SIDELIGHTS ON 
 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 
 

 
 
 
SIDELIGHTS ON 
 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES ORR, D.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF APOLOGETICS AND SYSTEMATIC 
 THEOLOGY IN THE UNITED FREE 
 CHURCH COLLEGE,GLASGOW 
 
 “(JDtu |C0rii, one faith, xme baptism, out dob 
 anb ^father of all, toho is obtx all, 
 anb ihrnnglt all, anb in all.*’ 
 
 New York: A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON 
 3 and 5 West Eighteenth Street : igog 
 
R. \V. SIMPSON AND CO., LTD., 
 PRINTERS, 
 
 RICHMOND, LONDON. 
 
Preface 
 
 T HE Studies in this Volume are based upon Addresses 
 on Christian Doctrine given at various Conferences 
 and Bible Schools in America. This may explain 
 the semi-popular character of the exposition, and some 
 peculiarities in the style, which it has not been thought 
 necessary to remove. Perhaps the less formal nature of 
 the Studies will adapt them better to the needs of those 
 whom technical works on theology might repel. The 
 treatment makes no pretence at exhaustiveness, but 
 probably it will be found that few points of real im¬ 
 portance in theological study are left untouched. The 
 work may therefore serve as an introduction to more 
 elaborate handbooks on the Christian doctrines. It may 
 serve to show what, in substance, theology is, to create 
 an interest in its questions, and to remove some mis¬ 
 conceptions as to its nature, necessity, and scope. In 
 some degree, it may even be a contribution to the right 
 apprehension of the Christian truth itself. These are 
 days in which theology is at a discount. The cry is 
 loud for “reconstruction” of Christian doctrines; for 
 re-statement in terms of living thought. This book has 
 little to offer in the way of novelties. It rests on the 
 
Preface 
 
 conviction that, however necessary it may be to state 
 Christian doctrines constantly anew in relation to 
 advancing knowledge, there is an essential content in the 
 Christian system which does not change. One truth is 
 related to another, and cannot be essentially altered 
 without detriment to the whole system. There is a 
 testimony to that truth in the living organism of Scripture 
 —held here to be the self-attesting record of God’s 
 revelation of life and salvation to the world—and on that 
 Scriptural basis, not on the changing thoughts and 
 speculations of men, a sound theology must be reared. 
 For fuller exhibition and discussion of the doctrines dealt 
 with, the author may refer to his special works, “The 
 Christian View of God and the World ” (ioth Edition), 
 “ The Progress of Dogma ” (the history and development 
 of Christian doctrine), and “ God’s Image in Man and its 
 Defacement in the Light of Modern Denials,” with 
 articles in Hastings’ and other Bible Dictionaries. 
 
 James Orr. 
 
 March , 1909. 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Nature and Place of Christian Doctrine : The 
 
 Doctrine of God . . . .3 
 
 II. Names and Attributes of God . . 21 
 
 III. The Trinity of God : The Divine Purpose . 37 
 
 IV. Creation and Providence . . -55 
 
 V. Man and Sin : Man’s Nature and Original 
 
 Condition . . . . .75 
 
 VI. Man and Sin : Man’s Need as a Sinner . 93 
 
 VII. Christ and Salvation: General View—The 
 
 Redeemer ..... 109 
 
 VIII. Christ and Salvation : The Atonement . 125 
 
 IX. The Spirit in Salvation: Union with Christ 
 
 and its Blessings . . . .143 
 
 X. Eternity and its Issues : Advent and Judgment 165 
 
 Index of Subjects . . .181 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 https://archive.org/details/sidelightsonchriOOorrj 
 
I 
 
 Nature and Place of 
 Christian Doctrine 
 The Doctrine of God 
 
 B 
 
Nature and Place of 
 Christian Doctrine 
 The Doctrine of God 
 
 I AM to speak in this series of studies on some of the 
 greater Christian doctrines, and to try to set these 
 in lights which may prove helpful to minds in 
 perplexity, and to students of Scripture who desire, for its 
 own sake, a firmer grasp of the essentials of their 
 Christian faith. At the outset it is necessary to show 
 that there is such a thing as Christian doctrine, and that 
 the study of it is a matter of great importance. 
 
 I. 
 
 Everyone must be aware that there is at the present 
 time a great prejudice against doctrine —or, as it is often 
 called “ dogma ” — in religion ; a great distrust and 
 dislike of clear and systematic thinking about divine 
 things. Men prefer, one cannot help seeing, to live in a 
 region of haze and indefiniteness in regard to these 
 matters. They want their thinking to be fluid and 
 indefinite—something that can change with the times, 
 and with the new lights which they think are being 
 constantly brought to bear upon it, continually taking on 
 new forms, and leaving the old behind. They show a desire 
 to get away from precision of thought into a vagueness 
 and obscurity in which nothing can be clearly discerned. 
 
 What naturally occurs to one in this connection is that 
 religion is, perhaps, the only subject on which men feel 
 
 3 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 in the way described. Few people would regard it as a 
 recommendation of a physician if he made it his boast 
 that he was, and had always been, very hazy about his 
 anatomy and physiology, or would regard it as a 
 recommendation of an economist or statesman if he 
 professed to throw behind him all that had been written 
 or taught on political economy and the science of 
 government, and preferred to be guided solely by his own 
 ideas. This does not mean that there is to be no 
 progress or advance in any of these departments of truth. 
 But it does imply that there is—or is believed to be— 
 a well-ascertained body of truth in each, which it is 
 imperative for the student in that department to be 
 acquainted with, and without a knowledge of which 
 further progress cannot be made. 
 
 Here let me say that I cannot help feeling that, 
 underlying this distrust and dislike of what is called 
 “doctrine,” there often lurks a secret unbelief in the 
 reality of any revelation of God from which we can 
 derive sure and satisfying knowledge regarding Him. 
 For it seems to me that if we believe that there has 
 really been a revelation of God Himself in this world— 
 a real entering of God in word and deed into the history 
 of man, culminating in the appearance of Jesus Christ 
 and the redemption of mankind through Him—if we 
 believe that as a result of this revelation we possess an 
 assured and satisfying knowledge of God, of His 
 character, of His will, of His purposes of grace, of the 
 great hope given us in Christ, it must be felt that it is 
 not only our privilege, but our highest duty, to apply 
 ourselves to the study of this revelation, and to get out of 
 it all the knowledge of God and of divine things it is 
 fitted to yield ; then, when we have got it, to try to state 
 the things we know as clearly as we can to ourselves and 
 others, and to relate them to one another, so that we may 
 
 4 
 
The Doctrine of God 
 
 carry about with us an intelligible notion of what we do 
 believe, and are prepared to testify for. 
 
 But the moment a man sets out on this track he has 
 entered the decried sphere of what is called “ theology,” 
 or the systematic statement of doctrine. For theology 
 is not, as many suppose, a mere manipulation of notions 
 of men’s own minds. Rightly conceived, theology is 
 simply the putting down, as clearly and accurately as we 
 can, all we know about God and divine things derived 
 from God’s own revelation ; the stating of these things 
 and relating them to one another as perfectly as possible; 
 and the consideration with the best light available of the 
 questions and difficulties that arise out of them. 
 
 This suggests a word of explanation as to the more 
 exact relations of the terms which have been just 
 employed, and which are often used with a certain 
 confusion of meaning — the terms, viz., “doctrine,” 
 “ dogma,” “theology.” Doctrine is not necessarily 
 dogma, nor is the one term, as is sometimes thought¬ 
 lessly imagined, a mere synonym for the other. By 
 dogma is properly meant that statement or formulation of 
 doctrine which has obtained some ecclesiastical recogni¬ 
 tion—which is embodied in some creed, confession, or 
 articles of belief. The statements of the Apostles’ Creed, 
 the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, e.g., rank as 
 dogmas. For the Roman Church, the Tridentine and 
 Vatican Creeds; for the Anglican Church, the Thirty- 
 nine Articles ; for the Lutheran Church, the Augsburg 
 Confession ; for Calvinistic Churches, the Westminster 
 Confession, embody dogmatic findings. 
 
 Doctrine is a word of much wider signification. 
 Doctrine precedes dogma, and dogma may have to be 
 rectified from time to time to bring it into closer accord 
 with Christian doctrine. Doctrine is an essential element 
 of the Biblical religion, in so far as this has a content of 
 
 5 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 truth which admits of being intelligibly stated, and 
 makes a claim on our belief. Doctrines arise necessarily 
 from the very nature of the religion. It is sometimes 
 said that doctrine is evolved from Christian experience . 
 But this is only a half truth. Experience is itself a fact 
 to be explained, and has its origin in faith of the facts 
 and truths of the outward revelation. The true source of 
 Christian doctrine is the revelation of God’s doings and 
 will in Holy Scripture, in conjunction with the experience 
 of the grace of salvation, which alone can make doctrine 
 spiritually intelligible. The teacher in doctrine must 
 always be God’s own Holy Spirit. The condition of 
 understanding must be a willingness to do God’s will 
 (John vii. 17). Objectively, however, doctrine is already 
 present in the facts of God’s revelation, and in the com¬ 
 munications of His will to men. Spiritual conditions are 
 necessary for the apprehension of divine truth. But the 
 truth must be there, objectively presented, before it can 
 be appropriated. 
 
 Theology, as distinguished from doctrine and dogma, 
 may, as already indicated, be described as the reflective 
 study of Christian doctrines. Its possibility, and the 
 need of it, lie in the fact that Christian doctrines are not 
 a miscellany of unconnected statements, but form among 
 themselves a unity every part of which checks, sustains, 
 and corroborates the other parts. They flow together to 
 form a whole. This doctrinal content affords material for 
 thought. It is furnished to the mind to be appropriated, 
 reflected on, made clear to the intelligence, set forth in 
 its various relations and connections. It embodies itself 
 in forms of sound words (2 Tim. i. 13). In a wider 
 respect, it is the function of theology to set in order, 
 systematise, relate the doctrines of Scripture ; to give 
 them suitable expression ; as far as may be, to elucidate 
 their difficulties; to do for them, in short, what botany 
 
 6 
 
The Doctrine of God 
 
 does for the facts and laws of plant life, or astronomy for 
 the facts and laws of the starry heavens. Within its 
 proper limits it is as legitimate a branch of science as any 
 of the others: the science of divine things. 
 
 It follows from what has now been said that, if we 
 think about the truths of God’s revelation at all, we 
 cannot get rid of doctrine and theology, and it is a vain 
 pretence of anyone to boast that he does. In public 
 life one is familiar with the species known as the “ non¬ 
 political ” candidate. But what one generally soon 
 discovers is, that the difference between this kind of 
 candidate and his neighbours is not that he has no 
 politics, but that they are confused and bad politics. 
 Similarly, when people go about boasting that they have 
 no theology, what is commonly found out about them 
 is not that they have no theology, but that they have a 
 spurious or bad theology—a theology concocted from 
 incoherent elements gathered in from all directions, with 
 often a very scant use of the Bible. Too frequently it is 
 a crude, superficial dilettante kind of thing, made up 
 from ideas and elements collected from every quarter—a 
 scrap from Hegel, an echo from Spencer, a fact from 
 Darwin—all stuck over with terms of science, philosophy 
 and criticism ; and this is served up as something newer 
 and better than the old faith. Anyone, certainly, is at 
 liberty to make his own theology, if he wants to do it. 
 It is well also to be open to new light, always looking for 
 it, glad to use it. But as regards the great staple 
 doctrines of the revelation of God, it must be held that 
 the ground of these is firmly laid in Scripture itself, and 
 it is on that basis, not on human theories and specu¬ 
 lations, we must build, if we are to rear the structure of 
 a truly Christian theology. 
 
 7 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 ii. 
 
 These remarks on the necessity and place of doctrine 
 in the Christian religion will best receive illustration 
 from the subject it is now proposed to consider —the 
 doctrine of God. The doctrine of God, it need scarcely 
 be said, lies at the foundation of all right thinking in 
 religion. In strictness, theology is just the doctrine of 
 God. That is the meaning of the word. God is the 
 Alpha and Omega of theological study, for as a man 
 thinks about his God so will his theology be all through. 
 It is not too strongto say that, in principle, every question 
 of importance which arises in theology is already prac¬ 
 tically settled in the doctrine of God and His attributes. 
 So essential is it to begin with Scripturally right thoughts 
 about God. 
 
 The doctrine of God furnishes us with proof of the need 
 of theology and the impossibility of getting away from it. 
 For the first thing evidently we have to do when we 
 speak of a doctrine of God is to say what we mean by 
 God. What do you mean by this term God ? This is a 
 fair question to ask any man who uses the word, and the 
 instant you begin to answer that question, you begin to 
 make statements which belong to theology. 
 
 Thus, there are those who call themselves Atheists — 
 who say boldly that there is no God. You pull yourself 
 together, and make the counter-assertion, “Yes, there is a 
 God.” Well, there is already a definite assertion, and 
 the opponent is quite entitled to turn round and say : 
 “ Do you know what you mean when you make that 
 statement ?” If you try to tell him, you are taking a first 
 great step into theology. 
 
 There were those in the old religions who believed, and 
 there still are millions in the world who believe, that there 
 are many gods— Polytheists, we call them. As Christians, 
 
 8 
 
The Doctrine of God 
 
 we declare that there is one God. “ Hear, O Israel: the 
 Lord our God is one Lord ” (Deut. vi. 4). “ Thou 
 
 believest that God is one” (Jas. ii. 19). We proclaim 
 the unity of God ; and in making this affirmation against 
 polytheism we are laying down a great basal proposition 
 in theology—one, too, it can be confidently said, in which 
 we have with us the best modern thought and science. 
 There is no one almost who believes in God in any sense 
 who would now deny His unity. It is a cardinal axiom 
 of modern science that the system of things which 
 constitute the universe—therefore the Power to which 
 it owes its origin—is one. 
 
 Well, but you find another class of people who say: 
 “ Yes, there is a great Power, a great, inscrutable Power, 
 in the universe, which manifests itself in all that is”; 
 but then they deny the distinction between the world 
 and God. God and the world, they tell you, are not 
 really distinct. God’s life is just the life He has in the 
 world. His life is merged in the life of the world. He 
 is the soul, the essence, the substance of the world. The 
 world is the manifestation of God, and His sole manifesta¬ 
 tion. He has no personal life of His own. We call 
 these people Pantheists, because they say that God is 
 all. 
 
 But we, as Christians, come with a contrary affirmation. 
 We say : “ No ; it is true that God is in the world ; is its 
 Author, Creator, Upholder; is in everything in a way 
 which nothing else can be. But nevertheless, God’s life 
 is not merely in the world. He has also a Personal 
 existence above the world.” He is in all things, and 
 through all things, but He is also above all things. He 
 has given rise to the world by a free creative act of His 
 will; but He Himself is above the world in His trans¬ 
 cendent Being, eternally possessing Himself in the fulness 
 of His own Self-conscious life. In making these affirma- 
 
 9 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 tions we have separated ourselves from Pantheism, and 
 are building up a theology about God. 
 
 It- is the same when we come to the more specific 
 affirmations about God. There have been those who said 
 that God had a beginning, an origin in time ; that He was 
 localised in space. There have been those who said— 
 some do say it still—that God is a Being who is limited 
 in His wisdom, His knowledge, and His power. There 
 are those who would limit God in various ways, pointing 
 to the seeming imperfections of the world in proof. But 
 we Christians believe that God is infinite in all His 
 perfections. We not only deny these limitations of God, 
 but we put in their place the opposite affirmations. We 
 say, “ God is eternal, is all-powerful, is all-knowing, is 
 all-loving.” We could not believe in a God who was not 
 infinite in all these respects. When we name God, we 
 mean just a Being who has these perfections. We go 
 further, and say that, if God had not these perfections, 
 He would not be God. 
 
 This, let me say in passing, is one reason why it is not 
 strictly correct to speak, as we sometimes do, of the being 
 of a God, or of belief in a God. It is not uncommon to 
 see the question stated in discussion : “ Is there a God ? ” 
 It is asked : “ Do you believe in a God ? ” or “ Can you 
 prove the existence of a God ? ” Popularly and pro¬ 
 visionally, such language is permissible. Strictly, it is 
 not correct, because, in the nature of the case, there can 
 be but one God. There is of necessity but one infinite, 
 eternal, perfect Being. God cannot be thought of as one 
 of a class, or as belonging to a class in any way. If God 
 is, there is none beside Him. “ I am God, and there is 
 none else” (Is. xlvi. 9). 
 
 To take only one illustration more. There are those 
 who say : “ Yes, there is this Power in the world, 
 working through all things, but then He is so great, so 
 
 10 
 
The Doctrine of God 
 
 vast, so infinite, that we cannot know Him.” Our 
 faculties are finite. There is in our minds an 
 inherent incapacity to know a Being who is infinite, 
 absolute—as philosophy would say, “ unconditioned.” 
 This phase of denial is called Agnosticism. The late 
 Herbert Spencer was a representative' of it. Now we 
 either believe this, or we do not. If we believe it, 
 theology, of course, is at an end. But then we are not 
 called upon to believe it. As Christians, we all do 
 acknowledge that God is in infinite ways incomprehensible 
 by finite minds. We acknowledge that God is in the 
 depths of His absolute Being beyond our ken ; that all 
 we can ever know of Him is little compared with what 
 we do not know. “ Canst thou by searching find out 
 God?” (Job xi. 7). His judgments are unsearchable; 
 His ways past tracing out (Rom. xi. 33; cj. Is. xl. 
 28). But this is a very different thing from saying 
 that God cannot be known by us at all, or, as some 
 would have it, can be known only in dim and indefinite 
 symbol. We may not know God in the depths of His 
 absolute Being. But we can at least know Him in so 
 far as He reveals Himself in His relations to us. The 
 question, therefore, is not as to the possibility of a know¬ 
 ledge of God in the unfathomableness of His Being, but 
 is: Can we know God as He enters into relations with 
 the world and with ourselves ? God has entered into 
 relations with us in His revelations of Himself, and 
 supremely in Jesus Christ; and we Christians humbly 
 claim that through this Self-revelation we do know God 
 to be the true God, and have a real acquaintance with 
 His character and will. Neither is it correct to say that 
 this knowledge which we have of God is only a relative 
 knowledge. It is in part a knowledge of the absolute nature 
 of God as well. The relations in which God stands to us 
 —the revelations He makes to us—reveal something of 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 what He is truly. In the statement, e.g., “ God is love ” 
 (i John iv. 8, 16), we are affirming the most absolute 
 possible about God ! 
 
 III. 
 
 If this is what we mean by God, the question which 
 next arises is as to the evidence we have for God. It will 
 not be expected that I should enter here into any elaborate 
 proof of the existence of God. We are a stage beyond 
 that. If we look to the Bible, we must be struck by the 
 fact that it never lays itself out to prove the existence of 
 God at all. It takes His existence for granted; takes His 
 presence in all things, His power, His providence, for 
 granted. 
 
 But the reason for this is, not that the existence of 
 God is not a reasonable thing; not that there is not 
 ample evidence of God’s presence and power. The 
 opposite is the case. From the Bible’s standpoint, 
 God’s existence is so reasonable that only the most 
 foolish, the most brutish, can deny it (Ps. xiv. i). 
 God’s existence is so manifest, so pressed upon us by 
 everything around us ; God has revealed Himself to us in 
 so many ways, that formal proof of His existence is not 
 called for. As Paul tells us in the first chapter of 
 Romans: “ The invisible things of Him since the 
 creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived 
 through the things that are made, even His everlasting 
 power and divinity ; that they may be without excuse ” 
 (Rom. i. 20). This is God’s natural revelation (Ps. xix. 
 1). In His more special revelation God has revealed 
 Himself to the people of Israel by His mighty words and 
 deeds in their history in such a way that the raising of 
 the question of His existence was not so much as to be 
 thought of. 
 
 If we are to speak of reason in relation to belief in 
 
 12 
 
The Doctrine of God 
 
 God—and this is all I here propose to say on this subject 
 —I would observe that there are just two grand pillars 
 for belief in God on the ground of reason. The first is 
 what I would call the rationality of the universe , and the 
 second is the reality of the moral world. 
 
 1. When I speak of the rationality of the universe as a 
 ground for belief in God, I mean simply that, if this 
 universe is, as we know it to be, rationally constituted, 
 then, as thinking beings, we cannot do otherwise than 
 put reason behind it, and explain it through reason. 
 Least of all in these modern days can we do otherwise. 
 This, at anv rate, is a debt we owe to science. Science 
 is a splendid demonstration of the rationality of the 
 existing world. The work of science is to construe the 
 world as presented to our senses in terms of reason; and 
 this a reason analogous to our own, else the apprehension 
 of it would not be possible to us. The point is that 
 science can spell out this world—the meaning of it—in 
 terms that our intelligence can take in. The fact that 
 science can do this shows that the world is constructed 
 by an intelligence analogous to our own. Take an 
 illustration. You open a French book. If you do not 
 understand French, you cannot read it. You open 
 another book in some language you do understand, and 
 find you can read it. Why ? Because the thought of 
 the author is working in forms of language with which 
 you are acquainted. So the fact that you can read this 
 book of the world shows that the reason which planned 
 it is a reason in kinship with our own. This brings us 
 back to rationality in the universe. It brings us back 
 also to personality. For rationality, as I take it, implies 
 personality—is meaningless without a personal mind. It 
 therefore brings us back to God. 
 
 2. Still, it may be urged, this does not give us moral 
 intelligence. It may be granted that it does not. I 
 
 13 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 believe, indeed, that rationality and morality are at 
 bottom one ; for a personal intelligence cannot think 
 rationally on conduct without perceiving that there are 
 certain lines of action which for it would be right, and 
 certain lines of action which for it would be wrong. But 
 apart from this we have direct consciousness within our¬ 
 selves of the reality of moral law, and of moral ends, 
 which carry with them the guarantee of an absolute 
 worth. As reasonable beings, we not only conceive 
 ideas, but set before us ends . Some of these ends have 
 only relative worth. They exist for other ends. But 
 there are ends which, in distinction from these, have an 
 absolute worth. Such are the ends of goodness. These 
 are presented to us with an absolute obligation. We 
 have no liberty to set them aside. Interpreting the 
 world from this standpoint, and asking: “ For what end 
 does the world exist ? ” we have no alternative, without 
 renouncing our moral nature, but to answer: “The end 
 in the last instance must be a moral one.” We must, 
 with the philosopher Kant, affirm that the world exists 
 for the sake of the Good—for the sake of a kingdom of 
 the Good, or kingdom of God. We must, in other 
 words, regard it as a moral system, and God, the Author 
 of it, as a Moral Being. So firmly established, in fact, 
 is this as part of our belief in God, that it is now 
 impossible for us to entertain any lower idea of God. 
 God means for us a Being of ethical perfection, or 
 nothing at all. The very atheist would scoff, and turn 
 the fact to our confusion, if we set up for worship a Being 
 morally distorted and imperfect. 
 
 IV. 
 
 From this teaching, which comes to us so far from 
 reason, we turn again to the Bible. The Bible does not, 
 as has just been said, seek to prove the existence of God; 
 
 14 
 
The Doctrine of God 
 
 but, in studying its pages, we find that, in its idea of 
 God, it takes up all these truths of reason about God, 
 and carries them a great deal further. The Bible does 
 not seek to prove that God is one, eternal, infinite ; is 
 all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, all-wise, all-holy. 
 But it takes all this for granted in the Old Testament and 
 in the New, and makes the truth continually felt in its 
 teachings. I know that at the present time this is 
 widely challenged as regards the earlier parts of the 
 Bible. There are those who say that this high idea of 
 God is found when you come to the prophetic teaching, 
 but that you do not find it before. In the earlier periods 
 God is apprehended as a “ tribal ” or “ national ” deity 
 only. I do not believe this. Elsewhere I have ventured 
 to say, and would now repeat, that I do not know a 
 single fact on which the critic can legitimately lay his 
 finger to show that at any time Israel did not believe in 
 one God, who was the Maker of heaven and earth. You 
 find this in the earliest portions of the Bible, as well as 
 in the latest—in those parts which even the critics will 
 allow to be the oldest. In these earliest parts you find 
 such ideas as the creation of the world by God, the 
 creation of a first human pair, the judgment of the whole 
 world by a flood, a covenant made with Noah for the 
 whole earth—all implying that unity of God, and lord- 
 ship over the whole earth, which belong to monotheism . 
 The Book of Genesis is in all its parts a monotheistic 
 book. No other God is even hinted at. 
 
 The Bible from the beginning thus takes up the highest 
 truth of reason into its teaching about God. Jesus, in 
 turn, takes up all the teaching both of nature and of the 
 Old Testament into His revelation of God. But alike 
 in Old Testament and the New, the truth about God is 
 carried far higher than ever reason could attain. New 
 light is cast on God’s attributes by the discovery of them 
 
 15 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 made in His dealings with man and with man’s sin— 
 dealings both in mercy and in judgment ; by His spoken 
 words; by His commands, promises, and threatenings ; 
 by prophecies; finally, by the coming of the promised 
 Redeemer, and the work of salvation accomplished 
 through Him. From the whole emerges an infinitely 
 richer, fuller, holier, more gracious conception of God 
 than mere reason could ever have reached—a conception, 
 too, stamped with a certainty which the deductions of 
 reason do not possess. It is this full Biblical conception 
 of God, with all that it involves, which is the proper 
 subject-matter of Christian theology. 
 
 If now it be asked : What is the specific, the peculiar, 
 the distinctively characteristic thing in the Christian 
 idea of God ? the answer I should be disposed to give 
 would be: It is found in the revelation of God as triune , 
 or in His three-fold name of Father, Son, and Holy 
 Spirit. Here, I know, I touch delicate and difficult 
 ground. Many will demur and say: It is God’s Father¬ 
 hood simply which is the distinctive thing in the 
 Christian conception of God. Christ’s dearest and most 
 special name for God was “ Father.” “ Holy Father,” 
 He prayed (John xvii. n). This is true ; only, I would 
 also remark, the Fatherhood of God in the New 
 Testament is never revealed as a thing by itself; it is 
 revealed always in relation with the Son and Spirit. 
 Christ Himself has His place as Son in our idea of the 
 Godhead. The Spirit surely has His place. It is the 
 thought of God as Father, Son, and Spirit, which is the 
 complete thought of God in our redemption. 
 
 The Trinity of God will be considered in another 
 paper. At present a word may be permitted in closing 
 on this subject of God's Fatherhood. The full Scriptural 
 depth of this conception is not always realized ; hence 
 the mistakes into which people fall regarding it. The 
 
 16 
 
The Doctrine of God 
 
 Fatherhood of God, in the full Christian idea of it, does 
 not originate with God’s relation to the world, or to 
 man; or even with God’s relation to believers. God 
 was Father before He had relation either to the world 
 or to believers. He is Father in Himself—“ the Father 
 everlasting.” This again implies the triune conception. 
 If you wish to find the ultimate spring of Fatherhood in 
 the heart of God, you must seek it, not in relation to 
 humanity, or to believers, but in the relation to the 
 Eternal and “only-begotten” Son (John i. 18). It is 
 with this Fatherly love, of which the primal object is 
 the Son, that God turns to the world, and seeks to draw 
 men in to be sharers of it. 
 
 We here find the true answer to the difficulties raised 
 about the “ universal ” and “special” Fatherhood of God. 
 Is God universally Father ? Is man, by creation, a son ? 
 In one sense, as will be seen later, when God created 
 man, it was to a destiny of sonship. Man was made in God’s 
 image (Gen. i. 27). He was designed for free, loving, 
 blessed fellowship with God; was intended to possess 
 and manifest the filial spirit. So far the advocates of 
 universal Fatherhood are right. The sinner in conversion 
 is truly a prodigal returning to his Father’s house (Luke 
 xv. 18). But man by sin turned his back on that 
 destiny. He took another spirit into his heart; passed 
 into another relation to God than that of a son to a 
 Father. If his destiny of sonship was to be realized, it 
 could no longer be on the basis of creation, but only on 
 the basis of redemption. Hence the restriction of sonship 
 in the Gospel to those who are actually partakers of the 
 grace of Christ’s salvation. Sonship, in grace, becomes 
 ours by regeneration and a divine act of “ adoption.”* 
 
 It is no more a thing of more nature—of creation. For 
 the same reason it is no longer merely the carrying 
 
 * See p. 22. 
 
 *7 
 
 G 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 through of the sonship designed for man in his creation, 
 but is something infinitely higher. It is something 
 which only those in union with Christ can possess. 
 God, in the Gospel, is “ the God and Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ.” 
 
 18 
 
II 
 
 Names and 
 Attributes of God 
 

 
Names and 
 
 Attributes of God 
 
 I T was remarked in the preceding study that there is 
 hardly any problem in theology which is not 
 already settled in principle in the doctrine of the 
 divine attributes. A general indication of the nature of 
 these attributes—God’s unity, eternity, infinity, omni¬ 
 potence, &c.—was given in defining the Christian idea of 
 God. Many of the attributes, however, raise questions 
 and involve difficulties on which it is necessary to en¬ 
 deavour to cast a little light. This will form a transition 
 to the consideration of the deeply interesting subject of 
 the Trinity of God’s Being. 
 
 I. 
 
 As introductory to both subjects, a few words may 
 be said, first, on the Names of God in Scripture. We 
 often read in the Bible of the divine “ name.” “ What 
 is Thy name ? ” asked Jacob of the Angel that wrestled 
 with him (Gen. xxxii. 27). “How excellent is Thy name 
 in all the earth,” sings the Psalmist (Ps. viii. 1). “ Thou 
 shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” 
 reads the third commandment (Ex. xx. 7). The thing to 
 be chiefly borne in mind here is the close connection in 
 Scripture usage, as in ancient thought generally, between 
 “ name ” and “ essence.” A name is never a mere vocable. 
 
 21 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 It expresses the nature. In heathen belief, to use the 
 names of the gods in incantations (magic) was to possess 
 power over the gods. In the Bible, likewise, the “ name ” 
 of God is the expression of His nature and character. It 
 is that in which the fulness of His character and attributes, 
 especially in His relations to man, is revealed. It has 
 been described as “the revealed side of His nature.” 
 There are general names of God; but, besides, there are 
 particular names arising out of special providential 
 interpositions (e.g., “ Jehovah-Jireh,” Gen. xxii. 14; 
 “ Jehovah-Nissi,” Ex. xvii. 15). The general names of 
 God reflect also the stages of the divine revelation. 
 
 The most general designations of God — those, 
 accordingly, chiefly characteristic of the patriarchal age 
 —are El, El Elyon, El Shaddai , but specially Elohim. The 
 last is the word translated “ God ” in our versions. Of 
 these names, El and Elohim have (as ordinarily taken) 
 the root-idea of “ power,” El (Babylonian Ilu) is a 
 common Semitic designation for God. In Genesis it is 
 found only in the composition of proper names (e.g., 
 Bethel), or in combination with an attribute (e.g., Gen. 
 xxi. 33, “ El Olam,” the everlasting God). The early 
 name El Shaddai is likewise connected with the idea of 
 power (“ God Almighty,” Gen. xvii. 1 : Ex. vi. 1), but of 
 power as specifically exercised within the sphere of 
 revelation. It denotes the God who reveals Himself in 
 deeds of omnipotence for the ends of His kingdom 
 (promise of Isaac ; a numberless seed to Abraham). El 
 Elyon, found in Gen. xiv.—a section by itself—has the 
 sense of “ Most High God ” (also in Phoenicia). 
 
 The usual name for God in the Old Testament, how¬ 
 ever, in His general aspect of Creator and Ruler of the 
 world—the God of Creation and Providence—is Elohim. 
 It is a plural form peculiar to Scripture, but though 
 plural is used, when applied to the true God, with a 
 
 22 
 
Names and Attributes of God 
 
 singular verb. It is customary to explain this plural 
 form as a plural of majesty, and no doubt it has this 
 significance. But there is more than majesty implied in 
 it. The name denotes at least the possession by the God of 
 Israel of all that fulness of powers which heathen peoples 
 distributed out among their several deities. It suggests, 
 too, the idea of plurality, which, as will be seen after, lies 
 from the beginning in the Biblical idea of God. 
 
 Higher in rank, and peculiar in sacredness, is the 
 covenant name, Jehovah (or Jahveh), which is the Personal 
 name of the God of Israel. Though in itself an old name 
 (scholars allege traces of it in ancient Babylonia), it is 
 specially connected in Scripture with the revelation of 
 God to Moses at the Exodus (Ex. iii. 13-15; vi. 2, 3), and 
 with the display of His faithfulness, grace, and power at 
 that time. The form “ Jehovah ” is quite a modern one 
 (it came into use in the sixteenth century). It represents 
 the consonants of the sacred name, with the vowels of 
 the word “ Adonai ” (Lord), which the Jews used to 
 avoid pronouncing the holier name. The word itself 
 (JHVH) is derived from the imperfect of an old form 
 of the verb “ to be,” and is properly explained, as in 
 Exodus, “I Am that I Am,” or in the third person, 
 “ He is that He is.” It denotes God as the One who, 
 in absolute freedom and independence, is always in 
 agreement with Himself—the Self-existent, and there¬ 
 fore the Self -consistent One. The scholar Kautzsch 
 gives the meaning: “Constant and eternal.” Besides 
 covenant-keeping faithfulness, there lies in it the idea 
 of unchangeableness: “I am Jehovah ; I change not” 
 (Mai. iii. 6). 
 
