. Its advocates speak of a universal decree, in which 
 God was supposed to have given Christ as a Mediator for the 
 whole human race; and of a special decree, in which God, 
 foreseeing that no one would believe in his unaided strength, 
 was supposed to have elected some to receive the gift of faith. 
 Unquestionably it differs from the Arminian positions in this 
 respect, that the faith was not referred to man’s free will, but 
 was supposed to be derived from God’s free grace. The theory 
 acknowledged the sovereign election of God, according to His 
 good pleasure. But it laboured under the defect of supposing 
 a double and a conflicting decree; that is, a general decree, in 
 which He was said to will the salvation of all, and a special 
 decree, in which He was said to will the salvation of the elect. 
 To Christ also it ascribed a twofold and discordant aim, viz. to 
 satisfy for all men, and to satisfy merely for the elect. As a 
 reconciling system, and an incoherent one, it aimed to har¬ 
 monize the passages of Scripture, which at one time seem to 
 extend Christ’s merits to the world, and at another to limit 
 them to the church ; not to mention that God is supposed to 
 be disappointed in His purpose. 
 
 The various writers of this school are very far from uni¬ 
 formity in their explanations of the theory. Some write that 
 Christ died for all men, on the condition of faith; others that 
 Christ opened a way to salvation for all believers, and that 
 His redemption was twofold; others that He offered Himself 
 equally for all. Thus Amyraud expresses himself in his 
 Treatise on Predestination (ch. 7) : et The sacrifice which Jesus 
 Christ offered was equally for all ; and the salvation which 
 He received from His Father, in the sanctification of the spirit 
 and the glorification of the body, was destined equally for all— 
 provided the necessary disposition for receiving it were equal.” 
 The National Synod of the Reformed Churches of France, which 
 met at Alen^on in 1637, at which Amyraud and Testard gave 
 explanations in harmony with the canons of Dort, was satisfied, 
 but at the same time decreed that in future they should abstain 
 from the statement that Christ died equally for all, because 
 that expression equally had been formerly, and might be 
 
542 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 again, a stone of stumbling to many. Not only so; the 
 entire theory of Amyraldus labours under two defects, which 
 indeed are very closely connected with each other. It denied, 
 along with Piscator, the element of Christ’s active obedience; 
 and the atonement was never described as carrying with it its 
 own application. On the contrary, this was secured by another 
 mode, as follows : Christ died for all, on condition of faith; and 
 man being incapable of this, God, by another deceee, purposed 
 to give faith to some. 
 
 This peculiarity distinguishes Amyraldism, unfavourably to 
 it, from another theory with which it has sometimes been con¬ 
 founded—viz. that presented to the Synod of Dort by the five 
 English deputies, 1 of whom the most eminent theologian was 
 Davenant, one of the greatest names that adorn the English 
 Church. When we examine their statement to the Synod 
 {judicium), we find, what seems at first sight the same double 
 reference, Christ’s death for the elect, and then His death for 
 the world at large. But the only point to which the Synod of 
 Dort attached importance was unambiguously uttered. They 
 said that Christ died for the elect according to the love and in¬ 
 tention of God the Father and of Christ, that He might actually 
 obtain, and infallibly bestow, remission of sins and eternal sal¬ 
 vation ; and that faith and perseverance are given to these elect 
 persons out of the same love, by and on account of {per et 
 propter) the merit and intercession of Christ. This draws a 
 wide line of demarcation 2 between the theology of Davenant, 
 or of the Church of England, and that of Amyraldus, which 
 insisted on a view of the atonement which, on the one hand, 
 did not contain the element of its own application, and, on the 
 other, continued to hold that Christ’s death was equally for all. 
 The celebrated Baxter has been often unfairly claimed as an 
 Amyraldist. We will not defend all his positions in his con¬ 
 troversy with Owen, when handling the doctrine of the atone¬ 
 ment, yet an injustice is done to this truly great man when he 
 is represented as an advocate of the Universalist theory. These 
 w r ords of Baxter made it as plain as did the Synod of Dort that 
 
 1 Acta Synodi : 'Judicia Tlieologorum Exterorum, p. 78. 
 
 2 The works of Polhill (a.d. 1677) reproduced Amyraldism in England in the 
 sense now described. He sometimes seems to approach Davenant, hut his view 
 is different, and to be distinguished from Davenant’s theory. Dr. Wardlaw, in 
 his work on the atonement, fluctuating between Grotianism and Amyraldism, 
 goes no further than to say “ that the atonement is a great moral vindication of 
 the divine character, and especially of the divine righteousness, not binding God 
 to pardon any, but rendering it honourable to His perfections and government, 
 should He so will it, to pardon all” (p. 71). Andrew Fuller, sometimes claimed 
 as not a strict Calvinist, with much more correctness represents the atonement 
 as securing its own application. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 543 
 
 the atonement merited its own application: “ He whose suffer¬ 
 ings were primarily satisfaction for sin, were secondarily meri¬ 
 torious of the means to bring men to the intended end ; that is, 
 of the Word and Spirit by which Christ causeth sinners to 
 believe; so that faith is a fruit of the death of Christ in a 
 remote or secondary sense” ( Cathol . Theol . p. 69). 
 