 Attention to the meaning of these names will be found 
 to solve many of the difficulties which have been raised 
 as to their uses in Scripture. 
 
 23 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 ii. 
 
 Turning now to the divine Attributes, we have 
 found that most of these attributes—unity, power, 
 eternity, unchangeableness, &c.—are already implied in 
 the signification of the divine names. But a nearer 
 study is desirable. 
 
 By attributes of God are meant, not anything distinct 
 from God Himself, or divisions of His essence, but 
 simply those determinations of His Being and character 
 which are implied in His relations to the world and man, 
 and which our thought must distinguish, without imply¬ 
 ing that they are really separable from Him or from one 
 another. The attributes have been conveniently dis¬ 
 tinguished as natural and moral. A mere philosophical 
 distinction is into those which belong generally to God’s 
 Being as the Absolute One (Self-existence, eternity, 
 infinity, and the like) ; those which belong to His 
 Being as Personal (spirituality, Personality, freedom) ; 
 and the Specific attributes, divided, as before, into natural 
 and moral. 
 
 Let no one take fright at the word A bsolute as 
 applied to God. When philosophy speaks of God as 
 the absolute One, it means only what Scripture every¬ 
 where implies, viz., that God’s is that existence which, 
 unlike every other, is in and of itself, is dependent solely 
 on itself, gives its being and law to all other existence, 
 but itself is conditioned by none. God is one, sole, living 
 Self-existent sovereign (Ps. cxxxv. 6; Dan. iv. 35). God 
 as the absolute One, is sovereign, but care must be taken 
 not to attach false ideas to this much-abused term. The 
 sovereignty of God does not mean that the will of God is 
 an arbitrary will (even Calvin declares that God is 
 not exlex ), but that it is a will self-determined—not 
 prescribed to or controlled from without—a will which 
 has its last grounds of acting in itself (Eph. i. 9, 11). 
 
 24 
 
Names and Attributes of God 
 
 1. Self-existence, which we attribute to God in this 
 connection, is not a thought which it is left to our own 
 choice to form. We cannot admit existence at all with¬ 
 out being compelled to go back finally on some uncaused, 
 necessary, Self-existent Being. God, for our faith is that 
 Being. He is unoriginated, uncaused, Self-existent, 
 necessary. Scripture constantly assumes this to be 
 true of God. It never thinks of God as the Babylonians 
 thought of their deities, as having been “ born,” or 
 having had a beginning. On the other hand, He is the 
 free Creator and Disposer of all that exists. He must, 
 therefore, as Christ says, have “life in Himself” (John 
 v. 26). 
 
 2. This first truth about God involves others. For, 
 plainly, the S<?//-existent One must be the ever-existent 
 —the eternal. The Author and Disposer of all things can 
 be limited by nothing beyond Himself—save as He Him¬ 
 self establishes the limits—therefore must be unlimited, 
 or infinite. Infinity as an abstract idea the Bible writers 
 perhaps did not entertain ; but it is obvious from their 
 teachings that the perfections of God had no limits set to 
 them in their thoughts. Still, it is well to remember that 
 we are here in presence of great mysteries, and that in 
 attributing eternity and infinity to God, we employ 
 terms which largely outreach our means of positive con¬ 
 ception, and drive us back upon the use of symbols. 
 
 (1) The form in which the Scripture represents God’s 
 eternity to us is that of duration through endless ages. 
 “ From everlasting to everlasting [literally, from age to 
 age], Thou art God ” (Ps. xc. 2). In the New Testament 
 we have “unto the ages of the ages ” (Eph. iii. 20, &c.). 
 Ordinarily we think of God’s eternity in the same 
 manner, as duration infinitely prolonged in the two 
 directions of time—backwards and forwards. Yet this 
 is only a symbol for what really transcends time. Time, 
 
 25 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 strictly, has relation to a world of objects existing in 
 succession. God fills time; is in every part of it; but 
 
 His eternity still is not really this being in time. It is 
 rather that to which being in time forms a contrast. 
 Here thought fails. This relation of the eternity of God 
 to time is, in truth, one of the most difficult problems in 
 theology; probably with our present faculties an insoluble 
 one. 
 
 (2) It is not otherwise with infinity. The symbol here 
 usually employed is boundlessness —a quantitative concep¬ 
 tion. When reflection is applied to the subject, however, 
 it is easy to see that there can never be a realised quanti¬ 
 tative infinitude. If it ever was realised it would not 
 be infinite. The infinitude of number, e.g., does not lie 
 in an infinite series ever being realised, but in the 
 potentiality in number of going on for ever. Omnipotence 
 in God does not mean an absolute quantum of power, but 
 an exhaustless potency of power—a possibility in the 
 exercise of power to which no limits can be set; a power 
 which can do everything which is a possibility of power, 
 and that endlessly. This is still plainer in the moral 
 perfections. Infinite holiness or love is not a boundless 
 quantum of holiness or of love, but a holiness and 
 love which qualitatively are free from all limitation 
 and defect. Perhaps we may say that infinity in God is 
 ultimately :— {a) internally and qualitatively, absence of 
 all limitation and defect; ( b ) boundless potentiality. 
 
 3. From the same character of absoluteness flows 
 God’s immutability. He abideth faithful; He cannot 
 deny Himself (2 Tim. ii. 13). This changelessness of 
 God, it need hardly be said, is not to be confounded with 
 immobility, or rigid fixity in one unbending course of 
 action. It does not exclude infinite variety in means and 
 methods ; the “ many-coloured ” wisdom of which Paul 
 speaks ( polupoikilos , Eph. iii. 10). It is oneness in pur- 
 
 26 
 
Names and Attributes of God 
 
 pose, principle, character, aim ; the negation of vacilla¬ 
 tion, inconsistency, fickleness, caprice. 
 
 III. 
 
 The determinations of God's Being as the Absolute, 
 just specified, lie behind everything else in God. They 
 are the attributes which give, in fact, to His perfections 
 their quality as God's. They do not, however, yet 
 tell us all that God is. We only reach the full concep¬ 
 tion of God when we think of Him, further, as free 
 Personal spirit. 
 
 “God is a Spirit” (John iv. 24). He is not, as some 
 schools of thought imagine, impersonal, but Personal 
 Spirit. It would be out of place here to enter into 
 elaborate discussions about personality. Enough to say 
 that the essential marks of personality are found in these 
 three things—self-consciousness, character (ethical), and 
 will. Any being of whom these three things can be 
 affirmed — and they are really inseparable — can be 
 declared to be a person. It belongs, then, to the idea of 
 God that He is (1) spiritual, (2) Personal, (3) free. 
 
 1. On spirituality it is not necessary to dwell. The 
 Bible assumes throughout that God is distinct from 
 nature, has no material form, is universally present, &c. 
 From Him proceeds the “ Spirit.” But He from whom 
 the Spirit proceeds must be Himself spiritual. 
 
 2. Much greater difficulty arises with the conception 
 of Personality. This, some contend, is incompatible with 
 infinity. Personality, it is argued, deludes as well as 
 includes. It implies distinction from another. An 
 infinite Personality, therefore—one which has no limita¬ 
 tion in any direction, and leaves nothing outside itself, 
 is a contradiction in terms. Some would solve this 
 problem by ascribing to God what they call a universal 
 Personality —-that is, by making God simply the self- 
 
 27 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 conscious centre of the universe, and giving Him the 
 contents of the universe—our own thoughts and actions 
 included—as the contents of His consciousness. But 
 this solution is Pantheistic in principle, and really makes 
 God but the principle of unity in the world. 
 
 The real answer is to be sought for in another direc¬ 
 tion. The philosopher Lotze has rightly argued that, so 
 far from personality being necessarily finite, man’s 
 personality is only a faint copy of the perfect Personality of 
 God. Man is limited, and is conscious of his limits—in 
 knowledge, and in other things. He is constantly 
 seeking to break down these limits. In knowledge, e.g., 
 he is constantly seeking to break down the limits between 
 himself and the world. He does not lessen his personality 
 as he takes more of the world into it, but enlarges it. If 
 he could break down barriers altogether, as in absolute 
 omniscience, he would not abolish personality, but would 
 perfect it. 
 
 The objection, in truth, rests on that quantitative way 
 of conceiving of infinitude which has already been referred 
 to. Personality is not a quantitative, but a spiritual magni¬ 
 tude. The infinity of God’s Being and perfections does 
 not exclude the existence of relative and dependent being. 
 No other such being as God can indeed exist; but relative, 
 dependent being can very well exist without detracting 
 from any perfection that God possesses. 
 
 3. Freedom is involved in spiritual Personality. God’s 
 sovereign freedom is everywhere assumed in Scripture 
 (Ps. cxxxv. 6 ; Eph. i. 11). 
 
 IV. 
 
 This leads to the consideration of the specific attributes 
 of God, in their two divisions of natural and moral. The 
 natural attributes relate to God’s presence, knowledge, 
 and power, each conceived as infinite (omnipresence, 
 
 28 
 
Names and Attributes of God 
 
 omniscience, and omnipotence) ; the moral relate to His 
 perfections as holy, and may be grouped under righteous¬ 
 ness and love. Problems of no small interest arise in 
 connection with each. 
 
 I speak first of the natural attributes of God. 
 
 1. Scripture everywhere assumes the omnipresence of 
 God; but it is an undue limitation of omnipresence to 
 conceive of it as simply universal presence in space. God 
 is present also in the world of mind. The term properly 
 denotes God’s presence absolutely. His presence to all 
 creatures, wherever being is, or can be thought of as 
 existing. “ If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art 
 there,” &c. (Ps. cxxxix. 8-10). In relation even to the 
 external world, God must be thought of as present to all 
 objects in space , rather than as Himself in space. For the 
 same reason, He is wholly present to all beings every¬ 
 where ; not part here, and part there, as if He were 
 extended in space. This is the fault of the term 
 “immensity” as applied to God. One must think 
 also of a moral nearness and distance of God to indi¬ 
 viduals, to which spatial categories do not at all apply. 
 
 2. Most amazing of the natural attributes of God is 
 His omniscience. While we understand perfectly the 
 meaning of our statement that God knows all things , we 
 feel that both the manner and the extent of this knowledge 
 pass our comprehension. God’s knowledge, unlike ours, 
 is not successive and gradually acquired, but is intuitive ; 
 is not partial, only part of it before consciousness at any 
 given time, but is eternally and unchangeably complete ; 
 is not imperfect and relative as ours is—knowing in part, 
 seeing as in a glass darkly (i Cor. xiii. 12)—but is im¬ 
 mediate, unerring, answering to the inmost truth of 
 things. It is pure, undimmed, unbroken light (1 John 
 i. 5), and the fountain of light to others (Ps. xxxvi. 9). 
 
 As respects the objects of omniscience, God knows 
 
 29 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 Himself , and all the mystery, unfathomable to us, of His 
 own counsels (Acts xv. 18 ; i Cor. ii. n) ; knows the 
 whole universe of created existence—matter and spirit 
 —in its inconceivable vastness, complexity, minuteness 
 of parts, subtlety of thought, volition, motion ; knows 
 the universe of the possible as well as of the actual ; 
 knows the future equally with the present. 
 
 It is this last aspect of God’s omniscience as foreknow¬ 
 ledge, especially as regards the free actions of men, which 
 presents the most baffling problems to our thought. Where 
 necessity rules God can foreknow. But a free act is thought 
 of as one which originates solely with the agent. How, 
 then, it is asked, can it be foreknown before even the 
 agent with whom alone it lies to determine what it shall 
 be, has so much as been brought into existence ? The 
 difficulty is so great that some have been led to deny 
 foreknowledge of free actions altogether (thus R. Rothe, 
 Bp. Martensen, Dr. J. Martineau, &c.)—a position con¬ 
 tradicted by everything in Scripture (Is. xlii. 9; xlvi. 10 ; 
 xlviii. 5, 6). Others take the opposite course of denying 
 human freedom (Jon. Edwards, &c.) Some evade the 
 difficulty by speaking of God as above time. His Being is 
 an “ eternal Now.” But while God, as above seen, is 
 not in time, it must yet be held that time is a reality for 
 God. There is a past, present, and future, in the history 
 of the world. That which is future is not yet, except in 
 idea, even for God; and this still leaves the problem un¬ 
 solved of how it can be foreseen. 
 
 A solution of this problem doubtless there is, though 
 our minds fail to grasp it. In part it probably lies, 
 not in denying freedom, but in a revised conception of 
 freedom. For freedom, after all, is not arbitrariness. 
 There is in all rational action a why for acting—a reason 
 which decides action. The truly free man is not the un¬ 
 certain, incalculable man, but the man who is reliable. In 
 
 30 
 
Names and Attributes of God 
 
 short, freedom has its laws—spiritual laws—and the 
 omniscient Mind knows what these are. But an element 
 of mystery, it must be acknowledged, still remains. 
 
 God’s knowledge, when applied to the realisation of 
 ends, is His Wisdom. 
 
 3. The last of the specific natural attributes of God 
 is H is omnipotence. Power, as we saw, is the root idea 
 in the name “ Elohim ” (God). Our own ideas of power 
 are derived from the exercise of will, but God’s power 
 differs from man’s, in that man’s personal power is never 
 creative. It is limited to selection and control. Power, 
 in God, on the other hand, is constitutive and creative. It 
 brings into being—relative, dependent being, no doubt— 
 what did not exist before. 
 
 It is no objection to the omnipotence of God that it is 
 limited to the sphere of what is possible to power ; cannot 
 e.g., work contradictions. It is limited also in its exercise 
 by God’s moral attributes. The question here is not 
 simply what God can do, but what He will do; and it 
 can be laid down with confidence that God will never do 
 that by which He would deny Himself in a moral respect. 
 
 The only other limitations to the power of God are 
 self-imposed , arising from regard to the nature of things 
 He has Himself established. Thus, ordinarily, God 
 abides by the order He has established in nature, 
 reserving the right to supersede this order for higher 
 ends, if He sees fit (miracle); similarly, He limits His 
 action by regard to the laws of moral freedom. Yet in 
 creation and providence He rules all things, and manifests 
 His supremacy even in a world of sin (Ps. lxxvi. 10). 
 
 V. 
 
 A little must next be said on the moral attributes of 
 God, as these are covered by the general term Holiness. 
 
 God is peculiarly “ The Holy One.” The term “ holy ” 
 
 3i 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 is not found till the period of the Exodus (Ex. iii. 5 : xv. 
 11), but the idea is there from the beginning. It is the 
 aspect of God’s character made prominent in the Old 
 Testament (specially in Isaiah), but is dwelt on also in 
 the New (John xvii. 11; 1 Pet. i. 16 ; Rev. iv. 8; vi. 10, 
 &c.). 
 
 Two ideas seem covered by the term “ holy,” as 
 applied to God. One is His distinction from and infinite 
 exaltation above everything that is creaturely and finite 
 (awfulness, inapproachableness, majesty of God) : the 
 other is His separation from all moral impurity , or, 
 positively, the splendour of His moral perfection. On the 
 former Martensen has well said : “ Holiness is that 
 
 principle which guards the eternal distinction between 
 Creator and creature, between God and man, in the 
 union effected between them, and preserves the divine 
 dignity and majesty from being infringed on ” (cf. Ex. 
 ii. 5 : Is. xii. 8). The latter is the ethical aspect of the 
 divine holiness—that in which it is imitable by man 
 (Matt. v. 48 ; 1 Pet. i. 16)—and denotes God as the 
 Being of absolute moral perfection (Mark x. 18). 
 
 The combined lustre of God’s moral perfections in 
 holiness yields, in the separation of its rays, the special 
 moral attributes. These may be grouped under the two 
 heads of righteousness and love. 
 
 1. Some would deny the distinction between righteous¬ 
 ness and love, and would resolve all into love. This, 
 however, cannot be done satisfactorily, and the relative 
 independence of righteousness as an aspect of God’s 
 character must be upheld. 
 
 Righteousness has to do with right and wrong in 
 conduct—with the morally obligatory. It provides norms 
 which even love must respect. Love is the fulfilling of 
 the law (Rom. xiii. 10) ; but the love which enables us to 
 fulfil our duties does not create the duties. These exist 
 
 32 
 
Names and Attributes of God 
 
 independently and spring from the fundamental relations 
 of moral beings to one another. The ultimate ground of 
 righteousness, however, is in the eternal nature of God 
 Himself—in His essential righteousness. Righteousness, 
 we may say, is that principle in God which founds the 
 moral order of the world, which is pledged to uphold that 
 order (Rom. ii. 2 ; iii. 6), and which vindicates it against 
 all opposition. Under it are included such attributes as 
 God’s truth or faithfulness; His justice; His zeal or 
 jealousy for His own honour; and His anger or wrath, 
 which is simply another name for the necessary reaction 
 of God’s holiness against sin, but specially, against daring 
 and presumptuous transgression. 
 
 The outward form which righteousness assumes is law. 
 The inward witness to law in man is conscience (Rom. ii. 
 15). It is impossible to expel “ law ” from the relations 
 of God to man, so long as conscience remains an in¬ 
 destructible witness to it. 
 
 2. This brings us to the crowning attribute of the 
 divine character—that in which its perfection is 
 supremely expressed—the attribute of love. 
 
 In the Old Testament the word “ love ” is not found 
 as applied to God till Deuteronomy. What is still 
 stranger, it is not found once in the first three Gospels as 
 applied to God, nor in the Book of Acts as applied to 
 either God or man. The truth, however, is not wanting, 
 and the explanation is the same in both cases, viz., that 
 the acts in which love is displayed must precede the use 
 of the term. There is first the revelation of love, then the 
 naming of love. The prophets gather up the lessons of 
 God’s love to Israel. John gathers up the meaning of 
 God’s revelation in Christ in the words “God is love” 
 (1 John iv. 8 , 16 ; cf. John iii. 16). Paul similarly dwells 
 on the love of God displayed in redemption (Rom. v. 8, 
 &c.). 
 
 33 
 
 D 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 Very manifold are the aspects in which the love of God 
 is exhibited in Scripture. A common word in the Old 
 Testament is “mercy,” but this term has almost the 
 breadth of signification of love itself—kindness, good¬ 
 ness, benevolence ; not simply, as commonly with our¬ 
 selves, compassion to the sinful or unfortunate. As 
 special forms of love may be distinguished— 
 
 (1) Goodness or benevolence —God’s general goodwill to 
 men (e.g., Matt. v. 45 ; Rom. ii. 4). Goodness extends 
 also to the lower creation; love proper has relation to 
 personality. 
 
 (2) As delighting in those who reflect His moral 
 image, love in God is complacency ( cf. Zeph. iii. 17). 
 
 (3) As affected by misery, suffering, misfortune, love 
 is pity, compassion, mercy. 
 
 (4) As bearing with the froward and bad, love is long- 
 suffering, or forbearance (Rom. ii. 4). 
 
 (5) As bestowing benefits on the sinful and undeserv¬ 
 ing, love is grace. 
 
 As respects its range, God’s love embraces the whole 
 world (John iii. 16). Yet love in God has also its peculiar 
 objects— e.g., in the Old Testament, Israel, the people 
 whom God, of free grace, had bound in covenant with 
 Himself (Ex. xix. 4-6); in the New Testament, those in 
 union with His Son (John xvii. 23). There is the divine 
 “ election ” ; but electing love, one comes to see, is never 
 election to the exclusion of others, but election with a 
 view to the future larger blessing of others (e.g., Gen. xii. 
 i-3)- 
 
 34 
 
Ill 
 
 The Trinity of God 
 The Divine Purpose 
 

 
The Trinity of God 
 The Divine Purpose 
 
 F ROM the love of God, which is the highest point 
 reached in the consideration of the divine 
 attributes, the transition is most easily made to 
 the mysterious subject of the divine Trinity. For love, 
 as of the eternal nature of God, can hardly, as has 
 already been pointed out, subsist save through some form 
 of personal distinction in the divine Being. Love is not 
 the attribute of a solitary personality. It implies an 
 object—some one who is loved. Just as Fatherhood 
 was seen to imply Sonship, so love in God—if love is of 
 His essence—implies a relation to Another, who is also 
 God. The defect of Unitarianism is that, in default of 
 such a conception, it is compelled to lay the accent on 
 God’s power , and to regard love as contingent for its 
 exercise on the existence of a world. The full Christian 
 view gives the warmer, more satisfying conception of 
 God as a Being who holds within Himself the distinction 
 necessary for an eternal movement of Life, Thought, 
 and Love, expressed in the threefold name of Father, 
 Son, and Holy Spirit. 
 
 I. 
 
 God is triune. It is this great truth, yet wondrous 
 mystery of the Being of God, we are now to consider. 
 Let us see, first, how we arrive at this idea or notion 
 
 37 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 of God as Trinity. Here the first thing to be affirmed is 
 that the divine Trinity, while meeting the need of a 
 complete spiritual view of God, is yet essentially a doctrine 
 of revelation. I mean by this that it is not a doctrine 
 which would have been known, or which we could have 
 put forth with confidence, on grounds of reason alone, 
 but one which first comes to light in the course of God’s 
 historical Self-revelation. The contrary of this is often 
 maintained. You will find brilliant books in which the 
 idea is advocated that the whole notion of the Trinity 
 comes to us from Greek philosophy, or other foreign 
 sources. Now I do not mean that philosophy, or 
 rational thought, has no points of contact with this 
 doctrine. It is indeed a most instructive fact—not one 
 which injures our faith, but which manifestly strengthens 
 and corroborates it—that, in all ages, whenever men 
 have set themselves seriously to think out their idea of 
 God, they have found themselves driven, on philosophic 
 grounds, to abandon the idea of bare unity in God, and 
 to introduce the thought of living movement and of self¬ 
 distinction into their conception. It was so in ancient 
 Platonism; it was so in mediaeval Mysticism ; it has 
 been so in modern systems. 
 
 Nevertheless, it was certainly not from philosophy that 
 the Biblical writers, or the early Church, got this 
 doctrine, any more than they got from it the idea of God 
 Himself. The doctrine of the Trinity is, in truth, got 
 by induction from the facts of the Christian revelation, 
 and aims simply at gathering up and correctly expressing 
 what is involved in these facts as regards the nature of 
 God ; just as in any other sphere of knowledge we arrive 
 at general truths by inductions in that sphere. Take, 
 e.g., the knowledge which each one possesses of the 
 faculties of his own mind. You know in consciousness 
 that the mind—the self—is one and indivisible; yet it 
 
 38 
 
The Trinity of God 
 
 subsists in a plurality of powers and activities, which 
 you discover, distinguish, and name, from your observa¬ 
 tion of them. Or take such a fact in physical science as 
 magnetism. You know—what you could never learn by 
 a priori reasoning—that every magnet has a north and 
 a south pole. How do you get that knowledge ? By 
 observation and induction from the facts of magnetism 
 presented to you. How, then, do I know that God is 
 Triune ? Not by metaphysical reasoning, but by 
 induction from the facts of God’s revelation of Himself 
 in the Old and New Testaments, specially in the Gospel 
 of redemption. 
 
 Redemption, as the Scripture reveals it, has three great 
 Fountain-heads —each divine—Father, Son, and Holy 
 Spirit; and these three are One God. In illustration of 
 this inductive method, note how the Apostle John rose 
 to the conviction of the identity of the historical Jesus 
 with that “ Word ” which was in the beginning with 
 God, and was God (John i. i). Was it by abstract 
 reasoning, or learning in the school of Philo? No; it 
 was, as John himself emphasizes, from what he had him¬ 
 self seen and heard of Jesus in His historical manifesta¬ 
 tion : “ We beheld His glory; glory of the Only-begotten 
 of the Father,” &c. (John i. 14; 1 John i. 3). 
 
 II. 
 
 The doctrine, then, is obtained by observing and 
 collating what, is declared in Scripture, and discovered 
 in the process of human salvation, regarding these divine 
 Persons. 
 
 1. In proceeding to more special proof of this doctrine 
 we naturally turn, first, to the well-known Trinitarian 
 formula in the direction for Baptism, in Matt, xxviii. 19. 
 This is the cardinal text on the subject: “ Baptizing 
 them info the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
 
 59 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 of the Holy Ghost.” The passage is the more interest¬ 
 ing that it occurs, not in St. John, or in the Epistles, but 
 in one of the Synoptic Gospels, and is put into the mouth 
 of the Lord Himself, as part of His last solemn com¬ 
 mission to His disciples. 
 
 Observe then carefully, (i), on this subject, that it is 
 not three names into which disciples are to be baptised— 
 not into the name of the Father, and into the name of 
 the Son, and into the name of the Holy Spirit—but one 
 name , which is threefold ; the one “ name ” of the Father 
 and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It has to be 
 borne in mind what was before said of the “ name ” 
 of God in the Bible ; that it is not a mere vocable, but 
 is always an expression of some aspect of God’s nature. 
 The single, yet threefold, name into which we are 
 baptised is expressive therefore of what is most distinctive 
 in the Christian revelation of God. 
 
 If we look further into this formula, which, I think, 
 goes to the root of the matter, we find a great deal more 
 regarding this mystery of the divine nature. 
 
 (2) For example, the Father in this formula is divine. 
 No one doubts that. Few will deny either that the 
 Spirit is divine. There is discussion about the Personality 
 of the Holy Spirit, but not much about His divinity. 
 Must it not, then, in simple consistency, be held that 
 the second member in this triune circle, namely, the Son, 
 also is divine ? Suppose another name put into the 
 formula, and it be read: “ Baptising them into the 
 name of the Father, and of Isaiah (or Paul, or John), 
 and of the Holy Spirit,” how utterly incongruous we 
 should feel it to be. But we do not feel this incongruity 
 when the name of the Son is inserted. Why ? Because 
 our faith, instructed by the Scriptures, regards Jesus, 
 the Son, as divine. Otherwise He would have no right 
 to a place in this formula. The Father is the Father of 
 
 40 
 
The Trinity of God 
 
 the Son ; the Son is the Son of the Father. Both, in the 
 nature of the case, are divine. 
 
 (3) I have said that few deny the divinity of the Holy 
 Spirit. But many question His Personality. The Spirit 
 is, it is often said, not a Person, but an influence. But 
 look at the formula once more. The Father plainly is 
 Personal, is He not ? The Son also undoubtedly is 
 Personal. Must we not, therefore, in all fair reasoning, 
 hold that the third member in this sacred circle—the 
 Holy Spirit—is likewise Personal. Else again the formula 
 would lose its consistency. 
 
 As a result we have a triple distinction in the unity of 
 the Godhead—each member conceived as divine, each as 
 Personal. 
 
 2. It might readily be shown that the same doctrine 
 of a threefold distinction of Father, Son, and Holy 
 Spirit, in the unity of the Godhead, underlies the teach¬ 
 ing of the whole New Testament. Everywhere in the 
 New Testament is the recognition of three great Principals, 
 or Agents, in the work of human salvation, called by 
 these three names. The baptismal formula just con¬ 
 sidered is one illustration. Another is found in the 
 familiar Apostolic benediction in 2 Cor. xiii. 14: “ The 
 grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, 
 and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.” 
 Here, as in the former case, we have mention made of 
 three co-ordinate Sources of salvation—the name of 
 Christ being even put first—and we have only again to 
 apply the test we applied to the baptismal formula, and 
 suppose a man’s name—Paul’s or John’s—inserted 
 instead of Christ’s, to see how incongruous and false it 
 would be. 
 
 Other passages of the same order in the New Testament 
 are 1 Cor. xii. 4-6 : “ Diversities of gifts, but the same 
 Spirit . . . Diversities of ministrations, but the 
 
 4 1 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 same Lord, . . . Diversities of workings, but the 
 
 same God ” (cf. Eph. iv. 4-6) ; 1 Pet. i. 2 : “ According 
 to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctifica¬ 
 tion of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the 
 blood of Jesus Christ ” ; Rev. i. 4, 5 : “ From Him who 
 is, and who was, and who is to come ; and from the seven 
 Spirits that are before His throne; and from Jesus 
 Christ,” &c. Here the Spirit, elsewhere spoken of as 
 single (Ch. ii. 7, 11, 17, &c.), and united with the Father 
 and Christ as the source of “ grace and peace,” is 
 symbolised as sevenfold in manifestation. 
 
 In a very large number of other New Testament 
 passages it is instructive to notice how closely the Father 
 and Jesus Christ are bound together as conjoint sources of 
 blessing. Thus, in the constant greeting of the Epistles : 
 “ Grace to you and peace, from God the Father and the 
 Lord Jesus Christ ” (Rom. i. 7, and generally). This, 
 again, is inconceivable, if Christ be not regarded as in 
 nature divine. The direct proofs of Christ’s own divinity 
 in the Gospels and Epistles are here in place, but 
 will better be considered in connection with Christ’s 
 Person. 
 
 3. If this, now, is the full Christian idea of God, it is 
 not unreasonable to expect that at least anticipatory 
 indications of the doctrine will be found all along the line 
 of revelation? It may be that occasionally theologians 
 have tried to read too much New Testament doctrine into 
 the Old Testament. But if God, as we believe, is really 
 triune—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—it is surely im¬ 
 possible that some preludings of this will not be manifest 
 in His earlier revelations. Such preludings we actually 
 find. 
 
 (1) There is, as already stated, the name Elohim 
 itself—a name which belongs absolutely to the Old 
 Testament. Plural in form, and used, as was seen, with 
 
 43 
 
The Trinity of God 
 
 a singular verb, the name expresses at least that God is 
 not simple unity, but has fulness of life in Himself (a 
 fact which itself implies differentiation and distinction). 
 Connected with this is the idea of Self-converse in God, as 
 in the narrative of the Creation : “ Let us make man in 
 our image,” &c. (Gen. i. 26; cf. iii. 22 ; Is. vi. 9). 
 
 (2) There is, again, as one of the most remarkable 
 things in the earliest or patriarchal age, that singular 
 form of revelation in the Angel of God or Angel of Jehovah. 
 Again and again in the earlier books you have appear¬ 
 ances of the Angel of Jehovah, and revelations made 
 through Him ; and the peculiarity of the Angel is that, 
 while distinguishing Himself from Jehovah, He is yet, 
 again, in some mysterious way, identified with Jehovah, 
 speaks in His name, nay, is declared to be Jehovah Him¬ 
 self. Thus, in connection with Hagar, Gen. xvi. 7, 12 ; 
 with Abraham, Gen. xxii. 11-18; with Moses, Ex. iii. 3-6, 
 &c., Jehovah’s “name” (nature) is in the Angel (Ex. xxiii. 
 21). Most writers in the Church, from Justin Martyr 
 and Tertullian down, have seen in these appearances of 
 the Angel a forecast—a pre-revelation—of that distinc¬ 
 tion of God and His “ Word” which comes to light in 
 the New Testament. 
 
 (3) We have, yet again, in the Old Testament, the 
 ideas of the Word and of the Wisdom of God (cf. Prov. 
 viii. 22 Jf .)—ideas developed in the later Jewish schools 
 into the doctrine of the “ Memra,” or Word of God, 
 and in the Alexandrian school (Philo) into the doctrine 
 of the “ Logos,” both providential preparations for the 
 New Testament doctrine (cf. Westcott’s Introd. to the 
 Study of the Gospels , pp. 147-152). 
 
 (4) Lastly, there is the abundant Old Testament teach¬ 
 ing on the Spirit of God. The Spirit is no mere forth- 
 putting of the power or energy of God, but is an active, 
 abiding principle in God, which, as revelation goes on, has 
 
 43 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 attributed to it more or less clearly a Personal character 
 (Is. xl. 13 ; xlviii. 16). 
 
 Here, then, already are outlined in no indistinct way 
 the leading features of the New Testament doctrine of 
 God as Father, Son, and Spirit. 
 
 III. 
 
 There is, of course, a great deal that one would like 
 to say on this doctrine of the Trinity considered in 
 itself—difficulties that have been raised regarding it, 
 questions that arise out of it—but I only take up one 
 or two of the points that lie nearest the surface. 
 
 1. I dare say, for one thing, there is a feeling in many 
 minds—it has often been expressed—to the effect that, 
 even if the doctrine of the Trinity be true, it is not a very 
 vital or practical doctrine. It is something subtle, so it is 
 said, something speculative, something difficult to under¬ 
 stand—something, therefore, which belongs to the theory 
 of religion rather than to vital Christian faith. So the 
 plain Christian is exhorted to set aside this doctrine, and 
 confine himself to the simple practicalities of the Christian 
 religion. 
 
 Now, I wish to say strongly that I take this to imply 
 an utter misunderstanding of the real state of the case. 
 It is this feeling, I know, which has given rise historically 
 to a great deal of what we call Unitarianism. But it 
 seems to rest, nevertheless, on a serious misconception. 
 