 5. We further notice a class of theories which limited the 
 duration of Christ’s expiatory sufferings to the period when He 
 hung on the cross. The opinion of all Protestant divines up 
 till the time of James Alting, was that the Lord’s sufferings 
 from His birth to His death were vicarious. He propounded 
 the notion that proper satisfaction was limited to the sufferings 
 undergone during the three hours when darkness covered the 
 land at the crucifixion. He divided the Lord’s sufferings into 
 two kinds,—those which were vicarious and bore a surety- 
 character limited to the time of His suspension on the cross, 
 and those which were undergone in the conflict with Satan. 
 This limitation to a few hours evacuated it of its true character, 
 as the denial of Christ’s active obedience weakened the doctrine 
 of substitution on the other side. The true doctrine is, that as 
 the active obedience was a vicarious fulfilment of our obliga¬ 
 tions from His birth to His death, so His passive obedience 
 was a vicarious satisfaction from the manger to the cross. The 
 same theory is propounded in the crude theology of the Ply¬ 
 mouth Brethren. Thus Mr. Mackintosh says : “We are not to 
 regard the cross of Christ as a mere circumstance in the life 
 of sin-bearing. It was the grand and only scene of sin-bearing: 
 ‘ His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree ’ 
 (1 Pet. ii. 24). He did not bear them anywhere else. He did 
 not bear them in the manger, nor in the wilderness, nor in the 
 garden, but only on the tree. He never had aught to say to 
 sin, save on the cross.” Biblical theology is the very opposite 
 of this extract, as we have proved throughout. 
 
 What were the arguments by which Alting laboured to 
 defend such a position ? He argued from the statement that 
 “ Christ once suffered;” a phrase which cannot bear the sense 
 put upon it, but denies the repetition of His atonement. He 
 argued, too, that previous to the crucifixion Christ received 
 tokens of divine favour—nay, several audible voices from 
 heaven,—and that the wrath of God was borne only on the 
 tree. We have proved the opposite at large. It is matter of 
 wonder that one so eminent as a divine should put these two 
 in collision. There were intervening moments of comfort all 
 through His curse-bearing life, and even on the tree. This 
 theory is opposed to just views of substitution; for Christ’s 
 
544 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 entire suffering obedience was tlie discharge of His one media¬ 
 torial work, and essentially connected with the servant-form 
 which He bore. To ground the theory on the fact that dark¬ 
 ness covered the face of the world, is a baseless fancy. 
 
 Scripture makes it evident that all Christ’s sufferings were 
 the work of a surety, and expiatory. This appears from the 
 fact that He was sinless; and it would have been inconsistent 
 with the divine perfections to inflict suffering on Him unless 
 He occupied the place of the surety: for agony and suffering 
 could not have assailed a sinless being on any other ground. 
 Besides, the Scriptures expressly affirm that by His stripes we 
 are healed (1 Pet. ii. 24). 
 
 6. I might further mention a theory propounded by Roell, 
 that Christ’s atonement did not satisfy for temporal death. But 
 it was limited to Holland, triumphantly refuted by Yitringa, and 
 generally repudiated. 
 
 I shall not further pursue this historical sketch. Ho further 
 modifications of the Reformation doctrine, at least of much 
 moment, occurred till the church encountered the first rise of 
 Rationalism, after the middle of last century. It is noteworthy 
 that the assault began at the very point where the Reforma¬ 
 tion theology had completed itself—viz. by denying the active 
 obedience of Christ 1 and His entering into all His people’s obli¬ 
 gations. We deem it needless, however, to enter on Rational¬ 
 istic theories which run counter to expiation in any form, 
 inasmuch as this was pretty fully done in the former volume ; 
 and the present outline was intended to delineate that other 
 class of theories which continued to maintain the causal con¬ 
 nection between the death of Christ and the remission of sins. 
 Let me sum up this outline, which cannot be further enlarged, 
 with the following couplet of Voetius, which succinctly states 
 the various elements which enter into Christ’s atoning work:— 
 
 “Propitians, purgans, redimens, ut victima sponsor, 
 
 Salvavit sic jura Dei verumque requirunt.” 
 
 1 This was done hv Tdllner in his work Der Tliatige Gehorsam Jesu Cliristi, 
 1768 . 
 
INDICES, 
 
 I.—THE PASSAGES EXPOUNDED. 
 
 iv. 1-34, . 
 
 Leviticus. 
 
 • • • 
 
 • 
 
 37 
 
 xvi. 1-33, . 
 
 • • • 
 
 • 
 
 37 
 
 xvi., 
 
 Psalms. 
 
 • • • 
 
 • 
 
 89 
 
 xl. 6-8, 
 
 • • • 
 
 • 
 
 59 
 
 cx. 1-4, 
 
 • • • 
 
 • 
 
 65 
 
 Hi. 14—liii. 
 
 Isaiah. 
 
 12, . 
 
 • 
 
 71 
 
 ii. 22-30, . 
 
 Acts. 
 
 
 85 
 
 iii. 12-22, . 
 
 
 
 93 
 
 viii. 29-35, 
 
 
 
 94 
 
 xiii. 15-37, 
 
 
 
 95 
 
 xvii. 22-31, 
 
 
 
 96 
 
 xx. 28, 
 
 
 
 97 
 
 iii. 24-26, . 
 
 Romans. 
 
 • 
 
 134 
 
 iv. 25, 
 
 
 • 
 
 143 
 
 v. 6-10, 
 
 
 • 
 
 149 
 
 v. 12-19, . 
 
 
 • 
 
 154 
 
 vi. 1-8, . 
 
 
 • 
 
 161 
 
 viii. 3, 4, . 
 
 
 • 
 
 168 
 
 viii. 31-34, 
 
 
 • 
 
 178 
 
 xiv. 15, 
 
 
 • 
 
 184 
 
 1 Corinthians. 
 i. 13, .... 
 
 
 185 
 
 i. 17, 18, . 
 
 
 
 187 
 
 i. 30, 
 
 
 
 189 
 
 v. 7, 8, 
 
 vi. 19, 20, . 
 
 
 
 192 
 
 
 
 195 
 
 viii. 11, 
 
 
 
 200 
 
 xi. 23-27, . 
 
 
 
 203 
 
 xv. 3, 4, . 
 
 
 
 206 
 
 2 Corinthians. 
 v. 14, 15, . 
 
 • 
 
 209 
 
 v. 18, 19, . 
 
 • • • 
 
 • 
 
 214 
 
 2 
 
 v. 21, 
 
 « • 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 221 
 
 viii. 9, 
 
 • • 
 
 Galatians. 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 229 
 
 i. 4, . 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 233 
 
 ii. 20, 21, . 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 236 
 
 iii. 13, 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 244 
 
 iv. 4, 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 258 
 
 vi. 14, 
 
 Ephesians. 
 
 
 • 
 
 264 
 
 i. 7, . 
 
 • • 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 268 
 
 ii. 13-16, . 
 
 • • 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 271 
 
 v. 2, . 
 
 • • 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 277 
 
 v. 25-27, . 
 
 • • 
 
 Philippians. 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 284 
 
 ii. 5-9, 
 
 • • 
 
 COLOSSIANS. 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 289 
 
 i. 19-22, . 
 
 # # 
 
 m 
 
 • 
 
 297 
 
 ii. 13-15, . 
 
 1 Thessaloniai 
 
 • 
 
 a. 
 
 • 
 
 304 
 
 i. 9, . 
 
 • • 
 
 • 
 
 
 309 
 
 iv. 14, 
 
 • • 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 314 
 
 v. 10, 
 
 1 Timothy. 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 316 
 
 ii. 5-7, 
 
 Titus. 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 318 
 
 ii. 14, 
 
 • • 
 
 Hebrews. 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 327 
 
 ii. 8,9, 
 
 
 
 
 349 
 
 ii. 14,15, . 
 
 
 
 
 354 
 
 ii. 17, 
 
 
 
 
 358 
 
 v. 7-9, 
 
 
 
 
 365 
 
 vii. 26,27, 
 
 
 
 
 372 
 
 ix. 10-15, . 
 
 
 
 
 378 
 
 ix. 26-28, . 
 M 
 
 • • 
 
 
 
 396 
 
546 
 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 
 
 x. 1-10, 
 
 
 . 401 
 
 
 2 Peter. 
 
 
 x. 19, 
 
 • • • 
 
 . 411 
 
 ii. 1, . 
 
 • • • • 
 
 . 446 
 
 xiii. 10, 12, 
 
 • • • 
 
 . 413 
 
 
 
 
 xiii. 20, 
 
 • • • 
 
 . 418 
 
 
 1 John. 
 
 
 
 
 
 i. 7, . 
 