 First of all, this doctrine, as I regard it, is not un¬ 
 important ,, but goes down, as I tried to show before, to 
 the very foundations of our Christian faith. If you take 
 it away, tamper with it, put it aside, you will speedily 
 find that you have altered your conception of Christianity, 
 and that there is not a doctrine in the Christian system 
 but suffers in consequence. But, apart from this, I should 
 like to say, second , that in my judgment, and, I believe, 
 
 44 
 
The Trinity of God 
 
 in that of those who have gone most deeply into this 
 subject, the doctrine of the Trinity, so far from being a 
 bare speculative doctrine, is one of the utmost practical 
 value in our Christian thinking. Of so great value is it 
 that, if anyone once comes to realise what is involved in 
 it, he will never again part with it, or be able to feel that 
 he has the right conception of God without it. There is 
 really no help to the understanding in conceiving of God, 
 as the Unitarian does, as simple, undifferentiated unity; 
 while there is much aid in thinking of God as, in His 
 own eternal Being, at once Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 
 
 To illustrate this, suppose the other view to be taken, 
 and the idea or doctrine of the Trinity in God to be 
 set aside. See what follows. For one thing, ask how, in 
 that case, you must conceive of God Himself. I spoke 
 before of the relation of this doctrine to the love of God. 
 It seems plain that, if this doctrine is rejected, you have 
 no alternative but to conceive of God as subsisting 
 through the eternal ages before the creation of the world 
 as a vast solitary Ego , with no one to love, no one to have 
 communion with, no possibility of fellowship, or Father¬ 
 hood, or social affection of any kind. For love, as was 
 said earlier, in the nature of the case, involves an object 
 of love. Communion implies those between whom there 
 is communion. So that, if you take away some such 
 distinction in God as we associate with the Trinity, you 
 take away from Him, apart from the world, and before 
 the world, the possibility of Fatherhood and love. 
 
 You say, perhaps, that these things are there at least 
 as potentialities, or possibilities, in God, to be brought 
 into exercise when moral beings are created. You say 
 that God had in His eternal mind at least the purpose of 
 creating the world—of calling into existence the universe, 
 angels, men—so, looking forward, God could see myriads 
 of objects of His Fatherly love and care. Yes, but 
 
 45 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 does this meet the difficulty about Fatherhood and love 
 in God’s own nature ? Surely not. First of all, it 
 means, does it not, that God is made actually dependent 
 on His own world for being Father, for being love, for 
 having fellowship and communion ? It is not that God 
 is love in Himself, and then out of that love creates a 
 world. For love in His eternal essence He cannot be if 
 He is an eternally solitary Being. 
 
 But more than this. How is it supposed possible for 
 God to find an adequate object for His affections and 
 fellowship in those finite spirits He has made, or pur¬ 
 poses to make ? We know very well that, in our own 
 human love, any soul that has depth in it needs a soul 
 of kindred depth, in order that there may be a complete 
 relation of love. I go even further. Is there any human 
 soul that can find itself satisfied with the love of any 
 finite being, or with all finite love taken together ? Is it 
 not true of every one of us—do we not affirm it in our 
 every-day teaching and preaching—that our souls can only 
 find their complete rest in the infinite God, in an infinite 
 love ? You remember Augustine’s famous saying : “ O 
 God, Thou has made us for Thyself, and our souls are ever 
 restless till they rest in Thee.” Our finite souls need an 
 infinite Object to rest in. How, then, is God, the Infinite 
 One, Himself to find an object for His Fatherly love, 
 commensurate with His infinitude, in our finite souls ? 
 Where is He to find that Other—that Fellow to Himself 
 —who shall be the perfect image of Himself, and the 
 absolutely satisfying Object of His love ? Here it is that 
 the great truth of the Trinity comes in—the truth that 
 God, in His own eternal being, in His own eternal life, is 
 not that absolutely solitary One we have been supposing ; 
 but that, through this Self-distinction in His nature—the 
 eternal Son in the bosom of the Father, and, with the 
 Father and the Son, the Eternal Spirit, there is a life of 
 
 46 
 
The Trinity of God 
 
 love and fellowship, a reciprocal communion in God 
 Himself. 
 
 You begin to see, I trust, how deep-reaching this 
 doctrine of the Trinity is. It teaches us, as I said at 
 the first, that it is not in the relation of God to the 
 world and man, but in the relation to the Eternal Son, 
 that the spring of Fatherhood is found in the heart of 
 God. So Fatherhood comes to be of the essence of God, 
 which it could not be in any other way. 
 
 2. There is a difficulty, I well know, which presses 
 on many minds, in the use of the word “ Person ” to 
 describe this distinction in the nature of God. We 
 speak of “three Persons in the Godhead,” but the 
 imperfection of this word “ Person ” has always been 
 felt. “ Person ” with us means a separate individual; 
 in God it denotes a distinction within the divine nature 
 itself, comparable to no other. To suppose the 
 “ Persons ” of the Godhead to be actually distinct 
 individuals would be to fall into the form of error called 
 “Tritheism.” The word “ Person” is not found in the 
 Nicene Creed. Yet it is difficult to find a better word 
 to express the thought that the distinctions in the God¬ 
 head are not simply, as it is phrased, “modal ” (which is 
 the error called “ Sabellianism ”), but imply a true 
 distinction of self-consciousness, and will, and love— 
 and I and Thou and He—in the divine nature, Father, 
 Son, and Spirit being each Self-conscious centres of 
 knowledge, will, and love. If this real distinction, 
 implied in all that is said of Son and Spirit in the 
 Scriptures, is not to be lost hold of, it would seem that 
 the word Person, or some synonym, cannot be avoided 
 to express it. 
 
 In the inner relations of these divine “ Persons ” to one 
 another there is no doubt much that is mysterious; 
 yet enough is revealed regarding Them to enable us to 
 
 47 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 distinguish them with propriety. The Father, in the 
 language of the old theologians, is the Fons Deitatis — 
 the original Fountain-Head or principle of the Godhead; 
 therefore in Scripture is frequently called “ God ” 
 absolutely (e.g., John i. i; xvii. 3 ; 2 Cor. xiii. 14). The 
 Son is the eternal “ Image ” of the Father (Col. i. 15)— 
 the “Brightness of His Glory” (Heb. i. 3)—the 
 principle of revelation in creation, providence, and 
 redemption; hence called the “ Logos ” or “Word” of 
 God (John i. 1, 2). The Spirit is the principle of Self- 
 knowledge in the Godhead (1 Cor. ii. 10, 11), the Source 
 of divine energies and of all gracious and holy influences ; 
 hence His peculiar name, “ Holy Spirit.” In the language 
 of theology, the Son is spoken of as “ begotten ” ( cf . John 
 i. 16: “ The only-begotten Son ”), this with the view, 
 first, of distinguishing the mode of His origin from 
 “ creation” (the Son Himself is the Creator of all, John 
 i. 2), and, next, of indicating that He is of the Father’s 
 own substance—“very God of very God”; and the 
 Spirit is described as “ proceeding ” from the Father 
 and the Son (John xv. 26)—“ breathed forth,” as the 
 name indicates. But here we enter a region in which, 
 confessedly, language is but a symbol to express that 
 which in its nature is ineffable. “ Not that it may be 
 spoken,” said Augustine, “ but that it may not be left 
 unspoken.” 
 
 IV. 
 
 From this profound subject of the divine Trinity I 
 pass now to speak of the Purpose of God, and of the 
 execution of that purpose in creation and providence. 
 It is in this doctrine of the divine purpose that the 
 transition is made from what God is in Himself to what 
 He is in relation to the world. 
 
 48 
 
The Trinity of God 
 
 Let no one be alarmed when mention is made of the 
 divine purpose. If I touch on this high and difficult 
 theme, it is not with the object of entering into metaphy¬ 
 sical discussions upon the “ Decrees,” or of bringing up 
 the points of controversy between one Christian sect 
 and another, as between Calvinists and Arminians. 
 My intention is to confine myself to those broad,. 
 basal affirmations which everyone, I am sure, who under¬ 
 stands the teaching of Scripture must hold fast by, and 
 to try to show how direct is their bearing on our Christian 
 thought and life. 
 
 When we say with Scripture that God has a “ purpose ” 
 —an eternal purpose ; in Paul’s language, “ the purpose of 
 Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will ” 
 (Eph. i. g, n), we mean simply that God has a plan — 
 an eternal plan—which He carries out in His creation 
 and in His providence; and this, so far from being a 
 far-off, metaphysical thing, is in truth the rockfast 
 foundation of all our Christian thinking about God in 
 His relation to the world. “ The counsel of the Lord 
 standeth for ever, the thoughts of Plis heart to all 
 generations ” (Ps. xxxiii. n). 
 
 That in this general sense God has a “plan” in all 
 His acting, few, I think, will be disposed to dispute. If 
 we attribute to God, as all Christians must, self-conscious 
 Personality, and infinite knowledge and wisdom, this 
 already implies, (i) that in all that He does God does 
 not act blindly, but acts with intelligence and motive ; and 
 (2) that in all that God does He does not act arbitrarily, 
 but on settled principles of wisdom and goodness. In¬ 
 telligent action is action governed by the idea of an end, 
 and wisdom, in a good and holy Being, manifests itself 
 in the choosing of the best ends, and of the best means 
 to attain these ends. Thus far there will be general 
 agreement. God’s plan, in the nature of the case, must 
 
 49 E 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 be eternal, and does not alter. His purpose, formed in 
 eternity, He executes in time. 
 
 A more difficult question arises when we ask, What is 
 the end which God has in view in this plan of His, or in 
 the purpose which He executes in time ? The manner of 
 its execution, and its relation to human freedom, we leave 
 over to the doctrine of providence. But the question of 
 the end may be glanced at here. 
 
 If we raise this question, What is God’s great last end 
 in His creation and in His providence ? I think that, on 
 the largest scale, we can only say with the older writers 
 that it must be the manifestation of His moral attributes 
 in their highest possible exercise, or, as it was wont to be 
 put, His own glory. So far we may go with the saintly 
 Jonathan Edwards in his famous Dissertation on “ God’s 
 Last End in Creation,” and say that His own glory is 
 the end. But this does not carry us far enough. What 
 God’s end is, is necessarily determined by His character. 
 So we go on to ask: What is it in the Christian revelation 
 which we are taught to regard as of the essence of God’s 
 character ? And here the note comes back to us—rings 
 out from the whole revelation of God in Christ—that the 
 essence of God’s character consists in love. “ God is 
 love,” says John (i John iv. 8, 16). This is the highest 
 declaration the Bible ever makes about God. We there¬ 
 fore come to this, that God’s plan or purpose, from the 
 Bible point of view, must be regarded as determined by 
 God’s love. It must be regarded as framed to carry out 
 in the highest and fullest possible way the ends of love; 
 and we do well in all our inquiries never to lose hold of 
 this as our guiding clue. 
 
 This evidently is a position which requires to be stated 
 with care to safeguard it against abuse. It is necessary 
 to remember that what we call “ love ” in God is not mere 
 good nature. It is not a soft, yielding benevolence, but is 
 
 50 
 
The Trinity of God 
 
 always viewed in Scripture as in harmony with every other 
 attribute in God’s character. It is viewed as in consistency 
 with holiness, with righteousness, with truth ; with all 
 God’s other perfections. What is to be said is that love 
 in God defines the end which all these other attributes 
 are engaged to carry through to its fullest extent. 
 
 To illustrate: there is judgment in God; wrath in 
 God. Any theology that tries to cut out the idea of 
 wrath in God will soon find itself in a very limp con¬ 
 dition. There is judgment in God—wrath awful and 
 terrible (Rom. i. 18 ; ii. 8, 9, &c.)—but then judgment and 
 wrath are never put forth in the Bible as something that 
 God delights in on its own account. Judgment, the Bible 
 tells us, is God’s “strange work” (Is. xxviii. 21). If the 
 sinner dies in his sins, it is not because God desires that 
 he should die. God has no pleasure in the death of the 
 wicked, but rather that he should return from his way, 
 and live (Ez. xviii. 23). Love, therefore, is still God’s 
 end, and His purpose, if we could see it in its entirety, is 
 subservient to the ends of love. 
 
 5i 
 

IV 
 
 Creation and Providence 
 
I 
 
 
Creation and Providence 
 
 I T was stated under last head that the transition from 
 the doctrine of God to that of the world is given in 
 the idea of the divine Purpose, and a little was said 
 on what the purpose of God means, and of love as 
 defining the end of God’s purpose. The nature of the 
 purpose of God, however, is best seen by observing it in 
 its execution, and the two spheres in which that execu¬ 
 tion is to be traced are Creation and Providence. 
 
 I. 
 
 I pass then to speak of Creation, as the first way in 
 which the purpose of God is realised. 
 
 I do not need to delay long on what is meant by the 
 word creation. By this term is simply signified that all 
 things that are in heaven and in earth, “ things visible 
 and things invisible” (Col. i. 16), have been brought into 
 being by a free act of God’s wisdom and almighty power, 
 and that they continue to subsist in Him (Acts xvii. 28 ; 
 cf. Col. i. 17), and to be dependent on Him for their 
 existence (cf. Heb. i. 2). This is a doctrine which runs 
 through all Scripture; is, indeed, as will be shown 
 immediately, peculiar to it. It is not the first chapter 
 of Genesis only which affirms this doctrine. It is found 
 from the first page of the Bible to its last. The first 
 words of Scripture are : “ In the beginning God created 
 the heavens and the earth ” (Gen. i. 1) ; among its last 
 
 55 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 are: “ Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy 
 will they were, and were created” (Rev. iv. n). 
 
 In strictness the above definition includes what 
 theology would call “ conservation” as well as creation; 
 but in the large sense in which I use the term, “ creation ” 
 is meant to cover both God’s initial act in calling 
 things into existence, and His preserving power in 
 sustaining them in existence after they are created. 
 The two ideas are inseparably connected. Things do 
 not get out of God’s hands after they have been created, 
 or ever attain an independent existence. This is the 
 error of Deism. God cannot get rid of His world in 
 this way. The world is sustained and preserved by 
 Him ; and this, in a manner, also is, as it has been 
 phrased, “ a continual creation.” 
 
 Here, however, the question may be raised: “ After 
 all, does it very much matter how the world has come 
 into being, now that it is here ? Has religion any real 
 interest in such a doctrine as creation—in the Bible 
 doctrine, or in any other theory of the origin of the 
 world ? ” The answer must be “ Yes ” ; religion has a 
 very deep stake —one of the deepest stakes—in this 
 doctrine of creation. It is always a safe thing to assume 
 that there is no great doctrine of Scripture in which 
 religion has not a deep and vital interest. Let no one be 
 tempted to make light of any one of these doctrines, or 
 to barter them away on the ground that they are of no 
 great importance. What is the interest of religion in 
 this doctrine of creation ? It is that faith requires above 
 all things the assurance that everything in the world— 
 in the universe—is absolutely under the power and 
 control <pf God ; and you cannot have this assurance 
 unless on the view which the Bible gives, that every¬ 
 thing has been brought into being by God, and depends 
 on Him for its continuance. 
 
 56 
 
Creation and Providence 
 
 Suppose it were otherwise. Suppose there was some¬ 
 thing in this world which God did not create—some 
 eternal matter , for instance, as theorists have imagined, 
 which existed independently of God, and lay outside of 
 His power. Then see what follows. Here is something 
 which is uncreated, which has existed from eternity, 
 which exists by a necessity of its own nature, which 
 exists by as good a right as God Himself—something, 
 therefore, over which God has no control. You have 
 this resisting, refractory element in the world, and you 
 have no guarantee that God’s purpose will not be 
 thwarted, defeated, or, at any rate, limited and broken, by 
 it. Where the doctrine of creation comes in is to assure 
 us that there is nothing of this kind in the whole universe. 
 Everything that exists, seen and unseen, is there, 
 because God has brought it into being ; and God has the 
 most absolute control of that which He has created. 
 Human wills can resist God; but it is He who has 
 endowed them with their freedom, and He prescribes the 
 limits within which they are permitted to exercise it. 
 Because of this faith can look confidently up and say: 
 “ My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and 
 earth ” (Ps. cxxi. 2). 
 
 Faith, therefore, it will be seen, has a vital stake in 
 this doctrine of creation. It knows that all things are 
 at God's disposal ; that there is nothing outside the sphere 
 of His agency; that everything is at His command, to 
 be used for the execution of His will. 
 
 The New Testament carries this doctrine still further. 
 You remember how much stress is laid in the New 
 Testament on the fact that Jesus Christ, our Lord, had 
 His part in the work of creation. “ In Him were all 
 things created ... In Him all things consist,” or 
 hold together (Col. i. 16, 17) : He is the beginning—the 
 origin and principle—of creation, and He is its end 
 
 57 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 (“ Through Him ”—“ Unto Him ” ; cf. John i. 2 ; Col. i. 
 15-17; Heb. i. 2, 10; Rev. iii. 14, &c.). Christ had to 
 do therefore, with the creation; this means that the 
 created world is in the hands of our Saviour as well as of 
 our Father. 
 
 II. 
 
 The next thing I wish to say about this doctrine is 
 that the Bible doctrine of creation is an absolutely unique 
 doctrine. It is a doctrine which belongs to the religion of 
 the Bible, and to no other religion in the world. It is 
 important to bring out this uniqueness of the doctrines of 
 the Bible. I do not think it is commonly brought out 
 with half the emphasis it ought to be. If it were 
 brought out more, there would be far less difficulty and 
 trouble in many people’s minds ; for they would see in 
 every one of these doctrines the signature of God Him¬ 
 self, a uniqueness that points to a divine origin. This 
 is true of the doctrine of creation as well as of every 
 other. You take up books on other religions, and read a 
 great deal in them about creation. You take up the old 
 Babylonian epic of creation, and you read there of 
 Merodach the Creator. You find the word “ Creator ” 
 scattered over the Babylonian hymns. But in these it 
 means something very different from what it does in the 
 Bible story. In the Babylonian epic the poem begins, 
 in fact, with an account of the origin of the gods, or of 
 the oldest of them, from the chaotic deep. You see you 
 are in a totally different region from what you are in the 
 Bible. 
 
 It is the same with other systems of religion and with 
 philosophic theories. In these systems and theories you 
 have a great variety of speculations. The world is 
 viewed either as eternal, which is the Atheistic view ; or 
 is made out of an eternally pre-existing matter which God 
 
 ‘ 58 
 
Creation and Providence 
 
 works up into form,*' which is the Platonic view ; or you 
 find the idea of two principles —a good principle and an 
 evil principle—contending together (Dualism), which is 
 the old Zoroastrian or Parsic view. The Zoroastrian set 
 down all that was bad and harmful in the world to the 
 evil principle, and credited all the good in the world to 
 the good principle ; and this strife is ever going on. It 
 was overlooked that good and evil in nature are but 
 relative terms (e.g., fire burns and cooks our food ; the 
 sun fructifies, but also scorches), and that an eternal 
 principle which is only evil is not an ethical principle in 
 the proper sense at all : is hardly different from a baneful 
 nature-force. Then, again, there are the many forms of 
 theory already spoken of (Pantheistic) in which there is 
 a confounding of the world with God. The world is 
 simply a manifestation of God. God is the “ world- 
 soul,” or the world is regarded as proceeding from God 
 by a kind of evolutionary process or logical necessity— 
 all things flowing from the nature of God, to use a figure 
 of Spinoza’s, with the same necessity as the properties 
 of a triangle flow from the nature of the triangle. 
 
 Over against all these doctrines and theories you find 
 in the world about the origin of things—many of them 
 having their recrudescence in our own day—stands in its 
 grand simplicity the doctrine of the Bible. Many are 
 the crude speculations that crop up from time to time 
 in regard to nature and creation. One of the most 
 marvellous in recent years is that which bears the name 
 of “ Christian Science,” Though it is difficult for most 
 people to see either Christianity or science in it. What 
 one does discover, in regard to the doctrine I am dealing 
 with, is that this world which the Bible speaks of as the 
 creation of God is, on the new theory, an illusion of our 
 “ mortal mind,” whatever precisely that may be. I think 
 it is a very “ mortal mind ” indeed from which that idea 
 
 59 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 came. It is very strange, is it dot, that human beings 
 should happen to be all affected by this illusion alike ; 
 and that, as science shows, the world should have been 
 there for long ages before there was any “ mortal mind ” 
 to think of it! But in regard to all these theories which 
 have been named, it is unwise to think of them as now 
 outside of practical range. They are just the kind of 
 things that are being served up under new names, though 
 in reality they are as old as the hills ; only the old-time 
 people did not know better, whereas we ought to know 
 better with our Bibles in our hands. 
 
 The doctrine of the Bible, then, I repeat, stands out 
 amidst all these doctrines as something quite different 
 and absolutely unique. As against these theories the 
 Bible declares :— 
 
 1. That the world is not eternal, but had a beginning 
 in time. This truth is becoming continually the more 
 evident the more we grow to understand what the 
 world is. Science itself has introduced a word to 
 express the idea that the world is in the position of a 
 clock running down—constantly working off its energy. 
 It calls it “entropy.” There will comean end to the 
 world. Similarly, when you go backwards, you come to 
 a beginning—a nebulous fire-mist, or something of the 
 kind, the origin of which science cannot explain. Where 
 does the fire-mist, or its atomic constituents, come from ? 
 Only creation can give the answer. 
 
 2. Then the world is distinct from God, not in the 
 sense that the world is not from God, and that His 
 presence and power are not everywhere manifested in it 
 —that all the life and power in it are not derived from 
 Him (immanence)—but in the sense that the world is 
 still not God, but is the product of His free creative act, 
 distinguished by God from Himself in the very act of 
 creating it. This is the line which separates a true 
 
 60 
 
Creation and Providence 
 
 Theism from Pantheism. God is not simply the life, or 
 soul, or inner law of the world, but has His own 
 eternally-complete life above the world, and in in¬ 
 dependence of it (transcendence). He is “ over all,” as 
 well as “ through all, and in all” (Eph. iv. 6). 
 
 3. It follows that this world is not the product of 
 necessity —of any necessary emanation or logical unfolding 
 of God’s Being—but is the result of a free act of Plis 
 wisdom and power : something which exists because He 
 chose for ends of holiness and love to call it into exist¬ 
 ence. It need not be added that the only power adequate 
 to such a work is Almighty power—omnipotence. 
 
 4. Last of all, the doctrine teaches that the matter 
 as well as the form of the world is the creation of God. 
 There is nothing left outside of God’s creative power. 
 The first verse of Genesis gives the deepest philosophy 
 of the whole subject: “ In the beginning God created 
 the heavens and the earth.” This is what is meant 
 when it is said that God made all things “ out of 
 nothing.” The expression has sometimes been ridiculed, 
 as if meant that “ nothing ” was a kind of stuff out of 
 which God shaped the world. The youngest Sunday- 
 school child is not so foolish as to be unaware that 
 that this is not the meaning intended. What the 
 expression means is simply that God brought this world 
 into being where there was no world before; where 
 nothing before existed. As the writer to the Hebrews 
 says: “The worlds have been framed by the word of 
 God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of 
 things which appear ” (Heb. xi. 3 ; cf. Ps. xxxiii. 6). 
 
 III. 
 
 It will not be expected that I should enter at length 
 here into the disputed questions as to the relation 
 of the Biblical accounts of creation to modern science , 
 
 61 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 but I may at least indicate what I take to be the 
 right point of view in these matters. There are 
 those who profess to make light of the first chapter of 
 Genesis. I do not. The man who makes light of the 
 first chapter of Genesis does not very well know about 
 what he speaks. I grant at once that it is no part of the 
 function of Biblical revelation to anticipate the dis¬ 
 coveries of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—to 
 tell us beforehand— e.g., what geology has brought to 
 light regarding the age of the earth, or the precise 
 order of its formations. When the Bible does speak of 
 these things, or describes natural phenomena, it does so 
 in plain, popular language, just as we ourselves do every 
 day in speaking of the sun’s rising and setting. What the 
 Bible does is not to anticipate the discoveries of later 
 ages, but to tell us about the relation of God to the 
 world, and to convey those great truths of its origin and 
 ordering which are necessary as the basis of a true 
 religious view of the world, no matter to what stage 
 knowledge or science may attain. When, accordingly, 
 we look at the great ideas which the first chapter of 
 Genesis is intended to teach—still more, when we com¬ 
 pare them with the fantastic legends found in other 
 religions—we can have little difficulty in seeing, I think, 
 that they have their origin in that Spirit of revelation 
 which was in Israel, and in no lower source. 
 
 What are these great ideas which stand in the forefront 
 of this record in Genesis ? 
 
 1. As already said, there is the great truth that there 
 is One sole Creator of the world—God. Put that over 
 against all forms of polytheistic religion, and remember 
 that the world was fidl of polytheism when this chapter 
 was written. 
 
 2. There is the truth that the world is not eternal, but 
 that God in the beginning created it; “ He spake and it 
 
 62 
 
Creation and Providence 
 
 was done; He commanded, and it stood fast ” (Ps. xxxiii. 
 9 -) 
 
 3. It tells us, and this is important, that the world 
 originated, not in a single creative act, but in a series of 
 divine acts; a series ascending higher and higher, and 
 culminating in the creation of man. 
 
 4. It tells us that man was made in God’s image, and 
 unites in himself both nature and spirit; that he is the 
 crown of nature, but at the same time the link between 
 nature and a higher spiritual world—between nature and 
 God. 
 
 Now, take these ideas, and I think it will be granted 
 that not one of them comes into conflict with science : 
 that, on the contrary, where the two spheres touch, they 
 perfectly coincide, and corroborate each other. 
 
 But I venture to go further. I have said that it is not 
 the function of the Genesis chapter to anticipate the 
 discoveries of modern science. But this is not to say 
 that it contradicts them. I do not believe that it does. 
 There is evidence rather of a singular and profound 
 agreement. Take almost any book that has been written 
 on the relation between the first chapter on Genesis and 
 geology—such an old book, e.g., even as Hugh Miller’s 
 Testimony of the Rocks —and, without entering into 
 details, the very fact, it seems to me, that it is possible 
 to present the two series of things, the Biblical and the 
 geological, alongside of each other as is done in these 
 books, and to show so large and marvellous an amount of 
 harmony between them, is of itself an evidence that we 
 are in presence of something wholly unusual. Could the 
 same be done with any other “ cosmogony” or story of 
 creation in existence ? This writer in Genesis has clearly 
 the right point of view, and so true is the insight yielded 
 by the Spirit of revelation into the ascending order of 
 nature, that there is marvellously little in this primitive 
 
 63 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 picture of creation—I take it to be one of the oldest 
 things in the Bible—that is not in harmony with what 
 our own most advanced science teaches. To all time this 
 Genesis picture will remain a wonder , not for its disagree¬ 
 ment with science, but for its marvellous accuracy. With 
 it in his hands, the simplest peasant is wiser than all his 
 teachers on the great subjects of which it treats, if the 
 teachers are those who ignore or despise its lessons. 
 
 There is one question more. Does not this doctrine of 
 creation, it may be said, come at any rate into conflict 
 with the great reigning theory of evolution , particularly 
 in the denial by the latter of what are called “ special 
 creations”? I cannot discuss that subject fully here. 
 But a suggestion or two may be offered. I freely admit 
 that the Biblical doctrine of creation does come into 
 conflict with such a theory of evolution as the late 
 Dr. Darwin promulgated. But science has long come 
 to see that “ Darwinism ” and “ evolution ” are not 
 synonymous terms ; and all down the line leading 
 representatives have taken up a stand against the evo¬ 
 lution of fortuity —the evolution that excludes design, 
 and brings in chance in nature to do the work of 
 mind. It was not long before his death that, at the 
 close of a scientific lecture in London, the late Lord 
 Kelvin, the most eminent scientific man of his time, 
 made the declaration that science did not deny creative 
 power, but affirmed the necessity of an organising and 
 directive intelligence in nature. 
 
 So far, in truth, from the Biblical doctrine coming 
 into conflict with the doctrine of evolution, it seems to 
 me that it furnishes that doctrine with its necessary limits. 
 
 (i) There is the initial limit of origins. No theory of 
 evolution can get over that. However far, as we have 
 already seen, you carry back your process, you come to 
 a point at which you must begin. If it is a fiery, gaseous 
 
 64 
 
Creation and Providence 
 
 cloud you start with, you have to explain your gaseous 
 cloud. If it is atoms you start with, you have to ex¬ 
 plain your atoms. Atoms are not engendered by a 
 process of natural selection. They are there in their 
 countless multiplicity, stamped and fixed with their 
 unchanging characteristics, bearing on them, as Clerk 
 Maxwell said, all the marks of “ manufactured articles.” 
 If you try to get behind atoms to “sub-atoms,” and to 
 electric strains in ether, it is the same thing. How came 
 these wonderful “ strains ” to be there, the equivalents 
 of the old atoms, only infinitely more complicated in 
 their structure ? 
 
 (2) Next, there are the limits imposed by the rise of 
 new kingdoms. Evolution has never yet explained the 
 transition from the inorganic to the organic (non-vital 
 to vital), from the insentient to the sentient, from animal 
 consciousness to human rationality. It is significant that 
 it is just at such points as the original creation of matter, 
 the introduction of animal life, and the creation of man, 
 that the old Hebrew narrator uses the word bara, which 
 expresses the idea of true creation—the production of 
 something new and higher by the direct act of God 
 (Gen. i. 1, 21, 27). 
 
 (3) There is the limit set to evolution by the law of 
 kinds. For evolution is not, after all, a ceaseless flux. 
 Variation is not absolutely indefinite. Its limits are soon 
 reached, and there is a constant tendency to revert to 
 type. There are “ terminal points ” along the different 
 lines beyond which evolution cannot go. The Bible 
 affords the necessary check to error here by its insistence 
 on the creation and propagation of “ kinds ” (Gen. i. 11, 
 12, 21, 24). 
 
 With due recognition of the determinative activity of 
 God in the rise of new kingdoms, or orders of existence, 
 and the production of new types or kinds, there is 
 
 65 F 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 nothing in evolution that need conflict with a doctrine 
 of “ creation,” provided the co-operation of secondary 
 causes is not excluded. 
 
 IV. 
 
 From creation I advance to speak of the providence 
 of God. The world which God has made He also 
 rules. The providence of God extends to everything. 
 Little as well as great is embraced in it. It includes 
 all persons, all events, and all actions. Human free 
 actions, even human crimes, are taken up into it, and 
 overruled for the accomplishment of God’s wise ends. 
 
 That Scripture teaches this consoling doctrine of an 
 all-embracing providence of God hardly needs proof. The 
 passages which affirm it are innumerable. We have 
 general statements, as, “ Whatsoever the Lord pleased, 
 that hath He done in heaven and in earth” (Ps. cxxxv. 
 6) ; “ He made of one every nation of men to dwell on all 
 the face of the earth, having determined their appointed 
 seasons, and the bounds of their habitations ” (Acts xvii. 
 26). And particular declarations, as, “ He healeth the 
 broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. He 
 counteth the number of the stars ; He calleth them all 
 by their names ” (Ps. cxlvii. 3, 4) ; “ A man’s heart 
 deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps” (Ps. 
 cxxxv. 6); “ Not one of them [a sparrow] shall fall to 
 the ground without your Father ” (Matt. x. 29); “ Casting 
 all your anxiety on Him, because He careth for you” 
 (1 Pet. v. 7). Many psalms, chapters, and sections of dis¬ 
 course have providence as their theme, as Ps. civ. (nature), 
 Ps. cxxi. (human life), Prov. xvi. (conduct), Matt. vi. 25- 
 34) (Sermon on the Mount). Generally, this doctrine 
 is the implication of the whole of the Bible, in history, 
 precept, exhortation, warning, threatening. The history 
 of Joseph in the Book of Genesis, with its wonderful 
 
 66 
 
Creation and Providence 
 
 overruling of a long train of events to a specific end, and 
 the often-despised Book of Esther, are conspicuous 
 examples. The crucifixion of Jesus, brought about 
 through the worst passions of men, is an example still 
 more striking and awful. “ Delivered up,” Peter says, 
 “by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ” 
 (Acts ii. 23). “ Gathered together, to do whatsoever Thy 
 
 hand and Thy counsel foreordained to come to pass ” 
 (iv. 28). 
 
 1. Here many questions arise. One point which has 
 often been raised is as to the relation of providence to 
 what we call natural law. There are those who will have 
 it that, while there is what they style a general providence 
 of God, that is, an administration of the world under 
 fixed general laws, there is not, and cannot be, what the 
 Christian speaks of as a special providence, that is, a 
 providence which concerns itself with the details of 
 human life and of history—which cares for the individual, 
 answers his prayers, and seeks his particular good. God, 
 it is held, has placed the world under these general laws, 
 which roll on and grind out their infallible results, 
 beneficent in the main ; but the details must take care 
 of themselves. You, in the details of your life, are at 
 the mercy of these laws. What you can do if you wish 
 to escape harm is to get out of the way of them, or 
 better, to bend them to your advantage. In no case do 
 they bend to you. Many smile when they hear of God 
 answering a man’s prayers. How can He do it ? These 
 laws of His bind His hands, and it is impossible for Him 
 to come down into the details of men’s lives, and help 
 them. On this view, when God has established His 
 laws, His work is done; the details must look after 
 themselves. 
 
 What I wish to say about this is, that I think it is a 
 very poor and superficial view of God which it involves. It 
 
 67 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 is plainly not Christ’s teaching, nor the general teaching 
 of the Bible. There it is constantly assumed that God 
 has all causes and all agencies at His disposal, and that 
 the particular effects which these work out are not of 
 chance or of necessity, but, even in their minutest details, 
 are the results of His wise ordering (Matt. x. 29, 30). And 
 this surely is the truest view to take even philosophically. 
 It is a paltry conception, this theory of a God who looks 
 after the generalities of things, but does not attend to the 
 details. Apply the theory to earthly affairs. Who does not 
 know that any one conducting a business, or managing 
 a public concern, if he acted on these principles, attending 
 to generals, but not looking after details, would soon find 
 himself in a very undesirable position, and would prob¬ 
 ably end in the bankruptcy court ? We have a proverb ; 
 “ Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of 
 themselves.” There is such a thing, no doubt, as being 
 penny-wise and pound-foolish; but it is likewise true that, 
 unless you attend to details, you will not bring out of the 
 whole the result you want. Specially when one reflects 
 that it is often on the so-called little things of life that the 
 greatest consequences in the lives of individuals and the 
 history of nations depend—that the actions of men, and 
 through them the whole after-history of the world, have 
 often been determined by what look like the merest 
 accidents—he will see that the denial of a providence of 
 God in what we regard as the minutice of life is really the 
 denial to God of a world-plan altogether. 
 
 I do not suppose that many who read these pages have 
 the least doubt that God does exercise a continuous and 
 beneficent and omnipotent providence over their lives, and 
 that He does answer their prayers in matters temporal as 
 well as matters spiritual, according to His will. But the 
 question will still be asked: “How is such a special 
 providence possible ? How are these general laws in 
 
 68 
 
Creation and Providence 
 
 nature to be harmonised with such a providence, and 
 with answers to prayers ? ” 
 
 There is one consideration which may help at least 
 to throw some light upon the difficulty, if it does not 
 remove it altogether. It is not the case, as the objection 
 assumes, that you can explain anything in nature by 
 simple reference to the general laws involved. General 
 laws of themselves do nothing in bringing about particular 
 results. Besides the general laws, there has to be taken 
 into account the way in which things are put together — 
 the way in which they are combined and co-operate. Dr. 
 Thos. Chalmers used the word “ collocation ” to express 
 this fact, and the idea was taken up by Mr. J. S. Mill, 
 and by him introduced into scientific logic (see his System 
 of Logic , Bk. Ill; ch. 12, 2, &c.). Chalmers said: 
 There are two things involved in the explanation of 
 any facts of nature ; there are the laws of God’s 
 appointing, and there is the collocation of these laws. 
 
 Take, in illustration, a machine. You have a machine 
 designed for the production of certain results—a printing- 
 press, or whatever it may be. But in order to get the 
 results you require not only the materials and general 
 laws; you must get the parts and forces properly adjusted 
 so that they will work together to produce these results. 
 The machine is the product of man’s mind in putting the 
 materials together to effect this end. And what man can 
 do in combining laws and forces to accomplish his ends, 
 surely God, in His larger providence, can do to work out 
 the results He desires. Man, besides, does not merely 
 make his machine and set it agoing. There is 
 commonly also a hand upon the machine, guiding it in its 
 work. It is not really otherwise in God’s government of 
 the world. God has placed the world under general laws, 
 but He has not thereby abdicated His control of it. 
 There is not a detail which flows from the operation of 
 
 69 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 these laws under His guidance which is not part of His 
 infinitely wise ordering, in view of the whole, and of each 
 individual life affected by their working. This is some¬ 
 times expressed by saying that a “ mechanical ” view of 
 the world (a view which regards the causes at work), does 
 not exclude a “ teleological ” (a view which regards the 
 ends of the working). 
 
 The one thing we can always be sure of on this point 
 is that God has not tied His hands in His own universe, 
 so that He cannot hear the cry of His children, or help 
 them in their time of need. Our prayers, indeed, are 
 always supposed to be prayers according to the will of 
 God, offered in submission to His higher wisdom, where 
 we may be, as we often are, in ignorance, or mistaken. 
 The most earnest believer in prayer does not, e.g., believe 
 or expect that God will make water flow uphill at his 
 request. That is a petition he would not be likely to get 
 answered. What he prays for he leaves to God to do for 
 him in His own time and way, in harmony with the laws 
 He has established. He knows he has to do with a 
 Father whose resources are infinite, who knows in every 
 case what it is best to give and to withhold. 
 
 2. This is the sphere of nature, but a yet greater diffi¬ 
 culty arises in connection with the relation of providence 
 to free actions, especially to actions that are evil. Does 
 God’s plan embrace these, and if so, in what sense ? 
 Now, that God’s plan includes—that is, foresees, and 
 takes up into itself—human free actions, even those of 
 wicked men, we have seen that all Scripture testifies. 
 The Crucifixion of Christ is again the signal example 
 (Acts iv. 28). How this is possible may be made a little 
 clearer if we reflect that at every point human free will is 
 only one element in a larger situation. Man acts freely 
 in the situation in which he is placed, but how many 
 threads of providence enter into the weaving of that 
 
 70 
 
Creation and Providence 
 
 situation. The slightest change of conditions at any 
 point, and that situation would never have emerged, or 
 that act, with all its consequences, have eventuated. Two 
 persons, e.g., are thrown together by seeming accident, 
 and form a friendship which determines their future rela¬ 
 tions to each other for life, and the future of a posterity 
 springing from them. A slight change, and these 
 persons might never have met; would possibly have met 
 others ; and the lines of the future, involving innumerable 
 volitions, would have been different to the end of time. 
 
 Then what of sinful actions ? We are accustomed 
 with regard to these to use the term “ permit,” and 
 rightly. But it is needful to remember that here also 
 bare “ permission ” does not exhaust the whole relation 
 of God’s providence to sinful acts. Providence is per¬ 
 mission, indeed; yet such as, in the words of an old docu¬ 
 ment, “ hath joined with it a most wise and powerful 
 bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of 
 them, in a manifold dispensation, to His own holy ends ” 
 (West. Conf.). God makes even the wrath of man to 
 praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He restrains (Ps. 
 lxxvi. io). Evil is the sinner’s own, but the wicked man 
 grievously deceives himself if he thinks that by his 
 rebellion he can get out of his Creator’s hands. Refusing 
 to serve God in one way, he will find himself forced to 
 serve Him in another. 
 
 7 1 
 
Man and Sin: Man’s Nature 
 and Original Condition 
 
Man and Sin: Man’s Nature 
 and Original Condition 
 
 F ROM the doctrines of creation and providence I pass 
 to speak of the doctrines of man and sin. The 
 doctrine of sin lies at the foundation of a right 
 understanding of the doctrine of redemption. To under¬ 
 stand a remedy you must understand the disease it is 
 meant to cure. If sin be only a pin-scratch on the 
 surface of man’s nature, the remedy needed for it will be 
 correspondingly slight. If, on the other hand, sin is 
 what the Bible declares it to be—a terrible and soul- 
 destroying evil—then the greatest miracle and most 
 stupendous sacrifice in the universe was required to 
 effect man’s salvation from it. But the doctrine of sin, 
 again, rests on a right conception of the nature of man. 
 With that, accordingly, I begin. 
 
 I. 
 
 It was pointed out that the doctrine of God in the 
 Bible was a unique doctrine, and that the doctrine of 
 creation, as flowing from the doctrine of God, was not 
 less unique. It is now to be shown that the Bible doctrine 
 of man has the same character of uniqueness. It is a 
 doctrine which stands altogether by itself. The Bible 
 exalts man and abases him as no other religion on earth 
 does—exalts him in picturing him as made in the image 
 
 75 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 of God, and capable of eternal life; abases him in 
 setting forth the depths of his apostasy from God, and 
 his inability to deliver himself from the misery and ruin 
 into which it has plunged him. It will be seen as we 
 proceed that this doctrine stands in vital connection with 
 all the other parts of divine truth in the Bible. 
 
 It may be proper to begin by speaking for a little on 
 what the Bible has to say of man's place in creation. We 
 touch here a subject on which it will be recognised that 
 there is, and can be, no conflict between the Bible and 
 science. According to the Bible, man’s place is at the 
 summit of creation. He is the last and highest of God’s 
 created works—the goal and consummation of the whole 
 creative process. When you turn to science, you find the 
 same affirmation, expressed in almost the same terms. 
 Evolutionary philosophy has no cavil to make here. 
 For it, also, man is the last and highest product of 
 nature. He stands, as in the Bible, at the head of 
 creation, is the microcosm of it, gathers up into himself 
 all that has gone before, is the apex of creation. It is 
 not, so far as I know, expected by anyone that man will 
 ever develop into something specifically different from, or 
 higher than, the humanity we know. All further 
 development, whatever its nature, is always assumed to 
 be within humanity. 
 
 Another point on which there would seem to be no 
 longer any difficulty or disagreement possible between 
 the Bible and science is the unity of the human race. 
 There was a time, not so long ago, when scientific men 
 were accustomed to speak of “ centres of creation.” 
 They advocated the view that there were separate centres 
 of creation of the race of man, and that the creation of 
 the Bible was the creation only of the “ Adamic ” race. 
 This view, thanks, it must be owned, chiefly to 
 evolutionary science, is now mostly gone. That man was 
 
 7 ^ 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 made male and female, and that from an original single 
 pair the whole human race has descended, is the 
 universal verdict of science. It is a very singular 
 thing that, while science was disputing about the unity 
 of man, the Bible was affirming it all the time (Acts 
 xvii. 26). 
 
 But there is something more to be said. If we take 
 the complete Bible view of man, we find that man not 
 only stands at the summit of nature, but stands also 
 above nature , as belonging to a higher spiritual realm. If 
 man, on the lower side of his being, is linked with organic 
 nature, sums it up in himself, is its crown and apex, it is 
 not less true that, on another side of his being, he is, as 
 Bushnell finely argues in his work, Nature and the Super¬ 
 natural, supra-natural—is linked with a higher spiritual 
 order, belongs to a higher spiritual world, in which he 
 finds his true life. He is, as Herder said, “ the middle 
 link between two systems of creation.” He binds them 
 together, and holds them in his own person as a unity. 
 Does not this fit in most beautifully with the structure of 
 Bible revelation in all that it teaches about the destiny 
 of man, and the place which our humanity now holds in 
 the universe through Christ ? It will be remembered 
 what is said on this subject in Eph. i. and Heb. ii. It is 
 the purpose of God, we are told, “ to sum up all things 
 in Christ ” (Eph. i. 10). Christ stands there in our 
 humanity, connecting all the parts of the universe 
 together. All things are put in subjection under His 
 feet (v. 22). The writer of Hebrews quotes the eighth 
 psalm, and says : “ We see not yet all things subjected to 
 him [man] . But we behold Him [Jesus] 
 crowned with glory and honour” (Heb. ii. 5-9). Christ 
 thus, ruling in our humanity, unites, or will unite, the 
 whole redeemed universe in His own person ; and it is 
 because of this constitution of man’s nature, uniting the 
 
 77 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 physical with the spiritual, that he is fitted to occupy this 
 position in God’s creation. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Scripture represents this truth, in the narrative of 
 creation, in speaking of man as made in the image of God. 
 That is the great fundamental affirmation of the Bible about 
 man, as determinative of his nature, his position in God’s 
 world, and relation to God Himself. In Genesis i. this 
 declaration is introduced in a very remarkable way. The 
 language used prepares us for something new and excep¬ 
 tional. The chapter has been speaking of God’s succes¬ 
 sive acts of creation. Then comes a pause, and you have 
 God (Elohim) taking counsel with Himself: “ God said, 
 Let us make man in our image, after our likeness ; and 
 let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over 
 the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle,” &c. (v. 26). 
 It is not a case of converse with inferior beings, as with 
 angels. That notion has been mooted. But you have to 
 notice that there is nothing said about angels in this first 
 chapter of Genesis. The whole doctrine of angels is 
 undeveloped in this early period. You seldom read of 
 angels, except in the case of the “ Angel of the Lord,” 
 who was not a created angel. It is not angels, it is God 
 Himself, who is here conversing with Himself about His 
 own divine deeds ; and that is an aspect of the matter, 
 on which, as formerly observed, you do not get light fully 
 thrown till you come to the New Testament doctrine of 
 the Trinity. God, then, is here, taking counsel with 
 Himself, and in the succeeding verse you have the 
 declaration that this counsel is carried out : “ And God 
 created man in His own image, in the image of God 
 created He him ; male and female created He them ” 
 (v. 27). 
 
 This, then, is the grandest, deepest, most fundamental 
 
 78 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 utterance in all the Bible about man; it underlies the 
 whole doctrine of man, and nearly every other doctrine in 
 the Bible. So we have now to ask : What is this image 
 of God in which man was created ? What do we mean by 
 it ? What does it cover ? 
 
 (i) We may be very clear that by the image of God is 
 not to be understood anything relating to man’s bodily 
 form. It is not material shape that constitutes man the 
 image of God, for God has no bodily form. This was the 
 very ground on which the Israelites were forbidden to 
 make an image of God, because they saw no similitude 
 (Deut. iv. 15). God has no form ; He is a Spirit without 
 bodily parts. 
 
 Then (2) we cannot place this image of God merely in 
 man's dominion over the creatures. This was the old 
 Socinian idea. If there was any poorer interpretation 
 than another to be given of a verse, the old Socinians 
 were sure to get hold of it. So this was their notion of 
 the image of God. The sovereignty of man over the 
 creatures is indeed included in the image. Man is an 
 image of God in the dominion he exercises ; but this is 
 not the primary sense of the expression. It is because 
 man possesses the rational and moral attributes in which 
 he spiritually resembles God that he is capable of exercis¬ 
 ing his sovereignty. 
 
 This leads us (3) to the position that the image 
 of God in man is to be sought, not in something 
 outward, but in something inward; not in something 
 relative, but in something essential to man’s being; 
 in something stamped primarily upon the soul, or 
 spiritual nature of man. And this we see, when w r e look 
 into it, to be the truth. The image of God is that in 
 which, in distinction from the creatures below him, man 
 resembles God, in which he is like God. No distinction is 
 to be made between the terms “ image ” and “ likeness,” 
 
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Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 as is seen by the fact that in verse 27 “ image” covers 
 both. But that resemblance can only be found in what 
 man is as spirit. Man is the image of God in the world 
 because he is a spiritual being; an intelligent and moral 
 being; a self-conscious , personal being. He has rationality ; 
 he has a moral nature ; he has moral knowledge, moral 
 affections, moral will. In this respect, as rational and 
 moral personality, he is, in the very essence and concep¬ 
 tion of his being, the image of his Creator, of the Per¬ 
 sonal God, of the all-wise, all-knowing God, of the holy 
 God. 
 
 If this be the true view to take of man’s nature, then 
 we see that man in this world stands alone as bearing the 
 image of God. “ No,” someone will perhaps say, “look 
 at the animals ; they also have intelligence.” And no 
 doubt, when we look at the animals, we find that they do 
 possess something which we can properly describe as 
 intelligence. All the same, I think it can be very clearly 
 shown that the difference between man and even the 
 highest of the animals is not a mere difference of degree, 
 but a difference of kind . 
 
 III. 
 
 Here we come into conflict with a section of evolutionist 
 opinion. In reply to the statement just made as to man’s 
 relation to the lower animals, the evolutionist comes in, 
 and says : “ No, you have intelligence also in animals, 
 and man’s intelligence is simply a development out of 
 that lower intelligence, by slow gradations, till we reach 
 man, with all the faculties he now possesses.” This view 
 is not advocated by all evolutionists, but it is advocated 
 by a great many. A good example of it is found in the 
 popular book on “ Man’s Destiny,” by the late Mr. John 
 Fiske. The secret of Mr. Fiske’s method lies very much 
 in his use of the word “ comes.” Man begins away down 
 
 80 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 among the apes; then there “comes ” to be a family of 
 apes that have some glimmering of intelligence above 
 their fellows ; out of this there “ comes ” a particularly 
 happy strain, which acquires the faculty of language ; 
 earlier or later, through the prolongation of infancy and 
 other causes, there “ comes ” to be a development of the 
 natural affections ; finally there “ comes ” all the pleni¬ 
 tude of power and faculty in arts and civilisation we have 
 in existing man. No doubt it “comes ” ; but the whole 
 problem is precisely there. How does it come ? One is 
 reminded of what the Book of Exodus tells of Aaron, 
 when Moses rebuked him for making the golden calf. “ So 
 they (the people) gave it to me; and I cast it into the 
 fire, and there came out this calf” (Ex. xxxii. 24). It 
 just “ came out! ” 
 
 Seriously, I challenge this whole conception of the 
 evolutionary growth of man’s mind from the lower 
 animals. If it is asked, Where is the distinction ? I 
 would reply, in the first place, that man only is in the 
 true sense a person. There attaches to his nature, and to 
 his nature alone, the sanctity of personality. “ Whoso 
 sheddeth man’s blood,” we read, “ by man shall his 
 blood be shed ; for in the image of God made He man” 
 (Gen. ix. 6). Man alone is capable of self-conscious 
 reflection ; of turning his mind back upon himself, and 
 saying “ I.” He alone possesses the power of rational 
 thought, in the stricter sense of that word. Is this 
 getting metaphysical ? Is it asked : What do you mean 
 by rational thought ? I answer : Man alone possesses 
 the faculty of rising above the particular, and laying hold 
 on the universal element in thought and things. Man 
 alone, by general consent, has the powers of abstraction 
 and generalisation. He alone has the power of laying 
 hold of the principle in the facts ; of the law in the 
 particulars ; of rising from one truth to a higher truth, 
 
 8l G 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 from one law to a wider law, and ultimately to the idea 
 of the infinite, of the eternal, of God. There is no animal 
 on earth that possesses these powers. 
 
 If this is still doubted, it is only necessary to look at 
 the different outcome of their respective natures to see 
 how marked is the distinction between the animals and 
 man. The animal can do many things, but it never 
 rises above its animality, above its earthly being. When 
 you turn to man, you do find him rising above his earthly 
 existence. Man has reflective self-consciousness. He is 
 possessed of the faculty of intelligent, rational speech. 
 He has the capacity of education and of progress. He 
 is capable of self-directed, intelligent life; can set 
 intelligent ends before him, and work them out; can set 
 moral ends before him, and through his freedom realise 
 them. Man alone, therefore, is capable of morality in 
 the true sense of the word; alone is capable of religion; 
 alone is capable of fellowship with God ; alone is capable 
 of receiving into his soul the eternal life. Between a 
 being of whom such things can be said and the animals 
 there is a dividing line not of degree, but of kind. There 
 is a spirit in man, not found in the animals, which lifts 
 him above the world altogether. The possession of such 
 a nature carries with it the other thought, that man is not 
 destined for life in this world alone. He is made for 
 immortality. 
 
 IV 
 
 There is yet another thing which must be observed 
 about man before passing from this subject of his nature. 
 It follows from the view already given of man as the link 
 between two worlds, the natural and the spiritual, that 
 man is a compound being. Man is not what we may 
 suppose the angels to be—pure incorporeal spirit. He is 
 incorporated spirit. He is made up, as we say, of soul 
 
 82 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 and body (Matt. x. 28), and both of these elements 
 enter into the conception of his nature. Both are 
 essential elements in his personality. The Bible usage in 
 regard to these terms is, indeed, somewhat different from 
 our own. A special interest attaches to the Biblical 
 terms “soul” and “spirit.” In the Old Testament, 
 “ soul ” (nephesh) is the seat of life and personality in man 
 —on the one hand the animating principle or “life” ot 
 the body (“ the soul is in the blood,” Lev. xvii. 11), and 
 source of the animal appetites, desires and passions ; on 
 the other, the source of the higher rational and spiritual 
 activities—those which belong to man as a personal, 
 moral, and religious being. It is these latter activities 
 which, in Biblical phraseology, are specially denominated 
 “spirit” ( ruach ). The soul, in other words, is the source 
 of two classes of activities—the animal, connected with 
 the body, and the spiritual, in which lies man’s proper 
 affinity to God. It is the presence of the soul in the body 
 which constitutes it “flesh.” One result follows, of 
 great importance for the Biblical doctrine of man. 
 “ Soul,” in the Bible, always has the implication of a 
 “ body.” There may be spirits which have no bodies, 
 but they are not “ souls.” On the other hand, souls, as 
 having a spiritual nature, can properly, when disembodied, 
 be called “ spirits.” The “ spirits in prison ” in 1 Pet. 
 iii. 19, are spirits or souls of men. 
 
 These, then, are the two essential parts of man’s com¬ 
 pound nature—soul and body—and God never intended 
 them to be separated. This sheds an important light on 
 the Biblical idea of death. It is not uncommon to hear 
 death spoken of as a universal law of nature. No 
 difficulty need be raised on this point as regards the 
 animals. The animal has its life here and nowhere else. 
 Death is its natural fate. But it is different with man. 
 Man is a spiritual being, and God never meant that the 
 
 83 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 body and soul of man, these two constituent elements in 
 his personality, should be rent asunder. In the Biblical 
 point of view, therefore, death is not natural to men. It 
 is something that has come in ; a disruption, a tearing 
 asunder, a separation of parts of his being that God never 
 meant to be separated. The Bible has no sympathy 
 with that ultra-spirituality which looks on the body as the 
 prison-house of the soul, to be got rid of as soon as 
 possible, and which places man’s hope in the immortality 
 of the soul alone. It nowhere regards the disembodied 
 state as a state of full and perfect life. It is in the Old 
 Testament a state of gloom ; and the prayer of the saint 
 is to be delivered from it. “ God will redeem my soul 
 from the power of Sheol, for He will receive me ” (Ps. 
 xlix. 15 ; cf. xvi. 10). Even in the New Testament it is a 
 state of imperfect existence. “ Waiting for our adoption, 
 to wit, the redemption of our body ” (Rom. viii. 23). The 
 redemption of the Gospel is not a redemption of the soul 
 only, but the redemption of the whole man—body and 
 soul together. 
 
 V. 
 
 Why then, it will naturally be asked, if death is a 
 contradiction of the true idea of man, is death present in 
 the world at all ? At this point a very vital question 
 arises, which may form the transition from the doctrine of 
 man to the doctrine of sin. It is the question of the 
 conception we are to form of man's original condition. I 
 have spoken of the image of God in man as exhibited in 
 his essential constitution—rational, moral, spiritual. But 
 is this the whole ? Does the possession of the image of 
 God by man imply simply the possession of these moral 
 and spiritual capacities ; or does it imply also actual 
 moral resemblance to God ? Does it imply not only the 
 elements of a rational and moral nature, but a state o 
 
 84 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 actual harmony of the affections and will—a purity of 
 nature, an uprightness of will, which made sinless 
 obedience possible ? The state supposed would be an 
 elementary one, no doubt, but was man, as created by 
 God, a pure being ? It seems to me that, reasoning on 
 general grounds, we should unhesitatingly say. Yes. For 
 what kind of image of God would that be in which every¬ 
 thing was originally blurred, everything distorted and 
 disfigured ? This also, it seems plain to me, is implied in 
 the story of man’s creation, of Eden, of man’s fall. It 
 is the fact, I am convinced, that underlies the whole Bible 
 idea of sin ; it is the idea expressed also in many parts of 
 scripture. “God made man upright” (Ecc. vii. 29). 
 Through one man sin entered into the world, and death 
 through sin ” (Rom. v. 12). 
 
 Here, then, we come to a crucial point. There is no 
 doubt that this which I have called the Bible doctrine 
 about man’s original state goes right across the track of a 
 great deal of our modern speculation about man’s origin 
 and primitive moral condition. The teaching of most of 
 our modern evolutionists on this point is well known, and 
 has already been hinted at. Man has sprung from some 
 species of anthropoid ape (not now existing), and through 
 favourable variations, natural selection, and survival of 
 the fittest, through immensely long periods of time, has 
 been gradually changed into the image he now bears. 
 Thus God introduced man into the world. He begins 
 away down below anything we would now call man. He 
 is a semi-animal; immersed in brutishness; ruled and 
 swayed by unbridled passions; only a glimmering of 
 reason shedding its fitful ray across the chaotic deep of 
 his soul. This is the “primitive man” science would 
 have us accept. Many who advocate these views speak 
 much of the Fatherhood of God. It is a strange idea of 
 Fatherhood which can accommodate itself to this 
 
 85 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 conception. Is God the Father of man, or is He of the 
 ape also? Where does the Fatherhood come in ? What 
 would be thought of any earthly “ father ’’who started 
 his children off in similar conditions ? The difficulties 
 of accepting such a view, even from the moral standpoint, 
 seem insuperable. Such a being as the scientists suppose 
 is not only in a non -moral condition ; he is in an un -moral 
 condition, which is an im-movdl one. For morality 
 undeniably has to do with states of soul as well as with 
 actions ; it asks for a pure and harmonious state of the 
 moral affections, and an upright condition of the moral 
 will. Of all this the theory before us is the negation. 
 
 I need not say, further, that the acceptance of such a 
 theory as the above will alter the whole trend of our 
 theology. Men may well call it a “ new theology ,” because 
 through such a theory everything in theology gets 
 changed. Sin, it will be found, changes its character and 
 loses its gravity and heinousness. Guilt, in the Scriptural 
 sense, practically disappears. For how can God condemn 
 that which is the direct and necessarv result of His own 
 handiwork in man ? Instead of speaking of the “ fall ” of 
 man it is now necessary to speak of the “rise” of man. 
 The fall is a “fall upwards.” Instead of blaming man 
 for what he is, and speaking of a divine “ condemnation” 
 resting on the race, we can only marvel at the marvellous 
 progress man has made by his own efforts. The old idea 
 of redemption must be given up, and Christ be viewed 
 simply as the apex of a universal revolutionary process ! 
 
 The question, however, in the end comes to be: Is the 
 theory true ? There is no use in meeting theories which 
 claim to be based on scientific grounds with denunciation 
 and ridicule. The theory must be faced with facts, if 
 satisfaction is to be brought to thinking minds. The 
 thing wanted is the truth. And if appeal is made to 
 facts, are not anthropology and evolution against us ? 
 
 86 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 On this point, as I said before, I have no quarrel with 
 the doctrine of evolution as such ; only with certain forms 
 of it. I have no quarrel with that doctrine so far as it 
 is scientifically established. But this I do say with great 
 confidence, that, within the limits in which it has been 
 shown to have real scientific basis, evolution does not 
 compel us to accept any such doctrine of the origin and 
 primitive state of man as I have described. Evolution, 
 as I said earlier, is not Darwinism, and the Darwinian 
 idea of the production of man by slow gradations from 
 lower ape-like forms is one which I think is being dis¬ 
 credited on scientific grounds. Evolution, it is coming 
 to be seen with greater clearness, has its well-marked 
 limits. Not only must it always be regarded as having 
 behind it creative, organising intelligence, working in and 
 through it; but it must make room within its process for 
 the introduction of new potencies, new factors, which can 
 only be referred directly to the great Creative Cause. 
 
 Now, there are evolutionists not a few who take this 
 ground in respect of man’s mind. Man’s mind, they tell 
 us, cannot be accounted for without a special cause ; but 
 they think his body can. They hand over the body to 
 the laws of evolution, and bring in a Creative Cause to 
 explain the mind. I have always felt that there is a 
 logical inconsistency in this supposition. There is such a 
 connection between man’s mind and man’s body—between 
 mind and organisation—that the idea of an abrupt rise on 
 the side of mind without a corresponding rise of organism 
 is utterly untenable. Allow, as many evolutionists do, 
 that God’s power must be brought in to explain the mind 
 of man, then you cannot take this mind and put it into 
 the brain of an anthropoid ape. You need a brain which 
 will be a suitable receptacle for it. If a rise takes place 
 on the spiritual side you must have a corresponding rise 
 on the organic side —in other words, you must postulate 
 
 87 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 the founding of a new order of things—a new kingdom in 
 humanity, both on the spiritual and on the bodily side. 
 This just brings us back to the old Bible doctrine of 
 God’s creation of man. 
 
 When, moreover, you turn to science, you find that the 
 facts bear out what is here alleged. It is vain to speak of 
 science demonstrating the slow development of man from 
 the anthropoid ape, for it does no such thing. There is 
 no proof of this in science up till the present hour. There 
 is no evidence of any such gradual process. On the 
 contrary, there remains in nature an abrupt fall from the 
 human brain to the ape brain, or, putting it the other 
 way, a sudden rise from the ape brain to the human brain, 
 which science cannot bridge over, and which corresponds 
 to the mental and spiritual rise in man. Go back as far 
 as you like—take the oldest skulls yet found—)^ou will 
 find the poorest of them matched by human skulls of to¬ 
 day, while some are skulls which, as Huxley said, might 
 have contained the brains of a philosopher. We hear, 
 indeed, from time to time of the discovery of “ The 
 Missing Link.” There was the famous Java case—the 
 best yet produced—but scientific men of the highest rank 
 early pronounced its claims unfounded. 
 
 I close, then, by repeating that, so far as knowledge 
 goes, there is no fact in science which comes into conflict 
 with the Bible doctrine of the origin of man, or with the 
 doctrine of the original purity of man. For anything 
 science has to say to the contrary, man may have come 
 from the hand of his Creator truly bearing his image—in 
 a state of intellectual soundness and moral integrity—as 
 the Bible declares he did ; and, if he is now found other¬ 
 wise, it can only be ascribed to his voluntary disobedience 
 —to a “ fall.” I have spoken of these ancient skulls, and 
 of the antiquity assigned to some of them. We read in 
 books of 500,000 years or 200,000 years as the period 
 
 88 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 of man’s abode upon earth. There is no need for Chris¬ 
 tian people taking alarm at these exaggerated estimates. 
 Science itself is rapidly retrenching them. Careful calcu¬ 
 lations based on the rate of retrocession of Niagara Falls, 
 and on similar facts, show that these immense periods 
 must be cut down to quite reasonable dimensions. But 
 this is an aspect of the subject on which it is unnecessary 
 to dwell. 
 
 89 
 
VI 
 
 Man and Sin: 
 
 Man’s Need as a Sinner 
 
Man and Sin: 
 
 Man’s Need as a Sinner 
 
 I F man was made in the image of God, and originally 
 bore his Creator’s moral likeness, very plainly he is 
 * not in that state now. That image is broken, 
 defaced, defiled. Its elements may be there in man’s 
 rational and moral constitution, but it has lost its 
 character of actual moral resemblance. The gold has 
 become dim; the fine gold is changed (Sam. iv. i). 
 If this is the case a great change for the worse must 
 have come over man, the explanation of which can only 
 be found in a “fall,” or voluntary defection from the 
 state of rectitude in which God created him. 
 
 This is in truth the explanation which the Bible gives 
 of man’s existing sinful condition. He is a fallen being. 
 Sin is a fact of universal experience, and if there were 
 not this story of the fall of man in the beginning of the 
 Bible we should, for the explanation of our own ex¬ 
 perience, and the world’s condition, require to postulate 
 such a story, and put it at the beginning of the Bible for 
 ourselves. So we may be glad that it is there. It stands 
 at the commencement, and furnishes the key to that 
 moral condition of man on which the whole doctrine of 
 salvation is built. Without it man’s sin would remain an 
 unsolved riddle. 
 
 93 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 Before looking at the origin of sin, it is well to look 
 carefully at its nature, and make sure that we have a 
 clear idea of what sin is. Sin, we discover, in the Bible 
 sense, is that which absolutely ought not to he in God’s 
 world. This cuts the Bible clear away at the outset 
 from all those theories which make sin a necessary result 
 of man’s nature and moral development, an inevitable 
 stage in his progress. The necessity may be “ meta¬ 
 physical,” or it may be “ evolutionary,” as when man is 
 represented as starting off from a brute condition ; but 
 in any form it is a contradiction of the true idea of sin. 
 Sin is that which ought not to be at all. It has through¬ 
 out the Bible a volitional and catastrophic character. It 
 is the tragedy of the universe ; a departure from the 
 normal in the history of the race ; something against 
 which the holy God must from eternity to eternity 
 declare Himself in wrath and judgment. It is the 
 abominable thing that God hates (Jer. xliv. 4). That is 
 the idea of sin which pervades all Scripture. 
 
 If we inquire, further, into the principle or essence of 
 this evil thing—sin—we can best understand it by its 
 contrast to the good. The principle of good-willing is 
 love to God. “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
 mind. This is the great and first commandment ” (Matt, 
 xxii. 37, 38). Acts springing from this principle are 
 “godly,” and these only, in the estimate of God, are 
 good. Sin, as the contrast to this, consists essentially 
 in the rejection or throwing off of the authority of 
 God, and the taking into the will of a principle which is 
 the opposite of this—the principle of self- will, of life for 
 self, or, as we may express it, of egoism. Sin is not 
 simply the choice of the world instead of God, though 
 it includes this, but is something deeper—the setting up 
 of self as an end or law to self, in place of making God’s 
 
 94 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 will our law. Instead of life being, as it ought to be, a 
 life from God to God, it is now a life from self to self. 
 God’s law is to be obeyed only so far as it suits self to 
 obey it. Sin, therefore, as the Bible constantly affirms, 
 is in essence godlessness. It is the setting up of a false 
 independence of the creature, and results in the soul’s 
 passing over from love of God to love and service of the 
 world. “Give me the portion of thy substance that 
 falleth to me,” said the Prodigal to his father (Luke xv. 
 12) ; then, when he got his desire, he went into the “far 
 country ” (ver. 13). Here is the eternal history of sin in 
 its essence and results. 
 
 The egoistic principle which lies in all sin is not indeed 
 always equally manifest, and seldom is permitted to 
 reveal itself in its full enormity. Its presence and 
 operation, in actual life, may be manifoldly veiled. There 
 are checks and forces of many kinds in nature and 
 society—the action of conscience, restraints of public 
 opinion, force of custom, considerations of prudence, 
 influences of the Spirit of God, which counteract its 
 working and hinder its visible manifestation ; which, 
 therefore, hide from the subject of it, and from the on¬ 
 looker, its real character and heinousness. In social 
 sins— e.g., the element of good fellowship and joviality may 
 conceal the egoism that lurks behind. The principle is 
 there, however, and leers out in the heartless selfishness 
 of the drunkard or profligate. Just in proportion as sin 
 develops, its God-denying and self-exalting principle 
 becomes more apparent. In spiritual sins, as pride, 
 covetousness, envy, it is more manifest than in fleshly sins. 
 In more advanced wickedness, as malice, hate, deliberate 
 cruelty, its diabolic character is revealed without disguise. 
 Finally, in open and conscious hate and blasphemy of 
 God its ultimate principle, as “ enmity against God ” 
 (Rom. viii. 7), is laid bare. 
 
 95 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 ii. 
 
 If this be the inward principle of sin, it is not difficult 
 to see how terrible and ruinous must be its effects. One 
 of the first effects is necessarily - the subversion of the 
 normal constitution of man’s nature, in which reason, 
 conscience, and the fear of God ought to rule, and 
 the raising to a position of undue ascendency of the 
 lower and sensuous impulses. From being “ spiritual,” 
 man becomes “ psychical”—“soulish.’ Not only, 
 however, are these lower principles raised to wrongful 
 ascendency. Sin, which cut the bond between the 
 soul and God, cuts also the bond between the 
 principles in the soul itself, so that these principles, 
 which before worked together in due subordination and 
 harmony, now work in disorderly ways (Rom. vii. 5). We 
 have now disorder, turbulence, anarchy, in the soul—a 
 state of “lawlessness” ( anomia ), as the Scripture some¬ 
 times describes it (1 John iii. 4, R.V.). As a result, there 
 is a bondage of the spirit to the lower or carnal impulses, 
 so that even when man would do good, he feels himself 
 impotent. The “law of the mind” may make its 
 protests, but the “ law of sin and death ” prevails 
 (Rom. vii. 14-25.) 
 
 The natural and inevitable result of sin, therefore, is a 
 depravation of the whole nature. The “ depravity ” of 
 human nature, still more the assertion of “total” 
 depravity, is a doctrine loudly protested against by the 
 enlightenment of modern times. Man, it is declared, is 
 essentially good. There is a divine spark within him, 
 which only needs to be developed. “ Depravity ” is a 
 libel on his nature. It is not questioned that depraved 
 men exist, but they are the wretches of humanity, and 
 do not represent the general condition. Depravity, all 
 the same, is a dark and terrible fact. There is no man 
 
 96 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 living who is not “very far gone from original 
 righteousness.” The doctrine in question is, indeed, 
 misunderstood when the adjective “ total ” is held to 
 imply that every human being is as bad as he can be, or 
 that there are not natural virtues, and even beautiful and 
 lovable traits in characters that are yet unregenerate. 
 This would contradict experience. Jesus, beholding the 
 young ruler, “ loved ” him (Mark x. 21). Paul testifies 
 that “the barbarians” of Melita showed him “no 
 common kindness ” (Acts xxviii. 2). Paul himself, before 
 his conversion, was upright and sincere. “ Total ” here 
 does not mean that every part of man is as corrupt as it 
 can be, but that no part has escaped depravation or 
 corruption ( totus , in the sense of “ in every part ”). Sin 
 is in the nature, and its perverting, depraving, defiling 
 influences pervade it all. Life is poisoned in its springs; 
 the fountain in the heart is “evil ” (Matt. xv. 19). 
 
 III. 
 
 If this is a true description of sin, and of the state of 
 human nature under its influence, it needs no proof that 
 sin cannot be a thing willed by God, or part of the con¬ 
 stitution of the world as God made it. We are brought 
 back, therefore, to the point from which we started, in 
 the idea of a fall. The same thing follows from the 
 universality of sin—its presence and reign in all humanity. 
 There is no truth on which the Bible is more emphatic, 
 or which experience more clearly confirms, than that sin 
 is universal. “ For all have sinned, and fall short of the 
 glory of God” (Rom. iii. 23). Such defection must be 
 carried back to the beginning of the race, else how 
 should all the streams in the family of mankind be im¬ 
 pure ? It is sometimes objected that the idea of a fall is 
 unknown to the writers of the Old Testament after the 
 
 97 
 
 H 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 third chapter of Genesis. It would be truer to say that 
 it is the presupposition on which the whole picture of a 
 world turned aside from God, and in rebellion against 
 Him, in the Old Testament, rests (cf. Gen. vi. 5, 6, 11, 
 12; viii. 21 ; Ps. xiv., &c.). The story of the fall stands 
 at the beginning, where it should be, and rules the entire 
 description of mankind that follows. 
 
 The narrative of the fall in Genesis, therefore, is no 
 myth, but a deep, historical truth, which no critical 
 theories, or differences in the mode of interpretation, can 
 ever touch. It is not an invention, but the record of a 
 catastrophe that really happened in the beginning of the 
 history of our race, the shuddering memory of which was 
 never lost in the grey ages of primitive humanity. We 
 have already seen how much of that primitive history 
 science and discovery themselves tend to restore. The 
 unity of the race, man as made in God’s image, the need 
 of special creative action to account for man’s mental 
 and bodily endownenls, the very scene of his origin—for 
 no region can be pointed to for the origin of man so 
 likely as just this neighbourhood of the Euphrates and 
 Tigris, in which Eden was situated—the presumption of 
 his original purity, &c. That man knew God in the 
 beginning, and that he was placed by God under a 
 dispensation suited to his condition, involving tests of his 
 obedience, for the furtherance of his moral development; 
 that life would have been the result of his fidelity, and 
 that death (foreign to his nature), with all the other evils, 
 inner and outer, that sin entails, was the issue of his 
 failure—this seems to be the most reasonable explanation 
 we can even yet give of the actual state in which the 
 world is found. It is at least the explanation which 
 Scripture gives in both Old Testament and New (Gen. 
 ii. 15-17 ; iii.; Rom. v. 12 ff; 1 Tim. iii. 13, 14). It 
 suits modern thinking to deny the “fall”; to speak 
 
 98' 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 rather of “rise ” and “development ” ; but this depends 
 on views of the origin and primal condition of man which 
 have already been rejected. 
 
 One feature in this Genesis story of the fall of man we 
 cannot ignore—viz., that sin entered our world not 
 wholly through man’s own act, or through bare solicita¬ 
 tions of sense, but through the temptation of an evil super¬ 
 human power. That this is the real meaning of the tempta¬ 
 tion by the serpent—take it literally, or take it symbolically, 
 as one will—I cannot doubt. It is also the interpretation 
 put on the event by later Scripture, which recognises the 
 existence of an evil spiritual world, with “ Satan,” or 
 “ the Devil,” described as the prince, or god, or ruler of 
 this world, at its head, continually active in withstanding 
 good and ensnaring into sin (cf. John i. 6 jf., ii. i ff .; 
 Zech. iii. i, 2; Matt. iv. 1-11 ; xii. 23-29 ; xiii. 19 ; 
 John viii. 44, xiv. 30, xvi. 11 ; 2 Cor. iv. 4; Eph. ii. 2, 
 vi. 12; Rev. xii. 9, &c,). That the serpent in Genesis is 
 not simply the animal, but is identified with this power 
 of evil, is manifest from the fact that this serpent not 
 only talks, but talks evil, insinuates distrust of God’s 
 word, and tempts to disobedience. No such wickedness 
 belonged to God’s good creation. The truth taught is 
 that it is not on earth only that evil is met with. There 
 is a spiritual kingdom of evil older than man, the agencies 
 of which are mysteriously permitted to operate in our 
 world, with which every man has, as Jesus Himself had, 
 to contend in his struggle for the good. It is enough for 
 the guarantee of this truth as against modern denials that 
 we find it in the consciousness of Jesus as one of His 
 deepest certainties. I feel assured that in a matter so 
 vitally connected with His mission Jesus was not, and 
 could not be, in ignorance or error. 
 
 99 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 IV. 
 
 The fall into sin of the first man had necessarily its 
 effects on his posterity. Here we encounter the mysteri¬ 
 ous fact of racial sin, or, as it is more commonly called, 
 original sin, with the other evils that flow to the race 
 from the transgression of its natural head. “Through 
 one man,” Paul says, “sin entered into the world, and 
 death through sin ; and so death passed unto all men, for 
 that all sinned” (Romans v. 12). In the succeeding 
 verses the Apostle dwells on the representative position 
 of Adam, through whose one offence the many were 
 made sinners (v. 19), to illustrate the principle on which 
 righteousness and life come to us through Christ. 
 
 A great difficulty is naturally often felt here ; for how is 
 this subjection of a whole race to sin and death for the 
 offence of its first progenitor to be justified under the 
 government of a good and holy God ? The only ground, 
 I would reply, on which it can be justified is by taking 
 into account the organic constitution of the race. Science 
 comes here to our help with its doctrine of heredity, and 
 the increasing stress it lays on the organic unity of 
 mankind; but the fact itself is evident. There are, so 
 far as we can judge, only two principles on which con¬ 
 clusively a moral society could be constituted. One is 
 the principle of strict individualism — each individual 
 created separately, and standing or falling by himself, 
 with strictly limited responsibility. Such, we may 
 suppose, is the constitution of the angels (Matt. xxii. 30). 
 
 But humanity is constituted on a different principle—* 
 the organic. Here there is a race evolved, in successive 
 generations, from a single head, in whom, at the 
 beginning, the whole race was potentially contained. In 
 itself this constitution is the most beneficent of all. 
 Designed for good, it hands down benefits to the well- 
 
 100 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 doers in ever increasing ratio. On the other hand, when 
 sin enters, it is as if an engine were reversed, and the 
 powers that wrought for good become as potent to hand 
 down evil. Hence the inevitable ruin of the fall. The 
 disturbance introduced by the first sin, the loss of 
 original righteousness, the alienation from God which 
 ensued, could not stop with the first transgressor. The 
 effects descend. Through our connection with the fallen 
 stock, we each bring with us into the world a tainted 
 nature, a propensity to evil, a tendency to resistance to 
 the law and the authority of God, which early manifests 
 itself in actual transgression. The gifts and graces which 
 man possessed while he stood in his integrity are wanting 
 to us. There is an evil nature, which calls for a com¬ 
 plete renewal, if man is to be made holy (Ps. li. 5, 10 ; 
 Ezek. xi. ig). 
 
 The state into which the fall has brought man is one 
 of depravation and bondage, but even this, with the actual 
 sin which proceeds from it, does not sum up the whole 
 misery of man’s condition. There is yet to be taken into 
 account, as completing the view of sin, the awful fact of 
 guilt. Sin is not simply disease and slavery ; it is wrong¬ 
 doing, disobedience, transgression of law, and, as such, 
 is condemnable and punishable. Every sinner, in his own 
 conscience, is aware that sin is not an innocuous thing; that 
 he is answerable for it to God ; that it is something which 
 exposes him to God’s righteous judgment. He feels him¬ 
 self guilty. However bravely he may carry it off out¬ 
 wardly, in his inner thoughts he cannot escape the 
 feeling of self-blame, reproach, the stings of remorse, the 
 fear of coming wrath. The heathen, Paul says, “ show 
 the work of the law written in their hearts, their con¬ 
 science bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one 
 with another accusing or else excusing them ” (Rom. ii. 
 15). The consequence is that men naturadly fear God— 
 
 101 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 dread the thought of Him. Felix “ was terrified ” when 
 Paul reasoned with him of “the judgment to come” 
 (Acts xxiv. 25). 
 
 This is the natural sense of guilt. Much more is this 
 consciousness of guilt intensified when sin is lifted up 
 into the light of the “ holy, and righteous, and good ” law 
 of God ” (Rom. vii. 12). “ If our heart condemn us, God 
 
 is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things ” (1 John 
 iii. 20). This is the awful fact about sin that, whereso¬ 
 ever and in whomsoever it is found, it lays the soul in 
 which it is found under the divine judgment . “ What 
 things soever the law saith,” declares Paul, “ it speaketh 
 to them that are under the law; that every mouth may 
 be stopped, and all the world may be brought under the 
 judgment of God ” (Rom. iii. 19). From the very nature 
 of His holiness God must react against sin to judge and 
 punish it. A race that is fallen and sinful must, by that 
 very fact, lie under a divine “ condemnation” ; and this, 
 the Bible, in the most emphatic terms, declares that it 
 does (John iii. 16-19, 36 ; Rom. v. 12-21, vi. 23, viii. 1, 
 See.). This condemnation which rests upon our world 
 man can do nothing by his own efforts to remove (Rom. 
 iii. 20). 
 
 The punitive energy of God put forth against sin is 
 described as His “wrath” (Rom. i. 18, ii. 5), and that 
 wrath rests on everyone in the state of nature (John iii. 
 36 ; Eph. ii. 3). The judgment which proceeds from 
 this wrath is summed up in Scripture in the comprehen¬ 
 sive word, “ death” “ In the day that thou eatest thereof 
 thou shalt surely die ” (Gen. ii. 17). “ The soul that 
 
 sinneth it shall die” (Ezek. xviii. 20). “The wages of 
 sin is death ” (Rom. vi. 23). In this is unquestionably 
 included, in the sense of Scripture— natural death, with 
 all its attendant miseries and evils (Gen. ii. 17, iii. 17-19 ; 
 Rom. vi. 12); for it has already been seen that death is 
 
 102 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 never regarded as something natural and normal to man, 
 but as the separation of two parts of his being which go 
 to make up the complete man ; which, therefore, God 
 never meant to be sundered. But outward death is only 
 the manifestation and consequence of something more 
 inward and terrible that had already taken place —spiritual 
 death to holiness and the favour of God. “The mind of 
 the flesh,” Paul says, “is death” (Rom. viii. 6). “You 
 did He make alive, when ye were dead through trespasses 
 and sins” (Eph. ii. 2). “She that giveth herself to 
 pleasure is dead while she liveth ” (1 Tim. vi. 6). But 
 even physical death, ensuing on this, is not the end, but 
 only the prelude. Behind looms the final doom of the 
 soul in separation from God and blessedness —eternal 
 death. After death comes the judgment (Heb. ix. 27). 
 This is “the second death” (Rev. xx. 14)—the eternal 
 loss of the soul; rather, since it succeeds the resurrection, 
 of soul and body together—of the whole being (cf. Matt, 
 x. 28). 
 
 V. 
 
 The picture thus drawn of human ruin through sin is 
 assuredly most terrible. But it is precisely this state of 
 depravity, of bondage, of guilt, with the utter misery and 
 helplessness into which it plunges man which constitutes 
 man’s need of redemption , and which the redemption of 
 the Gospel is designed to meet, and does meet in all its 
 parts. It was before remarked that there is no book 
 which exalts man so highly as the Bible does, in 
 representing him as made in the image of God, and 
 capable of eternal life; and no book which abases man 
 so utterly in depicting the depths of his fall and apostasy 
 from God. But the glory of the Bible is that, over 
 against the developing sin and corruption of the race, it 
 presents, almost from its first page, the developing 
 
 103 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 purpose of God for man’s salvation. The Bible is, as 
 Jonathan Edwards called it, “ the history of redemption.” 
 It is the unfolding of God’s great purpose of grace for the 
 redemption of man from sin. This is the thread that 
 runs through it all, and binds all its parts together; and 
 the right clue to the understanding of the Bible is only 
 given when it is read in this light. 
 
 It is here that so much of our modern study of the 
 Bible goes astray. An immense amount of labour is 
 spent on non-essential things, while the essential thing 
 is neglected. Criticism is good and necessary; but, 
 because of this neglect of the central idea, we have 
 speculation after speculation, a groping about as of blind 
 men, without the door into the real meaning of the book 
 ever being found. Elaborate statistical tables of the 
 critical constituents of the books—which is all we often 
 get, especially of the books of the Old Testament—can 
 never take the place of the study of the Bible as the 
 message of God’s method of salvation. Out in the 
 country, among the hills, one sometimes comes across a 
 solitary fisher. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, 
 the mountains are towering around him, but he sees and 
 hears nothing of it all. His soul is absorbed in that little 
 fish, and how he is to get it to take his fly or worm. All 
 the rest has passed from his thoughts for the time. One 
 is irresistibly reminded of this enthusiast when one sees 
 the critic bending with his microscope over the smallest 
 details of textual analysis, while the great mountain 
 heights of God’s word—the things that chiefly concern 
 —are left almost wholly out of view ! 
 
 I have said that the Bible doctrine of redemption is 
 intended to meet our need in all its parts. This has the 
 more to be insisted on, that our human experience of 
 that need is always imperfect and limited. It is not every 
 rnan that realises equally, or in its full extent, the great- 
 
 104 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 ness of the need that arises from sin. People are 
 differently constituted. They have their different 
 experiences, and have been brought to feel their need in 
 different ways. One thing in the Gospel appeals to one 
 person, another to another person. One man, e.g., is 
 specially laid hold of by the idea of the guilt that is in 
 sin; of his exposure through sin to the anger and judg¬ 
 ment of a holy God. His cry, like that of the Philippian 
 jailor, is: “ What must I do to be saved?” (Acts xvi. 
 30). He yearns for pardon, for forgiveness. Another 
 man, just as true as he, but differently constituted, has, 
 of course, some realisation of the guilt of sin—I do not 
 suppose that anyone really convinced of sin can be with¬ 
 out it—but what lays hold on him most is the uncleanness 
 of sin. It fills him with self-loathing to discover the 
 impurity of sin, and his cry is supremely for sanctifica¬ 
 tion, for holiness. “ Create in me a clean heart, O God, 
 and renew a right spirit withim me” (Ps. li. 10). In 
 comparison with this the other side of guilt and danger 
 is almost lost sight of. That beautiful soul, Henry Drum¬ 
 mond, was, I think, very much of this type. Drummond’s 
 soul went out in the line of sanctification, and he had little 
 to say about some other doctrines, e.g., the atonement. I 
 think his theology was one-sided and defective ; but it 
 illustrates how it may be given to one man to see with 
 greater clearness one aspect of the truth of redemption, 
 and to another man to see another part. Henry Drum¬ 
 mond had certainly a rare insight into the need of sanctifi¬ 
 cation, and wrote many beautiful things on it. Other 
 men, again, are more impressed with the helplessness and 
 bondage of sin. They are in the grasp of an evil habit, and 
 their cry is for power to overcome it. “ Who shall deliver 
 me out of the body of this death ? ” (Rom. vii. 24). 
 
 All these are Scriptural aspects of sin, and of the need 
 of redemption that results from it. But it is the glory of 
 
 I0 5 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 the Bible that its redemption meets the whole need of 
 man, and leaves no aspect of that need outside of it. It 
 comes to meet the need of man not simply as individuals 
 happen to feel it, but the need of our whole humanity, as 
 God sees it, and probes it to its depths. It meets the 
 need of purging from guilt, of pardon, of sanctification, of 
 deliverance from inward bondage, of spiritual power. It 
 reveals itself, the more we study it, as an “all-round” 
 Gospel—a key that fits into every ward of the complicated 
 lock of our spiritual need through sin. In this it approves 
 itself to be divine. 
 
 106 
 
VII 
 
 Christ and Salvation: 
 General View 
 The Redeemer 
 
Christ and Salvation : 
 
 General View—The Redeemer 
 
 T HERE is an expression used by Paul which may fitly 
 introduce this new branch of our subject. He 
 speaks of “ the redemption which is in Christ 
 Jesus” (Rom. iii. 24). It has been seen how deplorable 
 is the state into which sin has brought man—how evil it 
 is, as a state of depravity and bondage ; how awful it is, as 
 a state of guilt, and of exposure to divine wrath ; how 
 universal it is, as not simply individual, but racial, in its 
 effects; how terrible it is, in its eternal consequences. 
 Redemption—the provision which God has made for the 
 salvation of the w T orld—has to meet this state of man in 
 all its parts. It is the fact that it does meet it which is 
 the secret of the perennial power of the Gospel. “ He 
 that made that Book made me,” was a remark once made 
 upon the Bible. Apart from all external attestation, the 
 Gospel has a sure witness in the heart of every man to 
 whom it is preached. “Commending ourselves to every 
 man’s conscience in the sight of God ” (2 Cor. iv. 2). 
 
 I. 
 
 It will be convenient, in unfolding this subject, that I 
 begin with a point of view which has already been before 
 us—I refer to the organic constitution of the race. Sin, as 
 we saw, is an organic thing. In the connection of the 
 
 iog 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 first Adam with his descendants, there is a representative 
 principle involved. “In Adam all die” (i Cor. xv. 22). 
 It follows that, if redemption is to meet this aspect of the 
 case, it must deal with the world organically. The repre¬ 
 sentative principle must enter here also. And so, if we 
 take the testimony of Scripture, it does. “ As in Adam 
 all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” The 
 “alls” here, indeed, are limited as to actual result by 
 their respective spheres—all “ in ” Adam through natural 
 relation ; all “in ” Christ through spiritual relation. But 
 the organic principle is the same in both. 
 
 This is specially the view of the matter wrought out in 
 the remarkable parallel between Adam and Christ in Rom. 
 v. 12-19. Adam in his representative capacity is the 
 figure or type of Christ in His. There is not a separate 
 redemption for each individual. Redemption is on the 
 principle of a new Head of the race, of a new righteous¬ 
 ness won for man by Christ, of a new life communicated 
 through union with Him (vv. 15-19). 
 
 This, it seems to me, is an exceedingly valuable and 
 helpful point of view in dealing with the difficulties which 
 many feel about the Christian salvation. It has been 
 seen how, through the organic constitution of the race, 
 there is of necessity a suffering of many for the sins of 
 others. The drunkard, e.g., not only breaks his wife’s 
 heart, and reduces his children to penury, but transmits 
 to his offspring a diseased organism. With profound 
 truth, the Apostle says: “None of us liveth to himself, 
 and none dieth to himself” (Rom. xiv. 7). You say: 
 “ This is very hard, that one should be made to suffer 
 for another’s wrong-doings.” It is hard, though it flows 
 from a constitution which, as before shown, is, in its 
 normal working, a wholly beneficent one. It is, in any 
 case, the law under which we are obviously placed. 
 
 But now, is it not just here that we begin to get a 
 
 no 
 
Christ and Salvation 
 
 glimpse of the solution of the problem of salvation ? For, 
 if it lies in the organic constitution of things that evil 
 should be handed down from one generation to another— 
 the innocent being made to suffer for the sins of the 
 guilty—is it not the necessary counterbalance of this idea, 
 that good also should be handed down from one to 
 another—that many should benefit through the good of 
 one ? In ordinary life we see this principle con¬ 
 tinually recognised. It is not the evil only that men do 
 that entails consequences. The good they do affects 
 those connected with them as well. A son, e.g., inherits 
 title and estates as the reward of his sire’s or grandsire’s 
 services to the nation. The righteousness of the good 
 brings blessing to the sinful. Is it not reasonable that in 
 the Gospel we should have this same great idea of the 
 benefiting of the many through the righteousness of the 
 One ? It has been seen how Paul teaches that through 
 this law of organic connection the whole race is involved 
 in sin and death by the disobedience of one. Is it not 
 part of the same constitution that there should be restora¬ 
 tion by the obedience of One ? We discover, in short, 
 that there is a wider law in the divine government than 
 that which regards mankind solely as individuals—viz., 
 the organic —and on that law the divine procedure with 
 our race is based, both in judgment and in mercy. 
 
 II. 
 
 Restoration by the obedience of One ! Yes ; but where 
 is the One who is capable of taking this position and 
 effecting this work ? Capable of turning back this terrible 
 stream of evil that has come into the world through sin, 
 and of bringing in redemption and salvation ? This is 
 the question that presses for an answer. It needs no 
 proof, I think, that this is not a work which anyone, or 
 everyone, could undertake, or, undertaking it, £Ould 
 
 hi 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 accomplish with success. Could any ordinary son of 
 Adam—any member, i.e ., of the race that was to be saved 
 —take upon him such a task ? There is the initial bar 
 that such an one is himself a sinful being, involved in the 
 disabilities of our fallen humanity; one, therefore, who 5 
 instead of becoming the Redeemer of the world—the 
 source of a new life to the race—requires himself to be 
 redeemed. But apart from this, could such an ordinary 
 member of the race, even if sinless—a mere individual 
 among others—take up this absolutely unique position of 
 representing the whole race before God, and of transacting 
 with God for its redemption ? The question, surely, has 
 only to be asked to be answered. 
 
 No: this position of representative of man and world’s 
 Redeemer is not one that can be arbitrarily assumed. It 
 must rest on some real relation which subsists between 
 the race represented and the person who represents it. 
 Adam, e.g., sustained a natural relation to his posterity— 
 one which made his standing or falling a true represen¬ 
 tative act in regard to his descendants. The Restorer of 
 the race must be One whose relation is equally real, or 
 even deeper and more fundamental. He must have in 
 Him the possibility of being truly a new Adam—a new 
 Head and Representative of mankind—not in any fictional 
 or merely “ federal,” but in a most real sense; One who 
 stands in a relation to God and to humanity which no 
 other does; who stands in such a relation to God that 
 He can represent God perfectly to men, and in such a 
 relation to humanity that He can transact for man with 
 God; who can be in a real and proper sense a Mediator 
 between God and man. 
 
 This brings us to the question of who the Redeemer in 
 the divine economy of redemption in the Gospel actually 
 is. Who is this Christ whom we honour with the name 
 Saviour ? The present is an age of attempts at humani- 
 
 112 
 
Christ and Salvation 
 
 tarian interpretations of the Person of Christ. Is Jesus, 
 then, mere man—albeit the noblest and holiest of men— 
 one individual of the race—a single offshoot of humanity 
 like others ? Or is He something more : One who in the 
 root of His Personality is divine—who sustains a relation 
 to God, to the world, and to humanity, which antecedes 
 all time—who, in truth, was the Creator of all things— 
 but who, for us and our salvation, in pursuance of the 
 Father’s counsel, condescended in His infinite grace and 
 love to become man, and to stoop to suffering and death 
 for our salvation ? This latter is the faith of the Church 
 about Christ; it is, as will be seen, the teaching of the 
 Scriptures ; it is also, I venture to affirm, the only doc¬ 
 trine which gives what is needed as an adequate support 
 for the work of human salvation. 
 
 To be convinced of this, think only again of what 
 redemption means. To remove the burden of the world’s 
 guilt; to perfectly reconcile God and man ; to be the 
 Mediator of forgiveness to the race, and Source to it of a 
 new, eternal life; to be all that Christ has proved Him¬ 
 self to be to humanity of strength, of hope, of comfort, of 
 joy, of holiness ; to open to believers the gates of heavenly 
 glory; surely it must be felt that this is infinitely too 
 heavy a burden to be laid on the shoulders of any mere 
 man! In the Scriptural view there is a proportion and 
 consistency between the work to be done and the Person 
 who is to do it. In this the harmony of Scripture doc¬ 
 trine is again evinced. In the Being of God we saw there 
 is a Trinity which lays the foundation for the possibility of 
 the incarnation of the Son. In the relation of the divine 
 Son to the world, and specially to humanity, in the 
 creation, is grounded the possibility of a unique relation 
 to our race—a relation “ sui generis ”—deeper and more 
 fundamental than any other. Christ’s relation to men is 
 unspeakably closer than that of the natural Adam. Adam 
 
 113 1 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 was th e physical progenitor of the race (i Cor. xv. 45, 47). 
 The Divine Word is the root from which the whole race 
 —even Adam himself—sprang. When, therefore, the 
 Word entered humanity—“ became flesh ” (John i. 14)— 
 His relation to the race was representative in the highest 
 possible degree. If the saving of our race was possible 
 through anyone taking upon himself the burden of its 
 responsibilities, it was possible through Him. Nor can 
 it be conceived that He should take our nature upon Him 
 except on the assumption that redemption was possible, 
 and with the design of accomplishing it. 
 
 In the light of the work of human redemption, then, 
 the incarnation of the Son is seen to be an essential part 
 of Christian doctrine. Many tendencies are at present 
 in operation to weaken this doctrine—speculative and 
 evolutionary theories, doctrines of divine immanence, a 
 pantheistic identification of God and man, above all, the 
 powerful bent in the spirit of the age towards a non¬ 
 supernatural interpretation of the facts and truths of 
 religion. In all directions, as already said, the attempt is 
 being made to lower the doctrine of Christ to a more or less 
 avowed humanitarian level. It is a necessity of the life 
 of the Church to resist these tendencies, and to contend 
 for a Christ who is as essentially divine in nature and 
 Personality as He is human in His form of manifestation 
 —who is the very Word of God become flesh (John 
 i. 14). 
 
 Into the numerous subtle questions which have agitated 
 the mind of the Church as to the relations of the divine and 
 human in the one Person of Christ—as to how His divine 
 and human natures are united—I cannot enter at any 
 length. The more the question is considered, it will be 
 found, I think, that the Church in its decisions on this 
 profound mystery has done little more than reaffirm the 
 essential fact to which faith must always hold fast—the 
 
 IJ 4 
 
Christ and Salvation 
 
 fact, viz., that in Jesus Christ we have at once true man 
 and true God —one divine and human Chr st, without 
 dividing of His person (this against Nestorianism), or 
 mutilating, or confusing of the natures (this against what 
 is called Apollinarianism and Eutychianism), one 
 Person, truly God, in being begotten by the Father 
 before all worlds, and truly man in the possession of a 
 true human body and a true soul. To these essential 
 positions the Church universal unswervingly adhered, 
 warding off denials on one side or on another as they 
 arose, and seeking language which would unambiguously, 
 however imperfectly, express the truth affirmed. It is 
 natural to plead for new “ constructions,” or \o claim to 
 be free from all constructions. Commonly, however, the 
 real issue in these contentions will be discovered to be, as 
 of old, the essential Deity of Him whom we call Lord, and 
 the choice will remain, as before, betw en the assertion of 
 Christ’s oneness in essence with the Father, or the 
 descent, through various intermediate forms of negation, 
 to undisguised humanitarianism. 
 
 III. 
 
 It has been stated that the Incarnation, in the sense 
 defined, is the undeniable doctrine of Scripture, just as we 
 have seen it to be the necessary presupposition of the 
 redeeming work Christ came to do. Part of the proof, as 
 respects the divine side of Christ’s person, has been 
 already given under the doctrine of the Trinity. There 
 the equality in nature of the Son with the Father and the 
 Holy Spirit was shown to be involved in the whole New 
 Testament teaching on salvation. It is not denied by 
 impartial exegetes that passages abound in which the 
 highest names, attributes, works, and honours of God 
 are ascribed to Christ. He was in the beginning with 
 God, and was God (John i. i) ; was in the “form of 
 
 US 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 God ” (Phil. ii. 6) ; pre-existed before all time—was 
 eternal (John xvii. 5 ; Col. i. 17 ; Rev. i. 17) ; 
 created and upholds all things (John i. 2 ; Col. i. 16, 
 17 ; Heb. i. 2, 3, 10, &c.) ; is named God (Acts xx. 
 28 ; Rom. ix. 5 ; Heb. i. 8) ; is worshipped as God 
 (Rev. v. 12, 13) ; is exalted to universal dominion 
 (Phil. ii. 9-11 ; Eph. i. 20-23 ; 1 Pet. iii. 22). 
 
 If it is argued, as it sometimes is, that this is a late 
 apostolic development, not found in the simpler repre¬ 
 sentation of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels , the reply is, that 
 the Synoptic Gospels came from the hands of the very 
 men who held and taught the Apostolic doctrine, and 
 that they saw no contrariety in the representations. The 
 picture in the Synoptic Gospels, not less than that in 
 the Epistles, is the picture of a Person superhuman in 
 origin, character, claims, endowments, work, and destiny. 
 Born of a Virgin, free from all sin, announced as the 
 Messiah who should baptise with the Holy Spirit (Matt, 
 iii. 11), Founder and Lord of the Kingdom of heaven, 
 Saviour from sin (Matt. i. 21; Luke ii. 11 ; xix. 10, &c.), 
 future Judge of the world (Matt. vii. 21-23 ; xxv. 31 ff.), 
 Fulfiller of Prophecy and Goal of Old Testament Reve¬ 
 lation (Matt. v. 17 ; Mark ix. 12 ; Luke xxiv. 27, 44, &c.), 
 controlling nature by His word, rising from the dead, 
 with His disciples everywhere to the end of the world 
 (Matt, xviii. 20 ; xxviii. 20)—it will be difficult to maintain 
 that a less exalted Person than the Fourth Gospel and 
 the Epistles depict is needed to sustain such dignity and 
 such prerogatives! It is, as before seen, into Christ’s 
 name, equally with that of the Father and of the Holy 
 Spirit, we are baptised—rather the threefold name is 
 one (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20). 
 
 It is less necessary to dwell on the evidences of the true 
 humanity of Christ, since this, in these days, is seldom 
 disputed. The tendency is rather to resolve everything 
 
 116 
 
Christ and Salvation 
 
 into it. Jesus was born a true man (Gal. iv. 4); He 
 grew from childhood to manhood, developing in wisdom 
 as in stature (Luke ii. 40, 52) ; He hungered, He thirsted, 
 He was weary, He was tempted; He was made in all 
 things like unto His brethren ; “ yet without sin ” (Rom. 
 viii. 3; Heb. ii. 14, 17; iv. 15). He died upon the 
 Cross, and was buried (1 Cor. xv. 3, 4). Every view of 
 Jesus which detracts from the entire reality of His 
 humanity—whether by pronouncing it a semblance (thus 
 the Gnostics), or by saying that the divine Logos took the 
 place of the rational soul in Jesus (Apollinaris), or by 
 denying the reality of Christ’s human development, and 
 His voluntary assumption of human limitations—is shown 
 by the facts of the Gospel history to be in error. 
 
 IV. 
 
 How, it may naturally be asked, can such apparently 
 contrary aspects in Christ’s Person co-exist ? God and 
 man ; in the “ form of a servant,” yet as God retaining 
 His undiminished power and glory; on earth, yet “the 
 Son of Man who is in heaven ” (John iii. 13). We are 
 not called upon to solve these problems ; nor does belief 
 in the divine fact depend upon our power to solve them. 
 Probably if we could sound the depths of our own per¬ 
 sonality we should find that mysteries enough are con¬ 
 tained there also—seemingly contradictory aspects, depths 
 that connect in strange ways with the invisible world, 
 which our ordinary consciousness does not pierce. We 
 read of “ oversoul,” of “ subliminal consciousness,” of 
 “ multiple personality ” ; a pantheistic philosophy will 
 even have it that each finite personality is a “ reproduc¬ 
 tion ” of an “ eternal consciousness ” with which it is in 
 nature identical. This is not true of each finite person¬ 
 ality, else every man would be God, as Christ was. But 
 it is strange that such statements should be made, yet 
 
 11 7 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 difficulty be felt at the co-existence of different modes of 
 being in the one Personality of whom it is true. 
 
 One thing which may help to relieve difficulties on this 
 point is that man and God are in nature akin. Man was 
 made in God’s image. His nature is receptive of the 
 divine; of believers it is even said that they “become 
 partakers of the divine nature ” (2 Pet. i. 4). Humanity, 
 as a whole, it was before seen, has its ground and origin 
 in the Logos (John i. 3-11). There lies, therefore, in the 
 very constitution of man, the possibility of such personal 
 union with God as is involved in the Incarnation. The 
 Logos, or Son, in assuming our nature, only takes to 
 Himself what was His own, and makes it the vehicle of 
 His personal manifestation. 
 
 There is another way which, in modern times, has 
 been attempted of removing the difficulty of the two states 
 of Christ’s being while on earth, viz., by affirming a com¬ 
 plete surrender of all divine functions, and even of divine 
 consciousness, by the Son, during the period of His 
 earthly humiliation. This is the so-called “ Kenotic ” 
 theory of the incarnation. It is based on the statement 
 in Phil ii. 6, 7, that the Son, “ existing in the form of 
 God,” voluntarily “ emptied Himself, taking the form of 
 a servant.” This is taken to mean that, during His 
 earthly life, the Son ceased to exist in the form of God, 
 even as respects His heavenly existence. The place of 
 the Son in the life of the Godhead was for the time 
 suspended. The Son gave up His glory, even His self- 
 consciousness, and consented to be born as an unconscious 
 babe in Bethlehem. He grew into the consciousness of 
 His Godhead, as He grew into the knowledge of His 
 Messianic dignity. Only after His resurrection and 
 exaltation did He resume—now in our humanity—the 
 glory He before had with the Father. The difficulties in 
 the way of this conception of the temporary obliteration 
 
 118 
 
Christ and Salvation 
 
 of consciousness and activity on the part of one of the 
 members of the Holy Trinity appear insuperable. The 
 Son’s relation to the universe—not to say to the Godhead 
 —is not of the contingent, unessential kind that could be 
 suspended at will. “ In Him all things consist ” (Col. 
 i. 17)—“ Upholding all things by the word of His power” 
 (Heb. i. 3). These are not functions that could be 
 arbitrarily abdicated. Nor is this meaning required by 
 the terms in Phil. ii. 7. The “ emptying ” of Christ has 
 relation, not to His divine mode of existence, but to His 
 earthly humiliation. He, the Son of God, took upon 
 Him “ the form of a servant,” and, voluntarily renouncing 
 all prerogatives of Godhead, submitted to poverty, suffer¬ 
 ing, rejection, ignominious death. In this, surely, there 
 is “ kenosis ” enough to satisfy the most exacting. 
 
 V. 
 
 But what, it will still be asked, of the state of humilia¬ 
 tion itself? If, in becoming man, Christ voluntarily 
 forebore the use of His divine prerogatives ; submitting 
 to the conditions and limitations of a real humanity— 
 “growing in wisdom and stature”—how does this bear 
 upon His human knowledge , and especially on the ascrip¬ 
 tion to Him by many in modern days of ignorance and 
 positive error ? There is no more dangerous type of error 
 than that which consists in the abuse of a truth ; and the 
 abuse of the admitted truth of Christ’s submission, in 
 knowledge, as in other things, to the limitations of a real 
 humanity, is a signal illustration of the danger. It has 
 opened the door to an imputation, ever growing freer and 
 more reckless, of ignorance and mistake in our Lord’s 
 judgments, which goes far to annul His authority as a 
 Teacher altogether. It is allowed, no doubt, by some, 
 that on the central parts of His message—those directly 
 connected with His Messianic mission—His teaching may 
 
 119 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 be accepted; but the line is very wavering between 
 essential and unessential, and there are many qualifica¬ 
 tions. Much has still to be allowed for the influence of 
 contemporary conceptions of Christ’s views of God, the 
 world, man, the Scriptures, Messiahship, the future. His 
 eschatology must be put aside. The permanent religious 
 element in His teachings must be disengaged from the 
 forms, often naive and unscientific, in which His mind 
 clothed it. The peril arising from the prevalence of this 
 type of thinking is undoubtedly very great. 
 
 Let it be granted that, in His earthly state, Jesus 
 submitted to such limitations as a true manhood imposed 
 on Him. He neither claimed nor exercised, as man, an 
 absolute omniscience in matters of natural, or even of 
 divine knowledge. No one imagines that Jesus carried 
 with Him through life, from manger to Cross, in his 
 human consciousness (nothing is said here of His divine), 
 a knowledge, e.g., of all modern sciences—astronomy, 
 geology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and the like. 
 Such things were foreign to His calling ; He had no need 
 of them, else they would have been given Him. On 
 divine things such, e.g., as the time of the Advent, He 
 distinguishes between His own knowledge and that of 
 His Father, who had set the times and seasons within 
 His own authority (Acts i. 7), and says expressly: “Of 
 that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels 
 in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father ” (Mark xiii. 
 32). It is, however, a very wide and unwarrantable 
 inference to draw from this, that on the things on which 
 Christ did pronounce, His mind was in error. The 
 conclusion to be deduced is rather the opposite. If 
 Jesus had not the knowledge of the day and hour of the 
 end, He said so, and gave no utterance on the subject. 
 He was conscious of what He knew, and of what it was not 
 given Him to know. Within His knowledge He spoke ; 
 
 120 
 
Christ and Salvation 
 
 on what lay beyond He was silent. In what He did say 
 His utterances were authoritative. 
 
 A first mistake in this theory, therefore, is the confusing 
 of ignorance with error. If there was limitation of know¬ 
 ledge, it is assumed that there must be necessity of error. 
 But this in no way follows in regard to the mind of the 
 divine Son. That mind was unlike every other in being 
 pure from every taint and flaw of sin in thought, will, or 
 judgment. It was a pure mirror of the truth. Jesus 
 even speaks of Himself as “the Truth.” It was unlike 
 every other, further, in being in absolute, constant touch 
 with the Source of all truth. There was an intersphering 
 of knowledge of Son and Father which has no possible 
 analogy in anyone else. Think only of such utterances 
 as these : “ No one knoweth the Son save the Father; 
 neither doth any know the Father save the Son, and He 
 to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him ” (Matt, 
 xi. 27). “ The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what 
 
 He seeth the Father doing. . . . For the Father 
 
 loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself 
 doeth ” (John v. 19, 20). 
 
 Is not this enough of itself to guard Christ in thought 
 and in speech from error ? It means that Christ’s con¬ 
 sciousness moved in a sphere of revelation as in its natural 
 environment. There are other sayings that might be 
 recalled, as “ He whom God hath sent speaketh the words 
 of God: For He giveth not the Spirit by measure [unto 
 Him]. The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all 
 things into His hand ” (John iii. 34, 35). Does this leave 
 room at any point for error in Christ’s consciousness ? 
 Finally, it is never to be forgotten that, while the Son 
 submits to the conditions of humanity, it is still the Son of 
 God who so submits, and behind all human conditionings 
 are still present the undiminished resources of the 
 Godhead. Omniscience, omnipotence, all other divine 
 
 121 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 attributes, are there, though not drawn upon, save as the 
 Father willed them to be. Whatever the relation of 
 divine and human in Christ’s Person, they dare not be 
 held so far apart as to allow of His falling into either 
 sin or error. 
 
 We therefore conclude that, in all that relates to His 
 Messianic work, Christ’s humiliation deprived Him of 
 nothing needed to constitute Him Perfect Revealer and 
 Perfect Mediator. 
 
 122 
 
Christ and Salvation 
 The Atonement 
 
Christ and Salvation: 
 
 The Atonement 
 
 ' T has been seen that the doctrine of Christ’s Person 
 stands in indissoluble relation with the work He 
 came to do as Redeemer. The Bible does not mock 
 us by giving us a merely human Saviour—a mortal strug¬ 
 gling with sin and weakness like ourselves. It gives us 
 One who, in a true sense one with us, as entering into 
 our nature and temptations, yet is, in His divine Per¬ 
 sonality, the “ strong, eternal Son of God ”—“ mighty to 
 save” (Is. lxiii. i). We have seen how the doctrines of 
 the Bible in this connection fit in together. We began 
 with the doctrine of the Trinity, and the divinity of Christ 
 in the heart of it. Now we see where the divinity of 
 Christ comes in, in the doctrine of our salvation. This is 
 where Unitarianism breaks down absolutely. It cannot 
 yield us a Saviour adequate to our need. The question 
 we now come to ask is : What has Christ done for human 
 salvation ? What specially has He done in making atone¬ 
 ment for sin ? 
 
 I. 
 
 It is well at this point to be on our guard against 
 unduly narrowing the idea of Christ’s redemption, as if 
 the word “ atonement ” summed up the whole of it. It 
 does not even sum up the whole of the priestly work of 
 
 125 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 Christ, for that is continued in His heavenly intercession 
 for us (Rom. viii. 34; Heb. vii. 25; 1 John ii. 1). 
 Theology has been accustomed to sum up the redeeming 
 work of Christ under the heads of the three great “offices” 
 of “Prophet,” “Priest,” and “King,” and there is scrip¬ 
 tural warrant for this distinction. Christ is “ Prophet ” 
 as the Revealer of God and of His will to men (Acts iii. 
 22); He is “ King ” as the Founder and Lord of the 
 Kingdom of God (John xviii. 37). The prophetic office 
 was mainly exercised on earth—though it is continued in 
 the mission of the Spirit (John xiv. 16, 17 ; xv. 26 ; 
 xvi. 13, 14), and the preaching of Christ’s ambassadors 
 (2 Cor. v. 20). The kingly office was exercised on earth, 
 but is now specially and manifestly exercised in heaven, 
 where Christ has been exalted to the throne of universal 
 dominion (Acts ii. 34-36 ; Eph. i. 20-23 ; 1 Pet. iii. 22). 
 It is as “the King” that the Son of Man will come in 
 His glory at the judgment (Matt. xxv. 31, 34, 40). 
 
 Still, it is in the work of atonement for sins which Christ 
 accomplished by His death that Scripture always, concen¬ 
 trates the efficacy of Plis appearance for our salvation. It 
 was there that “ propitiation ” was made for sin (Rom. 
 iii. 25; Heb. ii. 17; 1 John ii. 2; iv. 10); that “ recon¬ 
 ciliation ” was effected, and “ peace ” made between man 
 and God (2 Cor. v. 18-21; Rom. v. 9, 11; Eph. ii. 13-17; 
 Col. i. 20, 21); that the one “sacrifice” was offered by 
 which sin has been for ever put away (Heb. ix. 26-28). 
 The atonement is the basis on which the whole super¬ 
 structure of redemption rests. To deny it is, in effect, to 
 take the foundation from the Gospel. 
 
 Yet, strangely enough, it is this very doctrine, the glory 
 of the Christian Gospel, which has been, in recent times, 
 the object of special disfavour and assault. No one 
 familiar with the currents of modern thought will deny 
 that for many years there has been a very considerable 
 
 126 
 
Christ and Salvation 
 
 alienation of mind on the part of multitudes from the idea 
 of expiatory atonement in connection with Christ’s death. 
 The doctrine is not preached as it used to be in our 
 pulpits—certainly is not made the centre of preaching; 
 or, if it is preached, it is generally with some new inter¬ 
 pretation which one feels instinctively is not the meaning 
 of the Apostles. I do not wait to analyse the causes of 
 this dislike. It may be that the churches are themselves 
 partly to blame, in giving the doctrine too formal and 
 scholastic a cast; it may be that newer theories, in some 
 cases, are attempts to find a place for aspects of truth 
 that had been unduly neglected; it may be that the doc¬ 
 trine really stood in need of interpretation on lines more 
 spiritual than had been customary. 
 
 In my own judgment the principal cause of aversion to 
 the doctrine lies in a different direction—in the prevalence 
 of philosophical and scientific theories which take the 
 foundation from those Biblical doctrines which are the 
 presuppositions of the doctrine of atonement, so compel¬ 
 ling either its rejection, or a new and unscriptural inter¬ 
 pretation of its meaning. That doctrine, however, can 
 never really be extruded from the Gospel. Despite all 
 that men can do or say, it is certain to come back—there 
 are already many indications that it is coming back—and 
 will as surely resume its place in the centre of the Gospel 
 as the sun will rise in the heavens to-morrow ! 
 
 II. 
 
 I have alluded to the drift of the mind of the age away 
 from the presuppositions of the Biblical doctrine of atone¬ 
 ment. This is a point on which there should be a clear 
 understanding at the outset. There is no use studying 
 the doctrine of atonement in the Bible unless we are pre¬ 
 pared to do it in the light of the Bible’s own presuppo¬ 
 sitions, especially in the light of its teaching on the 
 
 12 7 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 character and holiness of God, and on the sin of man. That 
 God is holy—that He can never look on sin but with 
 abhorrence and displeasure—can never call sin aught else 
 but what it is, or tamper with the condemning testimony 
 of His law against it; this on the one hand, and, on the 
 other, that sin is sin, a thing inherently evil, condemn- 
 able, punishable, the result of voluntary transgression 
 laying the world and the individual transgressor under 
 God’s just condemnation, these are postulates of the doc¬ 
 trine of atonement without the admission of which the 
 doctrine becomes meaningless. If these presuppositions 
 of the doctrine are denied, or are displaced by some 
 modern view which proceeds on opposite ideas, I 
 despair of ever making the atonement appear real or 
 reasonable. 
 
 Take, as examples, the two presuppositions that have 
 been mentioned :—God’s holiness and man’s sin. Suppose 
 that under the influence of some form of the doctrine of 
 the Fatherhood of God, the character of God as holy 
 Judge of the world and Punisher of sin is called in ques¬ 
 tion ; or that, under the influence of some evolutionary 
 theory of man’s origin, the gravity of sin is minimised, 
 its guilt extenuated, the condemnation of God resting on 
 the sinner weakened; or that, on yet higher metaphysical 
 grounds, sin is taken up into the world-process, and 
 represented as a necessity of human development—an 
 element in the life of God Himself—then, plainly, there 
 is no basis left for a doctrine of atonement, and we need 
 not wonder that men fight shy of it, or scoff at it. 
 
 It is on the basis of the Biblical conception—not on 
 those of non-Biblical philosophical or scientific theories 
 —that the study of the atonement is here approached. 
 So approaching it, what must first strike the impartial 
 student is, how largely and vitally this doctrine enters 
 into the representations of both Old Testament and New. 
 
 128 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 Many, it is to be feared, who discuss the subject, have 
 never taken the trouble to make a careful study of the 
 Bible teaching in regard to it. They deal with it on 
 general principles that commend themselves to their own 
 minds, and pay little heed to what the Bible itself has to 
 say on the matter. This is a mistake, for the Bible 
 throughout has a definite and coherent doctrine on atone¬ 
 ment for sin, and those who give attention to it will 
 probably be surprised to find how uniform and un¬ 
 ambiguous are its teachings. 
 
 III. 
 
 The doctrine of propitiatory atonement is deeply in- 
 wrought into the structure of the Old Testament. 
 
 i. It is found first and most prominently in the doctrine 
 of sacrifice, which meets us from the beginning, and has, 
 even in its simplest form, that of the burnt offering, an 
 expiatory significance (cf. Job i. 5 ; xlii. 8-9). The blood, 
 in which was the life, was a sacred thing, and, when 
 presented to God, had a sin-covering efficacy (cf. Lev. 
 xvii. 2). The covenants were ratified by sacrifice (Gen. 
 viii. 20-23 ; ix.; xv. ; Exod. xxiv. 5-8 ; cf. Heb. ix. 18-22). 
 The blood of the passover lamb, sprinkled on the door¬ 
 posts and lintels, protected the Israelites from the 
 destroyer (Exod. xii. 7, 13, 22, 23). It is in the Levitical 
 ritual , however, which there is no good reason for carrying 
 down to post-exilian times, that the idea of propitiatory 
 sacrifice attains to completed expression. Of divine 
 appointment, the Levitical system is constructed for a 
 definite end, that of mediating the approach of a people 
 in whom there is sin to a holy God, and has, as a leading 
 part of its design, the making atonement , or propitiation 
 for sin. This is constantly declared of the sacrifices, 
 except in the case of the peace-offerings, where, in the 
 imposition of hands and sprinkling of the blood (Lev. 
 
 129 K 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 iii. 8), it is implied (Lev. i. 4 ; iv. 20, 26; v. 18, &c.). The 
 word rendered “ to atone ” means literally “ to cover,” 
 the idea being that the blood presented on the altar 
 covered the person of the sinner, or covered his sin, from 
 the eyes of the holy God (Lev. xvii. 11). On the great 
 Day of Atonement, the blood of the sin-offering, shed 
 for the sins of the people, was sprinkled upon the mercy- 
 seat (Lev. xvi. 15, 16)—intercepting, as it were, the 
 condemning testimony that rose up from the tables of 
 the law beneath to God. The writer to the Hebrews 
 illustrates with profound insight the significance of the 
 law and the priesthood as at once a foreshadowing of 
 good things to come, and a temporary institute which 
 had not the power of itself to effect that which it fore¬ 
 shadowed (Chs. ix., x). 
 
 2. A different, but equally instructive, line of develop¬ 
 ment is seen in the psalms and prophets in the delineation 
 of the righteous sufferer , which culminates in the definite 
 taking over of the sacrificial idea of the law upon the 
 “ Servant of the Lord ” in Is. liii. In this wonderful 
 chapter—the most explicit prediction of the sufferings 
 and death of Christ in the Old Testament—you have a 
 Righteous Sufferer too, one “despised and rejected of 
 men” (ver. 3). But the distinctive thing is, that His 
 sufferings are now atoning, expiatory, a means of removal 
 of the guilt of sin. “ He was wounded for our transgres¬ 
 sions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastise¬ 
 ment of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes 
 we are healed ” (ver. 5). His soul is made “ an offering 
 for sin,” or as the word literally is, “a guilt-offering ” 
 (ver. 10). The Lord “ laid on Him the iniquity of us 
 all ” (ver. 6) ; He bears iniquities (ver. 11) ; “ He poured 
 out His soul unto death, and was numbered with the 
 transgressors ; yet He bear the sin of many, and made 
 intercession for the transgressors” (ver. 12). His death 
 
 I 3° 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 is followed by a signal triumph. By the knowledge of 
 Him many are justified (ver. n). He sees His seed, 
 prolongs His days, rules and conquers (vers, io, 12). It is 
 not surprising that this remarkable prophecy was often 
 in the mind of Christ Himself, and is frequently alluded 
 to in the New Testament (Luke iv. 17-21; xxii. 37; 
 Acts viii. 27-35 ; 1 Pet. ii. 24, &c.). 
 
 IV. 
 
 Next, as to the New Testament . 
 
 1. That an atoning efficacy is ascribed to the suf¬ 
 ferings and death of Christ in the Epistles few will 
 dispute. The idea is not only there ; it saturates the 
 writings of the New Testament. It is present in the 
 Epistles of Paul, of John, of Peter, in the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews, in the Book of Revelation. In 
 every variety of language it is declared that Christ died 
 for us, bore our sins, was made sin for us, redeemed us by 
 His blood, made reconciliation by His death, was a pro¬ 
 pitiation for our sins, obtained for us forgiveness of sins, 
 &c. ( cf . Rom. iii. 25; v. 8-11 ; 2 Cor. v. 21; Gal. i. 4; 
 
 iii. 13 ; iv. 4; Eph. i, 7 ; Col. i. 20-22 ; Heb. ix. 26-28 ; 
 1 Pet. i. 18, 19; ii. 24; iii. 18; 1 John i. 7 ; ii. 2 ; iii. 5 ; 
 
 iv. 10 ; Rev. i. 5 ; v. 9, &c.). Paul names this as the first 
 article of the Gospel he had “received,” “that Christ 
 died for our sins according to the Scriptures ” (1 Cor. xv. 
 3). In this, however, it is often said, as before, that we 
 have a contrast between the Epistles and the Gospels, 
 and that in the teaching of Jesus Himself, especially in 
 the first three Gospels, this doctrine of atonement is 
 wanting. Penitence and faith, it is declared, are there 
 the only conditions of salvation. The parable of the 
 Prodigal Son is pointed to, in which there is no sugges¬ 
 tion of a need of atonement in order to forgiveness. 
 
 EH 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 2. In this not infrequent opposing of Gospel to Epistle 
 there is again a strange oversight. In one sense, indeed, 
 there must be a contrast. Gospel is not yet Epistle. It 
 was not to be expected that, at a time when even His 
 Messiahship had not been publicly proclaimed, Jesus 
 should be found speaking of the connection of salvation 
 with His sufferings and death—speaking of His Cross, 
 when the Cross had not yet been reared. Fact must 
 precede doctrine. The atonement had to be made before 
 it could be fully preached. Yet Jesus did not altogether 
 keep silence on His approaching death and its significance, 
 nor do the Evangelists represent Him as so doing. Such 
 teaching is not to be looked for in the parable of the 
 Prodigal Son, which has its own lesson to convey, and 
 leaves other aspects of salvation untouched. If atone¬ 
 ment is not mentioned, it may perhaps occur that the 
 same objection would apply to all mediation of salvation 
 or forgiveness by Christ, for Christ does not appear in the 
 parable either. Yet nothing is more certain than that, in 
 all the Gospels, Jesus appears as the Founder of the 
 Messianic Kingdom, and bringer in of the Messianic sal¬ 
 vation, the blessings of which depend on His Person and 
 work. 
 
 Not only, however, in this general sense does Jesus 
 connect salvation with His Person ; in many utterances 
 He gives unmistakable indications of His consciousness 
 that the redemption of the world is to be accomplished 
 through His death. Such, in John’s Gospel, is the utter¬ 
 ance to Nicodemus, “ As Moses lifted up the serpent in 
 the wilderness,” &c. (John iii. 14-16) ; the statement at 
 Capernaum about giving His flesh for the life of the 
 world (vi. 51-96) ; His words on the Good Shepherd 
 giving His life for the sheep (x. 10-18) ; the remarkable 
 saying, “ I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all 
 men unto myself” (xii. 32). Then, in the Synoptics, is 
 
 132 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 the pregnant declaration : “ The Son of Man came not to 
 be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a 
 ransom for many ” (Matt. xx. 28 ; Mark x. 45) ; above all, 
 the words at the institution of the Lord’s Supper as to 
 His body broken and His blood shed for the remission of 
 sins, and the founding of a new covenant between man 
 and God (Matt. xxvi. 26-28 ; Mark xiv. 22-24; Luke xxii. 
 17-20; 1 Cor. xi. 23-26). Christ’s death was much in 
 His thoughts in the latter part of His ministry, and He 
 expressly connected it with the fulfilment of prophecy, the 
 appointment of God, and the accomplishment of His 
 mission (Matt. xx. 17-19 ; Luke ix. 22, 31 ; xviii. 31-33, 
 &c.) 
 
 Is not, in truth, the whole appearance of the Son of God 
 in our humanity in this humbled, suffering condition a 
 mystery without the light which this doctrine of redemp¬ 
 tion sheds upon it ? The Gospels give the key for its 
 understanding when they say: “ Thou shalt call His 
 
 name Jesus; for it is He that shall save His people from 
 their sins ” (Matt. i. 21); “ There is born to you this day 
 in the City of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord ” 
 (Luke ii. 11); “Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh 
 away the sin of the world ” (John i. 21). Jesus Himself 
 shows His consciousness of the significance of His death 
 as a turning point in the relations of God and man, in His 
 post-resurrection injunctions to go and preach remission 
 of sins in His name to all nations (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20 ; 
 Mark xvi. 15, 16; Luke xxiv. 44-49). The Apostolic 
 teaching is but the consistent interpretation, in the fuller 
 illumination of the Spirit, of the facts and statements 
 which the Gospels already contain. 
 
 V. 
 
 Distinction is often made between fact and theory in 
 the doctrine of atonement; but it will be evident from 
 
 133 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 what has been said that an element of what is called 
 “ theory,” i.e., of doctrinal significance, attaches to even 
 the simplest statements of Scripture on this subject. 
 “Fact ” and “theory” are at all times relative terms. 
 The Copernican “ theory ” of the heavens is now accepted 
 as an established “ fact ” of nature. “ Gravitation ” was 
 once “ theory ” ; it is now universally treated as “ fact.” 
 The bare “ fact ” in Christ’s death is that a man, called 
 Jesus, was once crucified. So soon as an interpretation 
 of that death which sets it in relation to human sin is 
 given—so soon as doctrinal significance is attached to it 
 —we enter the region of what is misnamed “ theory.” If, 
 however, the explanation is of the essence of the “fact” 
 —if it is in its relation to sin that the death of Christ has 
 its chief meaning and importance for the Gospel—the 
 distinction between “fact” and “theory,” so far as the 
 relation is revealed, disappears. The New Testament 
 will not allow us to believe that everything remains vague 
 and undetermined in the meaning we are to attach to 
 Christ’s doing and dying for our salvation. It is not 
 every conception of the Cross that suits the full and varied 
 representations given of it in Scripture. Many questions, 
 doubtless, remain, into the answers to which an element 
 of human “ theory ” enters; and no view of the atone¬ 
 ment can claim to be adequate to the divine reality. Our 
 thoughts here, also, are ever enlarging. But the great 
 basal lines of the doctrine are laid down from the first 
 with unmistakable clearness. 
 
 In seeking a connected view which shall do justice to 
 the manysidedness of the truth of the atonement, and help 
 to correct the misapprehensions and remove the diffi¬ 
 culties sometimes felt in regard to it, it is very important 
 to see clearly where k the difficulty about the atonement 
 principally lies. The real difficulty does not lie where it 
 is often put, viz., in the mere fact of the innocent suffering 
 
 134 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 for the guilty. It does not lie there, for this is not a thing 
 confined to Jesus Christ, though He is the most glorious 
 example of it. The world is full of the suffering of the 
 innocent for the sins of others. More than this, the world 
 is full of substitutionary, of vicarious, forces—of the 
 voluntary enduring of suffering for the sake of others. 
 This is the point in Bushnell’s book on Vicarious Sacrifice , 
 and it is true and good so far as it goes. Bushnell lays 
 stress on the substitutionary forces at work in human life, 
 and shows how, in His perfect sympathy with men, these 
 were at work at their maximum in the case of Christ. 
 
 It is not there that the difficulty lies, but here : how 
 this suffering of Jesus, the innocent for the guilty, should 
 become expiatory. Here other elements enter which a 
 mere theory of sympathy does not explain. The Old 
 Testament, as we have seen, has much to say of the 
 sufferings of the righteous for the sins of others ( cf . Ps. 
 xxii.); but it is not till we come to Is. liii. that we have 
 the representation of One whose sufferings are atoning. 
 Suffering for another’s sins has in and of itself no 
 expiatory character. It is an aggravation of the sin ; not 
 an atonement for it. A prodigal breaks his mother’s 
 heart; but the grief he causes her does not wipe out his 
 sin. It adds to its enormity. A martyr perishes at the 
 stake, but this does not atone for the crime of his 
 murderers. Jesus declares that on Jerusalem would come 
 all the blood of prophets and righteous men (Matt, xxiii. 
 34-36). Christ’s own crucifixion was an unspeakable 
 crime for which repentance was demanded (Acts. ii. 23 ; 
 iii. 14-19). 
 
 VI. 
 
 What, then, was it in Christ’s death, in distinction from 
 that of a martyr sufferer, which constituted it an atone¬ 
 ment for the sins of the world ? 
 
 135 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 1. Subjective theories here fail, which seek the 
 explanation of Christ’s reconciling work solely in the 
 moral effect of the spectacle of suffering love in breaking 
 down the enmity of the sinner, and bringing him to 
 repentance. The Gospel is such a “ moral dynamic ” ; but 
 the efficacy lies not in the bare exhibition of suffering 
 goodness, but in the conviction that Christ suffered thus 
 for our redemption —that through His death we have 
 pardon and peace with God. The fault of all such 
 theories is that they leave out of account the God-ward 
 aspect of Christ’s work—that aspect which Scripture 
 peculiarly emphasises in speaking of His death as a 
 “propitiation.” Bushnell did good service in laying 
 stress on the deep and vital sympathy of Christ as a 
 qualification for His work as Redeemer (Heb. ii. 14-18 ; 
 iv. 14-16). But Bushnell himself came to see later that 
 he had done less than justice to the idea of “ propitiation,” 
 and sought to find a place, though still an inadequate one, 
 for it in his theory. 
 
 2. Shall we, then, with others, seek to find the essence 
 
 of Christ’s sacrifice in the yielding up of His holy will to 
 the Father? Sin, we are reminded, has its essence in 
 self-will—in the setting up of the human will against 
 God —and Christ has retracted this root-sin of humanity 
 by offering up to God, under experience of suffering and 
 death, the well-pleasing sacrifice of a will wholly obedient 
 and self-surrendered. “ Lo, I am come to do Thy will ” 
 (Heb. x. 9). “ Not as I will, but as Thou wilt” (Matt, 
 
 xxvi. 39). There is again deep truth in this. It was 
 assuredly not the mere physical suffering in Christ’s death 
 that pleased God—so much torment. Christ’s sacrifice 
 was an act of “obedience” (Rom. v. 19; Phil. ii. 8). 
 Christ’s obedience as a whole—not in His death only— 
 constitutes our standing ground before God. In saying 
 this, however, we do not state the whole truth, and the 
 
 136 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 most characteristic declarations of Scripture remain un¬ 
 explained, if we do not go further and see in Christ’s death 
 for our sins a relation, not only to the preceptive or command¬ 
 ing, but also to the condemning and punishing will of God— 
 to the aspect of sin as guilt, and to God’s judgment upon it. 
 
 3. Is this, moreover, not an essential aspect of any 
 adequate doctrine of atonement ? If Christ, as the up¬ 
 holders of these previous views admit, completely identi¬ 
 fied Himself with us, must He not have taken part and 
 lot with us in our whole position as under sin—not simply 
 as under law, but as under a broken and violated law and 
 exposed to God’s just condemnation on that account ? It 
 was part of His identification with us that He took His 
 place with us, as Paul phrases it, “ under the law ”—the 
 law that had entailed a curse upon us (Gal. iii. 13 ; iv. 4). 
 Jesus could not be under that law, and refuse to take 
 account of its righteous condemnation of sin, or be with¬ 
 out desire to do honour to it. How, indeed, if the law 
 was not “ magnified ” in this respect as in others, could 
 atonement be made ? The very fact in our situation 
 which necessitates atonement is that we stand in this 
 condemnation before God. How then can that fact, in 
 any act of atonement, be disregarded ? We have seen 
 that, in the full Scriptural view, it is not disregarded. All 
 that is written of Christ bearing our sins, being made sin 
 for us, redeeming us from the curse, reconciling us to 
 God, taken in connection with what is taught of our con¬ 
 demned position before God, and the effects of Christ’s 
 death in delivering us from that condemnation, imply this 
 truth. Jesus, in His death, is regarded as doing honour 
 to the condemning as well as to the prescriptive will of God. 
 
 VII. 
 
 If, going further, we press the question of how Christ 
 in this way bore our sins —what made His endurance of 
 
 137 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 suffering and death an atonement for sin, we have to 
 confess ourselves in presence of a mystery on which only 
 partial light is available. Yet in the larger context of 
 Scripture certain considerations present themselves which 
 serve as aids to comprehension. As bearing on the possi¬ 
 bility of atonement, there is the dignity of Christ’s person 
 as Son of God, and His actual sinlessness —“ a lamb with¬ 
 out blemish and without spot” (i Pet. i. 19). Deeper 
 still, there is Christ’s unique relation to our race, formerly 
 emphasised, which creates the possibility of a represen¬ 
 tative relation such as no other could sustain. There is 
 again the organic constitution of our race, which permits 
 of His entrance into it as its new Head, to redeem it by 
 His obedience and death from the ruin entailed upon it 
 by the disobedience of the first Adam. 
 
 These are conditions of the possibility of atonement; for 
 the essence of the atonement itself we must doubtless 
 think of the complete honour which Christ, in our name 
 and nature, standing in the relation to God and to 
 humanity that He did, was able to render to the divine 
 righteousness in His endurance of death for us. Here, 
 first, is the historical fact that Jesus, in His complete 
 identification with us, did voluntarily enter into the 
 penal conditions of our state as sinners, and, at the 
 last, into death, the culminating form of these evils, 
 and expression of God’s judgment on sin. But this 
 was no mere outward experience for Jesus—no simple 
 fate overtaking Him. Christ, in these sufferings, 
 entered, we must believe, as no other could have done, 
 into the whole meaning of the sin of the world before 
 God, and into the whole mind of God in relation to that 
 sin. His sympathy was perfect with both God and man. 
 As representing man, He took the whole burden of the 
 sin of the world upon His heart—palliating nothing, 
 acknowledging all, justifying God in His condemnation of 
 
 138 
 
Man and Sin 
 
 it, passing Himself under the doom of it (2 Cor. v. 21). 
 Thus He became one with the sinner to the uttermost 
 point to which love could carry Him. In God’s adorable 
 wisdom and grace He was permitted to enter into the 
 whole realisation and experience of what death for sin 
 meant, that His atonememt might be complete. He was 
 made our sin-bearer. ' There were mysterious elements in 
 Christ’s sufferings in the Garden and on the Cross which 
 showed that it was not death only as an outward fact 
 which He endured, but death with all the darkness and 
 horror, the separation from the comforts of God’s pre¬ 
 sence, which belong to it as the wages of sin (Mark xiv. 
 33-36 ; xv. 34). He tasted death for every man (Heb. ii. 
 9). Entering into His experience, there went up from 
 His innermost soul, in J. McLeod Campbell’s expressive 
 phrase, an “Amen” to the judgment of God upon our 
 sin, which had in it all the elements of a true and perfect 
 atonement for mankind, and was accepted by God as such. 
 Through His death for us, we live. 
 
 From what has been said it will be evident that, when 
 the Scripture speaks of “reconciliation” with God, more 
 is meant than simply the reconciliation of man to God: a 
 change of heart and will on man’s side. On God’s side 
 also there were obstacles to forgiveness and fellowship. 
 Though God loved the world, its sin had still to be dealt 
 with. There was a guilt that had to be put away, a 
 wrath that rested on the sinner (John iii. 36), a condem¬ 
 nation that had to be lifted off (Rom. viii. 1). The work 
 of-reconciliation on God’s side is accomplished on the 
 Cross—the grandest expression of His love (Rom. v. 8 ; 
 1 John iv. 9). God also is reconciled to the world. We 
 are no more “enemies” (Rom. v. 10, in the objective 
 sense; cf. xi. 28). What remains is for man to appro¬ 
 priate the reconciliation thus brought to him, and to be 
 himself reconciled to God ” (2 Cor. v. 20). 
 
 139 
 

IX 
 
 The Spirit in Salvation: 
 
 Union with Christ and its 
 Blessings 
 
The Spirit in Salvation: Union 
 with Christ and its Blessings 
 
 T HE work of Jesus for salvation, all complete as it is, 
 cannot and will not, it need hardly be said, benefit 
 any sinful soul without something else, viz., indi¬ 
 vidual appropriation of Christ and of the salvation He has 
 brought. That Christ has lived, and died, and risen 
 again, of itself saves no man who is in a state of unbelief, 
 or so long as he remains so (John iii. 36). It will be to 
 such an one, indeed, for his greater condemnation (John 
 iii. 19; 2 Cor. ii. 16). To share the blessing of salvation, 
 we must be found, as the Scripture expresses it, “ in 
 Christ.” We must, i.e., be united with Christ spiritually, 
 as parts of His living body. It is this truth, introducing 
 us to the work of the Holy Spirit, as distinguished from 
 the work of the Father and of the Son, which is now to 
 engage us. 
 
 Doctrinally, the truth in question is commonly expressed 
 by saying that salvation is dependent on Union with Christ. 
 “ He that is joined unto the Lord,” says Paul, “ is one 
 Spirit ” (1 Cor. vi. 17). “ As the branch cannot bear 
 
 fruit of itself,” says Jesus, “except it abide in the vine, so 
 neither can ye, except ye abide in Me. . . . Apart 
 
 from Me ye can do nothing ” (John xv. 4-7). This union 
 with Christ is effected, on the divine side, by the Holy 
 Spirit , and on the human side by faith , The work of the 
 
 143 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 Holy Spirit in the soul, uniting to Christ, is spoken of as 
 regeneration , and it is this work of regeneration, or of the 
 new birth, we have first to try and understand. 
 
 I. 
 
 Regeneration, or the new birth , or the becoming a new 
 creature in Christ Jesus—for all these terms are used to 
 express this great change—may be described as a work 
 of the Holy Spirit, imparting a new and holy life to the 
 soul, through which those experiencing it are vitally 
 united to Christ, and become, in a real sense, children of 
 God, and members of His Kingdom. The classical pas¬ 
 sage on this subject is the conversation of Jesus with 
 Nicodemus in John iii. 1-12. There the necessity of the 
 new birth, and the agency of the Holy Spirit in effecting 
 it, are emphatically set forth, and the hesitations of the 
 Jewish ruler are dealt with. Yet there are many—many 
 even in our churches—who still feel that there is some¬ 
 thing strange in the teaching of this passage, and are 
 disposed, like Nicodemus, to marvel that the Lord should 
 say: “Ye must be born anew” (ver. 7, r.v.). . . . 
 
 “ Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot 
 enter into [in ver. 3 “see”] the Kingdom of God (ver. 5) 
 
 . . . . “ That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and 
 
 that which is born of the Spirit is spirit ” (ver. 6). There 
 is a feeling in their minds, as there was in that of Nico¬ 
 demus, of the strangeness of this spiritual demand. They 
 repeat the ruler’s question : “ How can these things be?” 
 (ver. 9), and in their inmost hearts do not believe in, or 
 realise, this need of regeneration. Yet, if we think truly 
 of the nature of this change, not only will we feel that 
 there is need for this work of regeneration, but the deep 
 conviction will be wrought in us that only a divine Agent 
 —God’s own Holy Spirit—can accomplish such a work in 
 the soul. 
 
 144 
 
The Spirit in Salvation 
 
 I. The doctrine of regeneration, in truth, is only a 
 corollary from what the Bible teaches, on the one hand, 
 of man’s natural condition, as turned aside from God in 
 disposition and desire, and, on the other, of the magni¬ 
 tude of the change necessary to fit a man for being in the 
 Kingdom of God. Consider: What is this spiritual 
 change of which the Lord speaks ? Put in plain terms, 
 does it not amount to this : Such a revolution in a man’s 
 soul that a man who has been living, and thinking, and 
 feeling, in his ordinary worldly way, is brought round 
 from that worldly way of thinking, and feeling, and willing 
 to God's point oj view —to harmony with the mind and will 
 of God—so that he now sees things as God sees them, 
 thinks of things as God thinks of them, feels about things 
 as God feels about them, judges of things as God judges 
 of them, loves what God loves, hates what God hates, sets 
 before him God’s ends as his own ? But if this is the 
 true nature of the change—if regeneration means really 
 such a revolution in a man’s being as is here described— 
 will anyone who reflects seriously on what human nature 
 is, as we experience it in ourselves and see it in others— 
 who knows how spiritually impotent and disinclined to 
 holiness the natural heart is—doubt for an instant that, if 
 this change is to be effected, it can only be through a 
 higher power entering the nature, and working that 
 change — can only be effected through the omni¬ 
 potent power of the Holy Spirit of God ? To talk 
 of a man effecting this change in himself is as un¬ 
 reasonable as it would be to speak of a man taking 
 himself by his own waistband and lifting himself into 
 mid-air! 
 
 Nor is there any mystery in the statement of Jesus that, 
 without this change, a man cannot “see” or “enter into” 
 the Kingdom of God. For what, again, is it, in Christ’s 
 sense, to enter into the Kingdom of God ? It is not a 
 
 145 L 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 local change. It is not going from one place to another, 
 as one might go from London to New York. It is a 
 change of mind, of heart, of disposition. To enter into 
 the Kingdom of God is just to enter into that mind and 
 spirit I have been describing. In the very act of entering 
 into that state—of coming round to see things as God 
 sees them, to feel about things as God feels about them, to 
 judge about things as God judges about them, to love 
 what God loves, and hate what God hates—we are enter¬ 
 ing into the Kingdom of God, and if we are not in that 
 state, then we have not, in Christ’s judgment, entered 
 into the Kingdom of God at all. 
 
 Scripture, therefore, is always very emphatic on these 
 three points—that this change is necessary, that it is a 
 revolution in a man’s being by which he becomes literally 
 44 a new creature,” or 44 new creation ’' (2 Cor. v. 17) ; and 
 that nothing can effect this change but an act of omnipo¬ 
 tence of the Holy Spirit in the heart—an exercise of 
 power as supernatural and marvellous as that by which 
 God raised Jesus from the dead (Eph. i. 19, 20; ii. 1). 
 The passage in Ephesians is a remarkable one. It will be 
 observed that in the verse, 44 You did He make alive when 
 ye were dead through your trespasses and sins ” (ii. 1), the 
 words, “did He make alive,” are not in the text, but in 
 italics. The reason is that this verse stands exegetically 
 in connection with the verses in the preceding chapter 
 (i. 19, 20), where we are told of 44 the exceeding greatness 
 of His power to us-ward who believe according to that 
 working of the strength of His might which He wrought 
 in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead.” 44 And 
 you,” Paul adds, resuming this thought, 44 when ye were 
 dead through your trespasses and sins,” did He make 
 alive (cf. ver. 5). A similar idea lies in his figure of a 
 44 new creation” (2 Cor. v. 17). It is the omnipotent act 
 of God in creation which is here in view {cf. iv. 6). 
 
 146 
 
The Spirit in Salvation 
 
 Nothing could more strongly emphasise the power which 
 is involved in regeneration. 
 
 2. This being the nature of the change, the next thing 
 to be remarked about it is, that while a supernatural 
 change, it is not a magical change; that is, it is not bound 
 up with any outward rite, like baptism, so as to be effected 
 by the mere performance of that rite, or to be inseparable 
 from its administration. This is the error of the sacer- 
 dotalists. I am far from saying that baptism has no 
 connection with the change. It has a most intimate 
 connection with it as representing it, and being the 
 symbol of it—as pledging and sealing its blessing to the 
 believer—but there is no such necessary connection as 
 that baptism ipso facto effects regeneration, or that 
 regeneration requires baptism as its condition. We read 
 of those on whom the Spirit fell, who were baptized after¬ 
 wards (Acts x. 44, 48). 
 
 II. 
 
 On the other hand, when we look at the means or 
 instrumentality by which the Spirit of God effects this 
 change, we find it to be in Scripture always one thing, 
 and that is the Word. The passages which connect 
 regeneration with the word of God are numerous. When 
 Christ, the Sower, goes forth to sow, it is “the word” 
 which is the seed (Luke viii. 11). “ Having been 
 
 begotten again,” says Peter, “not of corruptible seed, but 
 of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth 
 and abideth ” (1 Pet. i. 23 ; cf. Jas. i. 18). It is the word 
 received into the heart—the word believed—through 
 which the spiritual change we call conversion or regenera¬ 
 tion is brought about (Eph. i. 13 ; Col. i. 5 ; 1 Thess. ii. 
 13, &c.). I do not, of course, mean that, in the case of 
 those who have not arrived at years of intelligence, God 
 is bound to this way of regeneration. Regeneration may 
 be (in Christian homes ought normally to be) in infancy; 
 
 147 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 its fruits then become manifest in the believing appropria¬ 
 tion of, and obedience to, the word, as character develops. 
 I speak of those who, still unchanged, have come to years 
 of understanding, and the rule of God’s dealing with such 
 is, unquestionably, regeneration through the word. Hence 
 we cannot sufficiently exalt the life-giving power of “the 
 word of the truth of the Gospel ” (Col. i. 5 ; Heb. iv. 12). 
 We cannot exalt sufficiently the reading of the word (Acts 
 xvii. 11, 12), the preaching of the word (Mark xvi. 10 ; 
 Acts xi. 20, 21; Rom. x. 14, 15), instruction in the word 
 (Luke i. 4; 1 Tim. iv. 13-16; 2 Tim. iii. 15; iv. 2)—or fore¬ 
 tell what marvellous results may follow from the believing 
 reception of even a small fragment of that word 1 
 
 III. 
 
 If this is the general character and origin of the change 
 we call regeneration, then regeneration has what may be 
 described as its psychology —that is, there is a process 
 which the mind goes through in the experience of this 
 spiritual change. It is not necessary, indeed, to be able 
 to analyse this spiritual process of regeneration in order 
 to be regenerated any more than it is necessary to under¬ 
 stand the philosophy of perception in order to perceive 
 things around us. Still, it is of interest, and may guard 
 us from errors, to have as clear an idea as we can of the 
 process of this change, as it is realised in the experience of 
 the individual. There is, of course, a danger here of unduly 
 narrowing the action of the Spirit. The Spirit of God 
 has innumerable ways of dealing with human souls. It is 
 probable—indeed certain—that no two souls are brought 
 into the Kingdom in precisely the same way. On the 
 other hand, if we look closely into spiritual history, and 
 are careful not to seek to crush everyone’s experience into 
 one particular mould, we will find that there are certain 
 elements which do, in some degree, enter into all 
 
 148 
 
The Spirit in Salvation 
 
 Christian experience in regeneration, and it helps as a 
 test, and a guard against delusion in ourselves and others, 
 to remember what these things are. 
 
 1. The first step, it seems to me, towards this work of 
 regeneration is the awakening of the soul out of its 
 customary state of spiritual insensibility and dormancy. 
 “ Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and 
 Christ shall shine upon thee ” (Eph. v. 14). Who does 
 not know how deep is the insensibility and torpor to 
 spiritual things in which every natural mind is involved, 
 the spiritual sense sealed as in a deep slumber to those 
 higher realities in which the awakened mind lives and 
 moves, and has its being (2 Cor. iv. 18). Scripture, 
 accordingly, describes this state as a “ sleep”—asleep 
 from which the sinner would never awaken unless he were 
 roused from it by the Holy Spirit. It speaks of it even 
 as a “ death ”—a spiritual death from which there is no 
 natural awakening (Eph. ii. 1). Obviously, then, the first 
 thing necessary for regeneration is that somehow this 
 sleep should be broken in upon, this dormancy disturbed, 
 the mind aroused to a realisation that there is a spiritual 
 world to which it stands in relation, and whose calls and 
 claims it is neglecting. How this comes about is a 
 matter of individual experience. There are numberless 
 ways in which the Spirit of God acts upon a soul to 
 arouse it to a sense of spiritual things, to awaken it out of 
 its habitual indifference and lethargy. An earthquake did 
 it for the Philippian jailor (Acts xvi. 26-30). Outward 
 troubles or misfortunes do it for some; a word, a 
 remonstrance, an arrow struck home to the conscience, 
 may be the quieter agency in the case of others. 
 
 2. It is not every kind of awakening, however, which 
 results in regeneration. The peculiar kind of awakening 
 which comes into view here is that which has its origin in 
 conscience, and takes the form of conviction of sin towards 
 
 149 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 God. It does not seem possible that anyone can truly 
 undergo this spiritual change without being really and 
 inwardly brought to a realisation of his sinful condition 
 before God—the realisation that he stands in a wrong 
 relation to God, is under His displeasure, needs His 
 forgiveness and cleansing. He will be brought to confess: 
 “ Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done that 
 which is evil in Thy sight ” (Ps. li. 4). “ If we say that 
 
 we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not 
 in us ” (1 John i. 8). 
 
 As bringing about this conviction of sin, older writers 
 were wont to lay the chief stress on the law of God. 
 There was a phrase used for conviction which expressed 
 this idea. It was called “ law-work.” Now, certainly, 
 there was a truth in this. Unless the law of God—the 
 holy, just, and good law (Rom. vii. 12)—were applied 
 with power to men’s consciences, they would not be 
 convinced of sin. What it is necessary here to remark 
 is that the law of God alone will not produce in any 
 soul spiritual contrition such as we have to do with in 
 regeneration. The law—the holiness—of God, brought 
 home to men will terrify, will repel, will drive them to 
 despair; it will not of itself melt and subdue their hearts. 
 For that there is needed the exhibition of the love and 
 grace of God. It is the Gospel, after all, which is the 
 supreme agency in melting the heart into contrition on 
 account of sin. It is the exhibition of the mercy of God 
 in Christ which convinces men of sin, and brings them to 
 repentance. The Spirit will convince of sin, says Jesus, 
 “ because they believe not on Me ” (John xvi. 9). 
 
 3. In this awakening of the soul to the consciousness 
 of sin, there is already present a measure of enlightenment , 
 and the next step, I apprehend, in the work of regenera¬ 
 tion, is the growth of this enlightenment in the definite 
 form of enlightenment in the knowledge of Christ. God has 
 
 150 
 
The Spirit in Salvation 
 
 revealed to the soul its sin. He has discovered to it its 
 need of salvation. Now He reveals to it more and more 
 clearly the provision made for its need in Christ. This 
 enlightenment of mind, as much as awakening and con¬ 
 viction of sin, is in Scripture always attributed to the 
 Holy Spirit. “ It is God that said, Light shall shine out 
 of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light of 
 the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
 Christ ” (2 Cor. iv. 6). Paul’s prayer for his converts is 
 that God will give them “a spirit of wisdom and revela¬ 
 tion in the knowledge of Him [Christ] ” (Eph. i. 18). It 
 is the Spirit’s work to take of the things of Christ and 
 show them unto us (John xvi. 14, 15). 
 
 4. But the work of regeneration is still not complete; 
 there is something needed beyond enlightenment. The 
 will of God for our salvation has not only to be under¬ 
 stood ; it has to be obeyed. There is the will still to be 
 laid hold of—the will, that centre and citadel of the 
 personal being. The work of the Spirit, therefore, is 
 directed, finally, to the renewal of the will. It is directed 
 to this end—(1) In the form of persuasion. It need hardly 
 be said that the Holy Spirit does no part of His work in the 
 soul by violence. There is no attempt to override the 
 freedom of man. Everything that God accomplishes, 
 even in the most striking exercise of His power, is 
 accomplished in accordance with the laws of the nature 
 He Himself has given us. He uses no force, but most 
 graciously, most lovingly, brings His persuasions to bear 
 upon men’s wills, and by the power of appropriate 
 motives, sweetly draws them to the acceptance of Christ 
 (Hos. xi. 4 ; John vi. 37, 44). (2) But more is needed 
 
 than persuasion. There is not only the persuasion, but 
 what I would venture to call the potentiation of the will— 
 the enabling of the will; that is, the imparting to it of the 
 power that is needful in order to the laying hold of Christ 
 
 I 5 I 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 in firm and fast faith. We read of believers as “ strength¬ 
 ened with power through His Spirit in the inward man ” 
 (Eph. iii. 16). We have just read of the believer as raised 
 from the dead by the power of God’s might (Eph. i. 19, 
 20). This is the might of God manifested in the will of 
 man, giving it the power, the strength, to do what other¬ 
 wise it could not do. (3) The work of regeneration is 
 completed when the soul is brought to the point of absolute 
 surrender of itself to Christ—when, persuaded and drawn 
 by the Spirit, enabled by the Spirit, raised from death by 
 the power of God, it yields itself up with full assent to 
 God in Christ in the Gospel, receives Christ as its Saviour 
 and Lord, thenceforth to live in reliance on Him and in 
 union with Him. In the same act it enters into the life— 
 the salvation—of God. Thus on its twofold side—the 
 Spirit uniting the soul to Christ, faith appropriating Christ 
 as its own—union with Christ is effected, and the new life 
 of regeneration is begun. 
 
 IV. 
 
 By faith we are united with Christ on the human side, 
 and it has been seen how faith springs up in the soul, and 
 is an act of the whole 7 iature, quickened by the Holy Spirit. 
 Faith is not a mere act of the understanding, or mere act 
 of the will, or mere act of the affections; it is the laying 
 hold of Christ with the whole self—mind, will, heart—as 
 the Gospel presents Him to us—and the cleaving to Him, 
 for all the ends of His salvation. It is this consent of the 
 will, as the older theologians described it, to the assent of 
 the understanding, with the resulting surrender of heart 
 and life to Christ as Saviour and Lord, which constitutes 
 saving faith. In using this expression it is not meant as 
 if there could be any genuine faith in God which was not 
 saving. But the Gospel being that revelation of God in 
 which peculiarly His saving will is set forth, and Jesus 
 
 152 
 
The Spirit in Salvation 
 
 Christ, in His Person, death, and resurrection, being the 
 centre and substance of that revelation, He is, in the 
 nature of the case, the particular object of faith in relation 
 to salvation. It is in faith that the bond is constituted 
 between Him and the soul which effects salvation. This 
 is God’s command, accordingly, that “ we believe on Him 
 whom He hath sent ” (John vi. 29 ; 1 John iii. 23). 
 
 It will be observed, however, that with faith, in Scrip¬ 
 ture, is generally comprised another grace, viz., repentance, 
 as a condition of salvation; and the question has often 
 been raised as to the relation of these graces; in 
 particular, as to which has the priority. “Testifying,” 
 says Paul, “both to Jews and to Greeks repentance 
 toward and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ ” (Actsxx. 
 21). Does repentance, then, precede faith, as these 
 words might seem to imply, or does faith precede repent¬ 
 ance ? The true answer to this question is that the acts 
 distinguished by these terms are really inseparable, and 
 spring from the same state of soul, of which they are little 
 more than different poles or aspects. Repentance is a 
 turning from sin to God ; faith is a turning to God in 
 Christ for salvation; and it would be as reasonable to 
 ask, in the case of a man turning from east to west, 
 whether his turning from the east, or his turning to the 
 west, came first, as to ask whether repentance precedes 
 faith, or faith repentance. 
 
 This will appear at once when the relations of faith and 
 repentance are more closely considered. Is it not, on the 
 one hand, the case, that there can be no true “repentance 
 toward God ” which has not a germ of faith in it—not 
 only of faith in God Himself (Heb. xi. 6), but a germ of 
 faith, of hope, in the mercy of God? You cannot call 
 men to turn to God in repentance unless there is mercy 
 for them to turn to ; and it has already been seen that it 
 needs faith in this mercy to draw men to God. The 
 
 *53 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 Westminster Assembly’s answer on “ Repentance ” in its 
 Catechism brings this out very beautifully. It describes 
 repentance as “ A saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of 
 a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God 
 in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from 
 it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavour after, 
 new obedience.” On the other hand, is it not as true 
 that there can be no real “ faith toward our Lord Jesus 
 Christ ”—no genuine saving faith—which does not spring 
 from a heart broken and contrite on account of its sin ? 
 Faith, in short, takes us up just where repentance leaves 
 us. Repentance leaves us at the footstool of the divine 
 mercy, confessing our sins, acknowledging the justice of 
 God’s condemnation of them, and imploring His forgive¬ 
 ness. Faith points us to Him through whom forgiveness 
 and salvation come. 
 
 The two states, therefore, are inseparable. There is a 
 “sorrow of the world ” which “ worketh death ” (2 Cor. 
 vii. 10), but this is not evangelical repentance—the 
 “godly sorrow,” which “worketh repentance unto sal¬ 
 vation.” There is a “ faith ” which trembles at God’s 
 word—“the demons also believe, and shudder” (Jas. ii. 
 19)—but it is not “ the obedience of faith ” (Rom. xvi. 26) 
 which springs from a truly penitent heart, and is fruitful 
 in every good work (Gal. v. 6; Jas. ii. 18). 
 
 V. 
 
 In this state of union with Christ, brought about 
 through living faith, it now results that the soul is put in 
 possession of the blessings of Christ’s salvation in their 
 proper relation and order. I speak of “relation and 
 order,” because, although a full salvation is at once 
 assured to faith (Eph. i. 3), and “earnests” of it are 
 bestowed (Rom. viii. 23 ; 2 Cor. i. 22; Eph. i. 14), the 
 believer is not at once put in actual possession of all its 
 
 154 
 
The Spirit in Salvation 
 
 blessings. The full and perfect salvation is reserved for 
 the future, e.g., in the resurrection, and eternal life in 
 heaven (Rom. viii. 23 ; Phil. iii. 20, 21 ; 1 Pet. i. 3-5). 
 “ In hope were we saved ” (Rom. viii. 24). And I speak 
 of the “ proper ” order in the bestowal of these blessings, 
 for in the nature of the case one blessing is conditioned 
 by another. Pardon, e.g., is a condition of sanctification; 
 holiness is a condition of “ seeing the Lord ” (Matt. v. 8 ; 
 Heb. xii. 14) ; fidelity is a condition of reward (Matt. xxv. 
 16-30; Luke xix. 12-27). Looking at the blessings 
 bestowed in the earthly state on every soul that is 
 brought to true faith in Christ, we specially distinguish 
 these three, which embrace within themselves many 
 others. 
 
 1. There is forgiveness, and that setting of the soul 
 right with God with reference to its guilt and condemna¬ 
 tion, which is designated by Paul its justification. The 
 word “justify ” in the Apostle’s use has often been twisted 
 from its true meaning in the attempt to give it a sense 
 which does not belong to it. As every Greek lexicon will 
 show, the word “justify” does not, and cannot, mean the 
 “ making righteous ” in the sense of inwardly sanctifying. 
 It has but one meaning throughout the New Testament. 
 It means to “ pronounce ” or to “ declare” righteous. It 
 is the opposite of to “condemn.” The Apostle says: 
 “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect ? 
 It is God that justifieth; Who is he that condemneth ? ” 
 (Rom. viii. 33, 34). Here the antithesis is clearly 
 apparent. The believer is cleared from all charge; is set 
 free from condemnation (Rom. viii. 1). The Roman 
 Catholic Church and others change this into making a 
 man inwardly righteous. They confuse justification with 
 regeneration and sanctification, and connect it with bap¬ 
 tism as its instrument. This is not Paul’s teaching. To 
 “justify,” in Paul’s sense, means that God declares us to 
 
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Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 be clear in His sight from all the guilt and condemnation 
 that rested upon us in our sinful condition. 
 
 Well, but, it may be said, is not this an unreal thing— 
 a species of “ legal fiction ” ? No; it is not unreal, and 
 not fiction. Justification means forgiveness, but it is 
 more. It is not mere amnesty. It is forgiveness of the 
 sinner on a righteous basis. And what is this righteous 
 basis ? It is simply the complete atonement that Christ 
 has made for sin. The sinner is pronounced free from 
 guilt because, in his union with Christ, he actually is so. 
 Christ has met and satisfied every claim the law had upon 
 him; so that “ there is now no condemnation to them 
 that are in Christ Jesus ” (Rom. viii. i). “ Being justified 
 freely through His grace,” the Apostle says elsewhere, 
 ‘‘through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom 
 God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in His 
 blood. . . . for the showing of His righteousness at 
 
 this present season: that He might Himself be just, and 
 the Justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus ” (Rom. iii. 
 24-26). There is, therefore, nothing unreal in the position 
 which the justified person occupies towards God. Un¬ 
 righteous in himself, he acquires a righteousness through 
 His union with Christ by faith. Still to quote Paul : 
 “ Him who knew no sin He [God] made to be sin on our 
 behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God 
 in Him” (2 Cor. v. 21). As Beza put it: “O Christ, I 
 am Thy sin ; Thou art my righteousness.” 
 
 Justification is by faith alone, though “ not,” as Luther 
 also said, “ by a faith which is alone.” In it sin is blotted 
 out, and the believer stands as righteous before God. 
 Righteousness is reckoned to him apart from works (Rom. 
 iv. 6). This is expressed in various ways. “To him that 
 worketh not, but believeth in Him that justifieth the 
 ungodly, his faith is reckoned for [or unto] righteous¬ 
 ness” (Rom. iv. 5). Or he “becomes the righteousness 
 
 15b 
 
The Spirit in Salvation 
 
 of God” in Christ (2 Cor. v. 21)—the “ righteousness of 
 God” here and elsewhere denoting the righteousness pro¬ 
 vided by God for sinners in the Gospel (Rom. iii. 21-26). 
 Or he “ is found in Him [Christ], not having a righteous¬ 
 ness of [his] own, even that which is of the law, but that 
 which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which 
 is from God by faith ” (Phil. iii. 9). In this new relation 
 he is interested in every blessing which Christ, by His 
 obedience and death has won for men (Rom. v. 17, 21). 
 
 It is in Paul that this doctrine of justification is most 
 fully developed, but everywhere in the New Testament 
 the blessing put in the forefront of the Gospel is the for¬ 
 giveness of sins and acceptance with God, as an act of 
 free grace to believers, on the ground of Christ’s pro¬ 
 pitiatory death. And this is the Pauline doctrine in 
 essence. 
 
 2. Justification has to do with the judicial aspect of 
 God’s character; but there is another aspect of that 
 character which must not be overlooked—the personal or 
 paternal ; and this finds expression in the New Testament 
 in the place given to adoption as a blessing of salvation. 
 This is a side of Christian truth which has not always 
 received the attention it deserves—a neglect the more to 
 be regretted that the doctrine furnishes the reply to the 
 objection sometimes made, that “justification” presents 
 our relations with God in salvation in too exclusively 
 “ legal ” a light. It would do so if it stood alone ; but it 
 does not stand alone. Adoption, by certain writers, has 
 been treated as part of justification—as the positive side 
 of it, in acceptance. But this is not warranted. If it is 
 wrong to merge, as many do, God’s character as Judge in 
 that of Father, it is as wrong to merge His character of 
 Father in that of Judge, and overlook that God’s relation 
 to us is personal as well as judicial. God does not merely 
 pardon the sinner by way of legal acquittal. There is the 
 
 157 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 outflow of paternal tenderness, paternal forgiveness, 
 paternal grace (c/., the Prodigal, Luke xv. 20-24); and the 
 soul that comes to Him is received by Him into a relation 
 of sonship—not merely that forfeited sonship which was 
 its destination by creation, but a relation of honour, near¬ 
 ness and privilege, analogous to Christ’s own. “ If 
 children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint-heirs with 
 Christ” (Rom. viii. 17). 
 
 This is the idea of “adoption ” of which Paul makes so 
 much, and which is sufficiently distinct from the judicial 
 acquittal to warrant special mention. But the idea has 
 its spiritual side as well. To the act of adoption corres¬ 
 ponds the new nature received in regeneration, and the 
 spirit of sonship bestowed on believers. Believers are 
 “born” or “begotten” of God, and are His children 
 through the new life received from God (John i. 12, 13 ; 
 1 John iii. g, 10 ; v. 4). On those who are His children 
 God bestows His Spirit (Rom. viii. 15). “ Because ye are 
 sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, 
 crying, Abba, Father ” (Gal. iv. 6). Sonship in the 
 Gospel is thus an act of grace, and no terms are deemed 
 adequate to extol its privilege (1 John iii. 1, 2.). 
 
 Here, again, the question will be asked—“ But are not 
 all men sons of God? ” I sought before to show what 
 truth there is in this idea of a universal fatherhood of God 
 to men. Sonship doubtless lay in the creation destiny of 
 man. The filial spirit is the ideal in man’s relation to 
 God. This is true, but man by sin forfeited that destiny 
 —made it impossible of realisatiou on a creation basis. If 
 it was to be realised at all, it could only be on a basis of 
 redemption. It is the redemption of Christ alone which 
 can restore the lost privilege of sonship. But Christ does 
 not merely bring us back to the creation standing. He 
 introduces us into the far higher, nobler, diviner relation 
 to the Father already described. Hence it is that in the 
 
The Spirit in Salvation 
 
 New Testament we read so little of the merely natural 
 relation, and so much of the glory of the spiritual relation 
 of sonship to God. “ Who were born, not of blood, nor 
 of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God ” 
 (John i. 12). 
 
 3. The third great blessing which springs from union 
 with Christ is that life of progressive holiness which we 
 describe by the word sanctification. To “ sanctify ” is to 
 make holy. The word “ holy,” it is well known, has two 
 meanings in the New Testament. It means (1) that 
 which is separated or set apart for the service of the holy 
 God; and (2) in respect of moral beings, it means the 
 possession of the actual character of moral purity answer¬ 
 ing to that separation. So Paul speaks of believers as 
 “ called saints ” (1 Cor. i. 2)— i.e., holy persons set apart 
 by their very calling for the service of a holy God, con¬ 
 secrated to Him ; but in respect of character, the same 
 persons are exhorted to the realisation of holiness— 
 “ Having therefore these promises, let us cleanse ourselves 
 from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness 
 in the fear of God” (2 Cor. vii. 1). 
 
 In one sense, therefore, sanctification is, or ought to be, 
 complete at once, i.e., the believer is, in the true idea of his 
 calling, a person from the first entirely God’s—wholly 
 separated to God (Rom. xii. 1) ; in another sense sancti¬ 
 fication is progressive —a holiness of character which is only 
 gradually or progressively attained. But it is always the 
 consciousness of the standing which should prescribe the 
 aim, and govern and control the effort. “ Even so, 
 reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto 
 God in Jesus Christ” (Rom. vi. n). Even where holi¬ 
 ness is imperfect—and in whom is it not ?—consecration 
 may at least, always be perfect in aim, in spirit, in motive, 
 in desire. This is what the Bible means by being 
 “ perfect,” or whole-hearted, towards God (Num. xiv. 24 ; 
 
 159 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 Job. i. i, 8 ; Ps. xxxvii. 37; ci. 2, &c.). Sanctification on 
 one side is the progressive development of the life already 
 imparted in regeneration, and the Agent, as in regeneration 
 itself, is the Holy Spirit of God, or God Himself working in 
 the soul/ 4 both to will and to work for His good pleasure” 
 (Phil. ii. 13 ; Heb. xiii. 20, 21). But sanctification, as a 
 progressive work in which man co-operates, has laws and 
 conditions which create obligation and call for effort. 
 In respect of this human side, sanctification has both 
 a negative and a positive aspect—the one expressed by what 
 Paul calls dying to sin; the other by living to righteous¬ 
 ness (Rom. vi. 2, 11, 13, 16, &c.). The former, which 
 has for its motive the thought of having died to sin with 
 Christ in His death (Rom. vi. 2-11), includes the mortifica¬ 
 tion of sin in the flesh (Rom. vi. 12; viii. 13; Col. iii. 5), 
 habitual self-denial in what is ungodly and wrong (Tit. ii. 
 12), and the keeping of the body under that the spirit may 
 rule (1 Cor. ix. 27). The latter, which connects itself with 
 the thought of having risen with Christ to newness of life 
 (Rom. vi. 4, 5 ; Col. iii. 5), includes the growth and 
 strengthening of all the elements of holy character 
 through growing knowledge of Christ, and increasing 
 participation in His Spirit, with the use of all bodily 
 and mental faculties in the service of righteousness (Rom. 
 vi. 13, 19). 
 
 It follows from this description that the indispensable 
 conditions of sanctification are the possession of the Spirit 
 of God, and walking in the Spirit (Rom. viii. 1-16; Gal. v. 
 16-26). In this connection an important distinction is to 
 be drawn between the work of the Spirit in producing 
 faith. i,e. f in initial regeneration, and the bestowal of the 
 Spirit on those who have been brought to faith. There is 
 a work of the Spirit which precedes and issues in faith, and 
 there is a reception of the Spirit through faith, which 
 results in what is peculiarly termed the indwelling of the 
 
 160 
 
The Spirit in Salvation 
 
 Spirit. Till faith is present, the Spirit is, in a sense, still 
 acting on, rather than within, the soul ; when faith opens 
 the way for His entrance, He can unite Himself with the 
 being in its inmost recesses—become its very life. Hence 
 such language as that of Jesus : “ He that believeth on 
 Me. . . . from within him shall flow rivers of living 
 
 water ” (John vii. 38); and His promises that He and the 
 Father will take up their abode with those who love 
 Him (John xiv. 21-23). Hence such passages as Rom. 
 viii. 14-16; 2 Cor. i. 22; Gal. iv. 6 Because ye are 
 sons, God sent forth the Spirit of the Son into our 
 hearts ”; and Eph. i. 13—“ In whom, having also 
 believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of 
 promise,” with many more. 
 
 The standard of sanctification is the divine perfection 
 —nothing less. So declares Jesus (Matt. v. 48); and so 
 says, or implies, every writer in the New Testament 
 (2 Cor. xiii. 9; 1 Thess. v. 23; Heb. xiii. 20, 21 ; 
 1 Pet. i. 14-16, &c.). This means, for the Christian, perfect 
 conformity to the image of Christ (2 Cor. iii. 18). “ An 
 
 unattainable ideal,” some one will perhaps say,“ better give 
 us something lower.” Spurgeon, in dealing with a similar 
 objection, once said: “No, when I wish my child to 
 learn to write, I give him the most perfect copy I can 
 find.” This does not mean, even in the most Spirit-filled 
 person, the attainment of the ideal, so that he dare say, 
 “ I am without sin ” (cf. 1 John i. 10). The writer once 
 heard Mr. Spurgeon, in his illustrated lecture on 
 “ Candles,” make a pertinent remark on this head. He 
 took a full, clear-burning wax candle, and, pointing to its 
 bright flame, said, “ There is your perfect man.” Then, 
 holding over it a polished reflector, he showed how the 
 interior was soon covered with a fine soot. “ What shall 
 we call it ? ” he said, “The ‘ superfluity of naughtiness’! ” 
 This only we know, that what is not attained here, will 
 
 161 M 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 be attained hereafter. Presented “ holy, and without 
 blemish, and unreprovable, before Him ” (Col. i. 22)— 
 “ Not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ” (Eph. 
 v. 27)—“ We shall be like Him ; for we shall see Him 
 even as He is ” (1 John iii. 2). 
 
X 
 
 Eternity and its Issues 
 Advent and Judgment 
 
Eternity and its Issues: 
 
 Advent and Judgment 
 
 I AM to speak in this last study on the future, on which 
 we have the light of prophecy, shining as in a dark 
 place (2 Pet. i. 19), to guide us, but regarding which 
 there are still many things on which Christian people 
 differ, and are perplexed. I shall not enter into these 
 minuter points of difference, but, keeping to the plan I 
 have been following, will deal with those great, out¬ 
 standing truths, that seem to belong to the essence of the 
 Christian faith. 
 
 I. 
 
 The issues of redemption are in eternity, and are con¬ 
 nected in Scripture with the Lord's “Parousia,” or Second 
 Coming. To this subject, therefore, I first direct 
 attention. 
 
 It is disputed by hardly any that our Lord did predict 
 His Personal return in glory to judge the world, and 
 bring in His everlasting kingdom, or that this was a fixed 
 article of belief in the Apostolic age. What is said in 
 criticism of the belief is that “the mere effluxion of time,” 
 as Prof. Huxley put it in one of his Essays, “ has demon¬ 
 strated it to be a prodigious error.” The critics do not 
 doubt that this Coming was predicted and looked for. 
 But they remind us that nearly 1900 years have gone by, 
 and Christ has not come yet. Therefore these beliefs and 
 
 165 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 hopes of the early Christians are proved by events to 
 have been a mistake. There were in Peter’s time already 
 those who asked : “ Where is the promise of His coming? 
 for, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things 
 continue as they were from the beginning of the Crea¬ 
 tion ” (2 Pet. iii. 4). 
 
 Now the fact on which these objectors base must be 
 acknowledged : viz., that well-nigh 1900 years have gone 
 by, and Jesus has not returned yet in Personal glory. The 
 declarations in the New Testament that “ the Lord is at 
 hand ” (Phil. iv. 5 ; cf. Jas. v. 8), and all the other state¬ 
 ments that seem to look for the near coming of the Lord, 
 have to face this fact, and in some way be reconciled with 
 it, if the hope is not to be given up. My own attitude is 
 that of faith in the final Personal return of Christ. But the 
 fact remains that this long interval has elapsed since the 
 promises were given, and it may fairly be asked, “ If 
 nearly 2,000 years have already elapsed, why not 3,000, or 
 more ? ” 
 
 In seeking a solution of this problem helpful light may 
 be obtained by keeping in view some of the features of 
 Old Testament prophecy of the approaching “Day of the 
 Lord.” For in the Old Testament also you have a steady 
 outlook on a great consummating day of the world’s 
 history. All through prophecy there is this “ Day of the 
 Lord ” looming up as the background of the particular 
 crisis in which the nation was at the time involved 
 (Assyrian, Babylonian, Maccabaean) ; you have it depicted 
 as the goal to which all events in time are moving on ; 
 whatever obscurity may rest on the steps by which the 
 end is to be reached, there is no dubiety felt about the 
 end itself. God’s purpose shall be accomplished ; His 
 kingdom shall triumph; whatever opposes itself to that 
 and resists it shall be shattered and destroyed. By 
 observing the principles which regulate Old Testament 
 
 166 
 
Eternity and its Issues 
 
 prophecy on this subject, we gain a clue to some of 
 the difficulties in the predictions of the Lord’s Coming. 
 
 One or two remarks are necessary at the outset to set 
 the subject in its proper perspective. 
 
 1. The first remark is, that I do not think we can, in 
 the light of the New Testament, affirm that it was given 
 to the Apostles, or to the Church, to know the precise time 
 of the Lord’s return, or the interval that would elapse, in 
 the Father’s counsels, before that event would take place. 
 The fact itself they knew, but it was not given to them— 
 it was definitely withheld from them—to know when the 
 event should be. There can be no doubt about this, because 
 it is clearly stated. “ It is not for you,” Jesus says to the 
 disciples, “ to know times or seasons, which the Father 
 hath set within His own authority ” (Acts i. 7). And there 
 is that far stronger passage, to which I formerly referred, 
 in which Jesus says : “ But of that day or that hour 
 knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither 
 the Son, but the Father ” (Mark xiii. 32 ; cj. Matt, 
 xxiv. 36 ; Rev. v.). The Son Himself did not know. 
 
 2. The second thing is, that it is far from clear that 
 Jesus predicted, or that the Apostles believed, that the 
 Advent would necessarily be in that generation, or in quite 
 so short a time as is sometimes imagined. I do not mean 
 that the Apostles postponed the Coming in their thoughts 
 to a far distant time ; but I mean that there are many 
 things in the sayings of Jesus, many things in the 
 parables, many things in the Epistles, many things 
 in the Book of Revelation which point to a some¬ 
 what prolonged development. Jesus speaks, e.g., of a 
 period of delay which would try the faith and patience of 
 His servants (Matt. xxv. 5,19; Luke xviii. 7, 8; xix. nff) ; 
 of manifold persecutions, when His disciples would be 
 brought before governors and kings of the Gentiles (Matt, 
 x. 18); of a secret growth of His kingdom (Mark iv. 26-28), 
 
 167 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 and the gradual ripening of good and evil in the world 
 till the final harvest (Matt. xiii. 30, 39-42); of a protracted 
 interval, filled with world-shaking events, during which 
 the love of many would grow cold (Matt. xxiv. 12, 13). 
 He speaks of a world-wide evangelisation, of a preaching 
 of the Gospel to every creature, of disciples gathered from 
 all nations (Matt. xxiv. 14 ; xxviii. 19, 20; Mark xvi. 15 ; 
 Luke xxiv. 47 ; Acts i. 8). 
 
 Paul, in like manner, when the Thessalonians thought 
 that the Lord’s Coming was “just at hand,” writes to 
 them in his second Epistle to warn them not to be shaken 
 in mind, as if that day was immediately impending (2 
 Thess. ii. 2), and goes on to tell them that that day would 
 not come till there had been a great Apostasy, and the 
 Man of Sin had been revealed : even then, apparently, 
 would not come till that which was hindering (the Roman 
 Empire?) had been taken cut of the way (ii. 3-10). And 
 again, in Rom. xi., he sketches, on a large scale, a kind of 
 philosophy of history, in which events are mentioned, as 
 the ingathering of the Gentiles, and the conversion 
 of Israel consequent on that (verses 25-32), which 
 necessarily must consume much time. It could not be 
 supposed by anyone reflecting on the subject that a month, 
 or year, or many years, would suffice to cover all these 
 events. Yet no one, I think, would have been more 
 surprised than Paul, or any of these early Christians— 
 their hearts would almost have sunk within them—if they 
 had been informed that Christian people in the twentieth 
 century would still be discussing the question as to when 
 the Lord was to appear! 
 
 II. 
 
 Reverting to our principles of prophetic interpretation, 
 let us look at their bearing on this problem of the time of 
 the Lord’s Coming. 
 
 168 
 
Eternity and its Issues 
 
 1. It has been observed in regard to Old Testament 
 prophecy how neglectful it is of the element of time , and 
 how regularly the consummation on which the prophet’s 
 eye is fixed is regarded as rising immediately behind the 
 series of events which fill the foreground of his vision. 
 Times and seasons were not known to him, and it was 
 left to Providence to unfold the steps leading up to the 
 final Day of the Lord; but what the prophet did know 
 was that the coming of this Day was certain, and was the 
 event to which all other events were hastening on. To 
 the prophet’s faith and expectancy, therefore, this event 
 seemed always near ; as a high mountain on the verge of 
 the horizon always seems at hand, so this event loomed 
 up behind whatever phase of Providence was immediately 
 in view. 
 
 Is it, or could it have been, otherwise in the New Tes¬ 
 tament ? The Lord’s Coming was, beyond doubt, the 
 great fact on which the hope of the Church was set; it 
 was the great event ever to be watched and waited for 
 (Mark xiii. 35) to which eye and prayer ought always to 
 be directed. Its time, beyond general indications, was 
 unknown ; it stood out, therefore, at every point, behind 
 the immediate conflict with the powers of the world— 
 behind Gospel preaching, behind persecution, behind 
 heresies, behind fall of Jerusalem, behind collapse of 
 Gentile empires—the one thing to be looked for, watched 
 for, worked for, prayed for, and, as far as human effort 
 could aid it, hastened. 
 
 2. This last remark leads to the mention of another 
 principle in connection with prophecy apt to be over¬ 
 looked—I mean its conditionality. This is a principle to 
 which, often, justice is not done in asking the question : 
 “ Why has the Lord’s Coming been so long delayed ? ” Have 
 we ourselves—has the Church of Christ—no responsibility 
 for that delay ? We are apt to think of the Lord’s Coming 
 
 169 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 as something which has its fixed date, to which our own 
 faithfulness or unfaithfulness has no relation. This is a 
 mistake. From the point of view of God’s absolute 
 knowledge, no doubt, the day and hour of the Advent—like 
 that of every event in time—is immovably fixed. God 
 knows all the circumstances that condition that event, and 
 the very moment when it will take place. In that sense 
 the Father, and He alone, knows the day and hour. But 
 from the human point of view, it is not given us to know 
 this, for the very reason that the nearness or farness of 
 the Coming depends on many things with which we have 
 ourselves to do. 
 
 Take our human life. It is quite certain that God 
 knows the precise moment when everyone of us will die. 
 Our times are in His hand ; the hour of our death is 
 known to Him ; yet from our human point of view, we 
 know that the time of our death depends, in part at least, 
 upon ourselves ; that by proper care we may, in all pro¬ 
 bability, prolong our life, as, on the other hand, by care¬ 
 lessness, profligacy, or exposure to unhealthy conditions, 
 we can certainly shorten it. We may fire a pistol, or 
 take poison, and end our lives on the spot. Do these 
 things conflict ? They do not conflict at all. So with 
 reference to the Lord’s Coming. In the Westminster 
 Shorter Catechism the second petition in the Lord’s 
 Prayer, “Thy Kingdom come,” is thus explained: 
 “ That the Kingdom of grace may be advanced, and the 
 Kingdom of glory may be hastened .” But why “ has¬ 
 tened ” if we have nothing to do with it, no responsibility 
 for its retarding or advancement ? Does anyone believe 
 that, if the Church had been watchful, and diligent, and 
 faithful, as it ought to have been—abounding in faith and 
 love from the beginning—things would have been as far 
 back as they are to-day; that the end would not have 
 been nearer, or, perhaps reached, long ago ? 
 
 170 
 
Eternity and its Issues 
 
 3. There is yet another consideration. I believe we 
 cannot fairly read the New Testament without seeing that 
 there is a Personal Coming of the Lord Jesus in the 
 future, which is the great hope of the Church. But it 
 seems to me just as plain that, in both Old Testament 
 and New, the Coming of the Lord is a large and compre¬ 
 hensive phrase—that the “ Coming” has, so to say, many 
 providential anticipations—designates, in short, a process, 
 rather than the one single event in which it culminates. 
 Comparing Christ’s sayings in the Gospels, it appears to 
 me that, when He speaks of His Coming, He does not 
 always mean by that expression precisely the same thing. 
 Jesus says, e.g., in John : “ A little while, and ye behold 
 Me not, and again a little while, and ye shall see Me . 
 . . . I will see you again ” (John xvi. 19, 22). This 
 
 evidently refers to His resurrection. Again, He speaks of 
 Coming in the Spirit. “ I will not leave you desolate ; I 
 come unto you” (John xiv. 18; cf, xvi. 13). Again, He speaks 
 of that tremendous judgment which was to overtake Israel 
 in the destruction of the holy city and dispersion of the 
 people, as a phase of His Coming (Matt. xxiv.). Behind 
 all stands the final Personal Coming of the Lord—His 
 Coming in the future. 
 
 Only thus, I think, can Christ's sayings be brought into 
 harmony, e.g., when He says: “There are some of 
 them that stand here, who shall in no wise taste of death 
 till they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom” 
 (Matt. xvi. 28)—a saying which Mark gives in the form : 
 “Till they see the Kingdom of God come with power ” 
 (Mark ix. 1), and Luke gives yet more simply : “ Till 
 they see the Kingdom of God ” (Luke ix. 27); or, again, 
 when He says : “ Ye shall not have gone through the 
 cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come” (Matt. x. 
 23), I cannot think it reasonable to believe that He is 
 referring to events that lie, perhaps, 2,000 years in the 
 
 171 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 future ! It is easier to believe that in the former passage 
 Jesus is referring to His Coming in the power, and 
 spread, and successes of His Kingdom, after the Spirit 
 had been given ; and in the latter, to the great pro¬ 
 vidential judgment on the Jewish nation. Even in Matt, 
 xxiv. careful observation shows that, while Christ quite 
 clearly connects His Coming with the great catastrophe 
 that was to overtake Jerusalem, He yet as clearly dis¬ 
 tinguishes that national judgment from the greater event 
 that lay behind it, of which it was the prelude. The con¬ 
 trast is indicated in the distinction which He makes 
 between “ these things ” and “that day and hour.” Of 
 the former it is said : “ This generation shall not pass 
 away, till all these things be accomplished”; of the 
 latter: “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, not 
 even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the 
 Father only” (vers. 34, 36, R.V.). 
 
 The one thing that stands out clear and indubitable 
 from all these discussions is that the Lord shall come , and 
 that His Coming shall be (1) Personal —in like manner as 
 men saw Him ascend (Acts i. 12) ; (2) sudden —flashing 
 on the world in a time of unexampled crisis, with all the 
 force of a great surprise, therefore unmistakable (Matt, 
 xxiv. 27) ; (3) glorious —in the glory of the Father, with all 
 the holy angels (Matt. xvi. 27 ; xxv. 31) ; and (4) decisive 
 —reducing all opposition to nothingness, and determining 
 for good or evil the destinies of mankind (2 Cor. v. 10). 
 There should be no difficulty in believing this to anyone 
 who really believes in the resurrection, ascension, and 
 present glorified life of our Lord in heaven. If the Lord 
 is really risen—if He is really within the veil wearing our 
 humanity in glory—is it reasonable to believe—can Chris¬ 
 tian faith rest in the idea—that He will remain always 
 thus invisible ? Is it not the most reasonable thing in 
 the world to expect that there will be a manifestation of 
 
 172 
 
Eternity and its Issues 
 
 this glorified One in connection with the winding up of 
 earthly affairs, and the bringing in of His everlasting 
 Kingdom ? Does someone say : “ He will be manifested 
 in heaven ? ” Yes, but a great deal will happen before 
 the heavenly Kingdom is reached, and is it reasonable to 
 think that in the transition from earth to heaven—from 
 history in time to the new order of things in eternity— 
 there will be no revelation, no manifestation, of the Son 
 of Man ? The Bible says there will be, and it gathers it 
 up in the hope of the Lord’s Coming. 
 
 III. 
 
 Here numerous questions and difficulties emerge into 
 which it is impossible to enter at length in this brief 
 study. It is interesting to notice that, in accordance 
 with the state of the case just described, the Creeds of 
 the Church have always maintained a wise reserve on the 
 details of the Lord’s Coming. They have announced the 
 fact, but they have not presumed to define times and 
 seasons, or to settle details. Much has always been left 
 to private Christian speculation on these subjects, and 
 opinions among Christians have widely varied. One 
 difficulty is that, if we take the prevailing form of repre¬ 
 sentation in the New Testament, we might reasonably 
 infer that, after a shorter or longer period in the world’s 
 development, during which both good and evil would 
 ripen and reach a climax, a terrible antichristian apostasy 
 (the germs of which were already present in the 
 Apostolic age (i John ii. 18, iv. 3) would be revealed, the 
 course of events would be suddenly terminated by the 
 Lord’s appearance (2 Thess. ii. 8), carrying with it the 
 resurrection of just and unjust, the final judgment, and 
 the dissolution of the existing earth and heaven. 
 
 On the other hand, if we turn to the Book of Revela¬ 
 tion, we find that, in harmony with Old Testament 
 
 !73 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 prophecies, and with hints in the words of Christ and His 
 Apostles (Matt. vi. io ; Mark iv. 28 ; Rom. xi. 12, 25-27, 
 &c.), this Book would seem to point, though not till after 
 long delay, and the experience of terrible conflicts, to a 
 prolonged triumph (“ a thousand years ”) of the Kingdom 
 of Christ in the world—the “ millennium as it is wont to 
 be termed—during which the forces of evil will be 
 restrained, and the powers of good will be at their highest 
 potency. This period is preluded by great judgments on 
 the antichristian powers, and by the resurrection of the 
 martyred saints, who reign along with Christ. Then 
 is to come a new falling away, and the final Advent, 
 resurrection and judgment (Rev. xx.). 
 
 How is this picture of the end of the present dispensa¬ 
 tion of things to be interpreted ? Is the picture wholly 
 symbolical, as the general character of the Book might 
 suggest ? Is the crisis or world-judgment which intro¬ 
 duces the latter-day glory purely providential ; or does 
 there shine through the picture the idea that it will be 
 attended by visible, supernatural attestations of Christ’s 
 presence and power ? Is the reign of the saints with 
 Christ purely spiritual, or is there suggested the idea of a 
 literal “first resurrection” of the martyrs and faithful? 
 These questions I must leave to be answered by others. 
 My own opinion is that the distinction between symbol 
 and outward fact must remain more or less an uncertainty 
 till the time itself shall declare it. 
 
 There is in itself no contradiction in supposing that 
 what, from the point of prophetic intuition, as in the Old 
 Testament, is pictured as one event, may resolve itself on 
 nearer survey into a series of events, or successive stages 
 of one event; just as stars, which to the naked eye appear 
 single, are resolved by the telescope into binary stars— 
 two stars in inseparable relation. 
 
 But this I would confess, that the idea of a latter day of 
 
 174 
 
Eternity and its Issues 
 
 glory on this earth of ours—a period of Sabbath rest and 
 realisation of righteousness—has a charm to my mind, 
 and seems to me to have its roots in so much Old 
 Testament prediction, that I cannot willingly forego it; 
 nor can I doubt that, if such a happy day dawns for our 
 world, it will be a period of open vision and of actual 
 intercommunion between heaven and earth, such as we 
 now know nothing of—a period that brings back those 
 days which, just because of their inconformity to our 
 present experience, we are apt to think of as left behind, 
 or to relegate to an age of fancy—the days of Eden and 
 the Patriarchs, when God was near to men and communed 
 with them—a period when the gates of intercourse with 
 heaven will be reopened, and the angels of God will be 
 seen ascending and descending, as in Jacob’s vision (Gen. 
 xxviii. 12), but now “ upon the Son of Man ” (John i. 51). 
 
 But nothing earthly endures, and even that blessed 
 time, if I have thought upon it rightly, is not the end. 
 There is a relapse (Rev. xx. 7-9)—a new crisis—and last of 
 all the final decisive appearing of the Lord—His appearing 
 in His glory, and in the glory of His Father, with the 
 holy angels (Matt. xvi. 27, xxv. 31; Mark viii. 38). Then 
 shall come about the dissolution of all earthly things, the 
 resurrection of the dead, the great white throne of final 
 judgment. It is the end-all of earthly affairs. Time is 
 finished; thereafter eternity rolls its unending course. 
 
 IV. 
 
 On these dread “ last things,” solemn and impressive 
 as they are, I can only permit myself to speak very briefly. 
 It has already been seen how the doctrine of the resurrection 
 enters as an integral element into the general system of 
 Christian truth—how it is implied in the Scriptural 
 doctrine of man as a compound personality, in the idea of 
 death as the consequence of sin, in the facts of Christ’s 
 
 175 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 own incarnation and resurrection, in the idea of a com¬ 
 plete redemption. Paul counted it a serious error to say 
 that the resurrection is past already (2 Tim. ii. 18)— i.e., 
 to interpret it in some purely spiritual sense. The inter¬ 
 mediate or disembodied state of believers—happy as that 
 may be (2 Cor. v. 6-8 ; Phil. i. 23 ; Rev. xiv. 13)—is still 
 not one of perfected bliss. The Christian waits “for the 
 adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body ” (Rom. viii. 
 23). The pledge of that redemption is given him in the 
 resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. xv. 20). 
 
 To all questions as to how this marvel can be brought 
 about, Christ only gives the answer—“ Ye err, not 
 knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God ” (Matt, 
 xxii. 29 ; cf. 1 Cor. xv. 35). Only let this caution be 
 given, which may relieve some part of the difficulty. The 
 essence of the doctrine of resurrection does not lie in any 
 thought of identity of material particles between the old 
 body and the new. Such identity did exist in the case of 
 Christ, who rose in the very body which three days 
 earlier had been laid in the tomb. It will exist in the 
 case of the saints who are alive at the Advent, whose 
 bodies will be “changed” (1 Cor. xv. 52; 1 Thess. iv. 
 15-17). ^he question now is, however, as to “ the dead 
 in Christ,” whose bodies have long decayed ; and here 
 the idea of identity of material particles is excluded by 
 the language of the Apostle himself. Using the analogy 
 of the seed-corn, he says : “ Thou sowest not the body 
 that shall be. . . . but God giveth it a body even as 
 it pleased Him (1 Cor. xv. 37, 38). There is here identity 
 between the old and the new, even as regards the body ; 
 but plainly it is not identity of material substance. 
 
 In truth, as a little reflection will convince us, the 
 identity of our earthly bodies in no case consists in same¬ 
 ness of material particles. The matter in our bodies is 
 continually changing; in the course of a few years has 
 
 176 
 
Eternity and its Issues 
 
 entirely changed. There is no more identity in substance 
 between the body of to-day and the body of ten years ago, 
 than there is between the waters flowing past a given 
 point on successive days. The bond of identity lies in 
 something deeper—in the abiding organising principle 
 that is the thread of connection amidst all changes. That 
 endures, is not destroyed at death; quickened anew into 
 activity, it stamps its individuality and the marks it 
 inherits from the old body upon the new. 
 
 But there is a glorious change. “ It is sown in corrup¬ 
 tion ; it is raised in incorruption ; it is sown in dishonour; 
 it is raised in glory ; it is sown in weakness ; it is raised 
 in power; it is sown a natural body; it is raised a 
 spiritual body” (i Cor. xv. 42-44). It is “fashioned 
 anew,” “ that it may be conformed to the body of His 
 glory, according to the working whereby He is able even 
 to subject all things unto Himself” (Phil. ii. 21). 
 
 V. 
 
 The resurrection is the prelude to the judgment. That 
 God shall call men into judgment is one of the most 
 deeply-ingrained convictions of the human heart. Con¬ 
 science, which is itself a kind of tribunal of divine judg¬ 
 ment, is a perpetual witness to it. Heathen religions had 
 anticipations of it. Egypt, in particular, gave large pro¬ 
 minence to the idea of judgment after death. There is a 
 judgment of God in history ; and in the Gospel we have 
 the assertion of a present judgment wrought by the mani¬ 
 festation of Christ (John iii. 18, 19). But the doctrine of 
 the general judgment in the New Testament passes 
 beyond all this. It is connected with the end of the 
 world ; it is public and universal; and it is final —decisive 
 of the destinies of mankind (Matt. xxv. 31-46; Rom. ii. 
 5-11; 2 Cor. v. 10; Col. iii. 24, 25 ; Rev. xx. 12-15). 
 
 If the predictions of the Lord’s Advent leave us in 
 
 177 N 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 dubiety about details, this is even more true of pictures of 
 the judgment, which are necessarily couched, in large 
 degree, in figurative or parabolic form. But nothing can 
 be clearer than the great outstanding features of the 
 event. The judgment, we learn, shall be absolutely 
 universal —universal alike as regards the persons brought 
 into it, and the matter included in its survey. It will be 
 minute, searching, exhaustive, yet most just, for God is 
 no respecter of persons (Acts x. 34). Yet in the case of 
 the righteous, it will be a saving judgment. It could not 
 be so if, like others, these stood or fell by what was 
 written of their own deeds. The holiest could not face 
 the All-Holy on these terms (Ps. cxxx. 3). But the 
 believer appears in his union with Christ, with his 
 Saviour’s blood to atone and his Saviour’s righteousness 
 to plead. Hence he stands. Another book than that of 
 works is opened—“ the book of life ”—and his name is 
 written there (Rev. xx. 12). Even in the believer’s case, 
 however, works—the evidence of his faith—have an 
 important bearing. If not the ground of his standing, 
 they are yet the rule of his reward (Matt. xxv. 20-23 ; 
 2 Tim. iv. 7, &c.). 
 
 One solemn fact which deserves attention in its bearing 
 on what is called “ second probation ” is that, in every 
 representation of the judgment which we possess, the 
 judgment proceeds on the record of the present life —on 
 the basis of “the deeds done in the body” (2 Cor. v. 10). 
 The whole state after death is regarded as one of “ judg¬ 
 ment ” (Heb. ix. 27), and no suggestion is ever made of 
 that state being essentially altered by anything that takes 
 place, or can take place, beyond death. Every ray of 
 warning, remonstrance, appeal, promise, in the Gospel, is 
 concentrated in the present. “ Behold, now is the accept¬ 
 able time; behold, now is the day of salvation ” (2 Cor. 
 vi. 2). 
 
 178 
 
Eternity and its Issues 
 
 The other great fact that arrests us in regard to the 
 judgment is that its sentence is definitive . The stamp of 
 finality is on it (Rev. xxii. n). There is not the faintest 
 hint in the Scripture anywhere of the reversal of its 
 decisions. As the man leaves the judgment seat, so is 
 his state and place in eternity. 
 
 VI. 
 
 With this word eternity I close these studies. I know 
 the dark and difficult problems which the word opens up, 
 for which I can profess to offer no satisfying solution : the 
 doom of the unsaved who have rejected Christ; the lot of 
 the millions of the heathen who have never heard of Him; 
 the awful meaning of such words as “destruction,” “the 
 second death,” “fire unquenchable” (Matt. iii. 12; xiii. 
 44 ; xxv. 41, 46; 2 Thess. i. 9; Rev. xx. 14, 15). What¬ 
 ever the solution of these mysteries which God holds in 
 His own hands, I feel persuaded that the solution means 
 neither universal salvation nor yet the extinction of being 
 for the lost. The continued existence of the unsaved is 
 implied even in the passages that tell of the doom that 
 falls upon them at the judgment. They “go away” into 
 that doom (Matt. xxv. 46). These two things only I 
 would venture to say. (1) We may be absolutely certain 
 that the mercy of God will reach as far as ever it is pos¬ 
 sible for it to reach ; and (2) there will be no lack of 
 discrimination in the judgment. Even within the circle 
 of those who are grouped as the unsaved, there will be 
 gradations of penalty—the “ few stripes ” and the “ many 
 stripes ” (Luke xii. 46, 47). Jesus says it will be “ more 
 tolerable” for some than for others in the day of judg¬ 
 ment (Matt xi. 20-24). This again implies continued 
 existence. The heaviest condemnation falls on those who, 
 having had the light, have loved the darkness rather than 
 the light, their deeds being evil (John iii. 19). 
 
 179 
 
Side-Lights on Christian Doctrine 
 
 There the mystery must be left. We can bless God 
 that this dark side of the picture of eternity is not the 
 only or even the principal one—that the vision of eternity 
 which chiefly fills the Scriptures is that of the everlasting 
 life of blessedness and glory of the good. For the 
 redeemed in Christ there is no cloud of sadness, but 
 felicity in both soul and body for evermore. Holiness 
 and joy are perfected. “ And there shall be no curse any 
 more; and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be 
 therein; and His servants shall serve ; and they shall see 
 His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads ” 
 (Rev. xxii. 3, 4). In Christ’s simpler words: “Then 
 shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom 
 of their Father ” (Matt. xiii. 43). 
 
 Yet even in this glory, as said before, there are degrees, 
 and those who serve Christ most faithfully in His king¬ 
 dom here—the most loving, patient, prayerful, self- 
 sacrificing, diligent, earnest in saving others—are the 
 highest there. “ Hold fast that which thou hast, that no 
 one take thy crown.” 
 
 180 
 
Index of Subjects 
 
 Absolute, God as, n, 2\ff. 
 
 Adoption, its nature, 157^. ; relation to justification, 157; to 
 regeneration, 158. 
 
 Advent, Second, difficulties regarding, 165^,17377:; delay in, 165-6, 
 169-70 ; analogy of O.T. prophecy, 166, 1697?./ time of unknown, 
 167 ; events preceding, 168; conditionality of, 169-70; Christ’