 • • • • 
 
 . 449 
 
 
 1 Peter. 
 
 
 ii. 1-12, 
 
 iii. 5, 
 
 • • • • 
 
 . 454 
 . 461 
 
 i. 2, . 
 
 
 . 421 
 
 iv. 9, 10, 
 
 • • • • 
 
 . 465 
 
 i. 18, 19, . 
 
 
 . 423 
 
 
 
 ii. 24, 
 
 
 . 430 
 
 
 Apocalypse. 
 
 
 iii. 18, 
 
 
 . 439 
 
 i. 5, . 
 
 • • • • 
 
 . 469 
 
 iv. 1, 
 
 
 . 444 
 
 v. 9, . 
 
 • • • • 
 
 . 471 
 
 II.—SUBJECTS. 
 
 Abasement of Christ, 230, 289. 
 
 Adam, first and second, 155 ; one for 
 many, 158. 
 
 Ambrose’s views, 504, 506. 
 
 All, us all, 183 ; the all, 210 ; ransom 
 for all, 324. 
 
 Altar, 414. 
 
 Amyraldus’ theory, 540. 
 
 Angels under Christ, 297. 
 
 Anselm’s theory, 510. 
 
 Apostles’ preparation after the resur¬ 
 rection, 4 ; organs of Christ’s re¬ 
 velation, 7. 
 
 Arminius’ theory, 537. 
 
 Athanasius’ theory, 494. 
 
 Augustin’s theory, 504, 506. 
 
 Basil’s theory, 499. 
 
 Bearing of sin, 398, 431, 461. 
 
 Blood of Christ, 273 ; sacrificially 
 viewed, 471 ; entering with blood, 
 48, 339. 
 
 Calvin’s theory, 528, 530. 
 
 Chrysostom’s views, 500. 
 
 Classification of texts, 103. 
 
 Clemens Itomanus, 481. 
 
 Cleanse, 287, 453. 
 
 Conscience purged, 391. 
 
 Consciousness, Christian, 2. 
 
 Covenant, 419. 
 
 Cross, curse of, 12, 248 ; stumbling- 
 block to Jew, 17. 
 
 Crucified, Christ, for us, 185 ; cruci¬ 
 fied with Him, 164, 236 ; power of 
 God, 187. 
 
 Curse of the law, 244; curse-bearing, 
 251. 
 
 Cyrill of Jerusalem, theory, 498. 
 
 -Alexandria, theory, 502. 
 
 Death, 156 ; dying with Christ, 161 ; 
 one for whom Christ died, 184, 
 200 ; expiatory death, 356 ; death 
 disarmed, 314; fear of, 357 ; once, 
 397. 
 
 Deity of Christ, 10, 121, 255. 
 
 Delivered judicially, 146, 181; Christ 
 delivering Himself, 283. 
 
 Diognetus, letter to, 483. 
 
 Dominion of Christ, 295, 307. 
 
 Faith, 114, 125. 
 
 Flesh, Christ’s, 169, 175, 302, 365. 
 
 Forgiveness, connected with atone¬ 
 ment, 476. 
 
 Giving the Son, the Son giving Him¬ 
 self, 233, 240, 327. 
 
 Gospel, power of God, how, 188. 
 
 Gregory Nazianzen’s theory, 500. 
 
 Gregory Nyssen’s theory, 499. 
 
 Grotius’ theory, 534. 
 
 Historical sketch of the doctrine, 
 479 ; post-apostolic age, 480 ; pa¬ 
 tristic period, Greek, 485, Latin, 
 303 ; Medieval age, 510; Deforma¬ 
 tion age, 525. 
 
 Holy Ghost, 389. 
 
 Incarnation, 169, 259, 272. 
 
 Inspiration, 3. 
 
 Irenseus’ theory, 4S8. 
 
 Jew and Gentile one, 274. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 547 
 
 Justification by Christ’s blood, 151. 
 
 Justin Martyr, theory, 485. 
 
 Lamb, 429, 4G9. 
 
 Law, Christ made under, 260 ; hand¬ 
 writing nailed to the cross, 306; 
 standard of righteousness, 120. 
 
 Life, 165; Christ liveth in us, 236 ; 
 relation of, to righteous, 125. 
 
 Love, Christ’s special, 287, 469 ; God’s, 
 466. 
 
 Luther’s theory, 526. 
 
 Mediator, 318, 394. 
 
 Necessity of atonement, 353, 358. 
 
 Nestorianism, 501. 
 
 One sacrifice for sins, 442. 
 
 Oneness, legal, 124. 
 
 Origen’s theory, 491. 
 
 Passover, 192. 
 
 Peace, Christ our, 273. 
 
 Perfect, made, 348, 352. 
 
 Piscator’s theory, 533. 
 
 Polycarp’s view, 482. 
 
 Preaching the atonement, 325. 
 
 Price, 196. 
 
 Priest, 334, 337 ; Christ on earth, 
 376; entering the Holiest at His 
 death, 382. 
 
 Prophecy, 53 ; rules for, 54. 
 
 Propitiation, 136, 359, 368, 455. 
 
 Prosper’s theory, 507. 
 
 Purify or purge, 345. 
 
 Hansom, the personal redeemer, 246, 
 320 ; to whom paid, 323 ; connected 
 with sacrifice, 425. 
 
 Reconciliation defined, 126, 217 ; 
 
 differs from propitiation, 128 ; ob¬ 
 jections met, 128 ; by death of 
 Christ, 151, 218; ascribed to God, 
 363. 
 
 Redemption, 135; Christ made, 190 ; 
 268, 424 ; unto God, 473. 
 
 Remission, 21, 343. 
 
 Representative act, 162. 
 
 Righteousness of God, 106 ; name for 
 atonement, 109, 190 ; received by 
 faith, 125 ; relation to life, 125; 
 Christ Himself our, 124. 
 
 Sacrifices, symbolical and typical 
 significance of, 25 ; how sacra¬ 
 ments, 28; the steps of the ritual, 
 42-45 ; sweet-smelling savour, 279 ; 
 Christ a sacrifice, 387, 409 ; burn¬ 
 ing of, 415. 
 
 Sanctify, 347 ; Christ made sanctifica¬ 
 tion, 191, 284; ceremonial sanctify¬ 
 ing, 385. 
 
 Satan, liberation from, 307, 355. 
 
 Sin, Christ made, 221 ; cause of 
 Christ’s death, 144; for Sin, 174 ; 
 dying for sins, 144, 206. 
 
 Sin-bearing, 176. 
 
 Sinlessness of Jesus, 223. 
 
 Son of God, 168, 370, 450. 
 
 Sprinkle, 287, 422. 
 
 Substitute, 263. 
 
 Supper, the Lord’s, 203, 
 
 Theodoret, 502. 
 
 Wisdom, Christ made, how, 190. 
 
 World, 459. 
 
 Wrath of God, 216, 247 ; how to be 
 understood, 310, 455. 
 
 III.—GREEK WORDS SPECIALLY NOTICED. 
 
 advvarov rod vo/aov, 177. 
 
 alpzanx^vaia, 380. 
 
 a’lpuv apoapriag, 462. 
 
 ctpoupria, 225 ; Vi pi apzaprias, 175, 224. 
 
 U.TlQavO'i, 210, 213. 
 
 uVoyivopcivoi, 438. 
 
 avoXvrputns, 426. 
 
 ap<Txy/xos, 291. 
 
 ha with aCC., 140, 144 f. ; did, rodro, 
 85. 
 
 dovrog lavrov, 233. 
 dixaioauv'/i @iod, 115, 118. 
 dupidv, 242. 
 
 IxxXritr'ia 0s od, 97. 
 iv dl, 136. 
 ivboXYKTi, 300. 
 iuXafiiia, 366. 
 
 yap, 150. 
 
548 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 *xfy e ‘> 150 . 
 
 ®zog Trig zipwvrjg, 418. 
 
 lxd(rxz<r0cti, 836, 359, 361, 363. 
 IXoiff/xog, 455 J iXatrrripiov, 137. 
 7va, 104, 264. 
 
 xaff otrov , 69. 
 xa.6oc.piZ,uv, 453. 
 
 XCtlTZp MV, 870. 
 xciToiXXa.trtrziv, 363. 
 xot.Ta.XXa.yri, 154. 
 xetTaxplvM ccptapriav, 177. 
 xa.rztrrdc.Qntra.v , 160. 
 
 XovtravTt, 471. 
 
 Xvrpuiriv zvpa.fjt.zvog, 380. 
 
 (tr) yvovra, 223. 
 
 /aopQri, 290. 
 
 ovrug, 235. 
 
 oralg ®zov, 93. 
 
 <Ti<rrig zlg , 138. 
 orpotrayMyri, 443. 
 orvzvfjt,a, to, 389. 
 
 trvv in compound verbs, 162. 
 
 TZ XCt'l, 191. 
 
 TZXziOVV, 352. 
 
 tov fjt.zya.Xov Qzov xa'l ffMTripog , 327. 
 utrrzp and ovtm, 156. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH, 
 PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE.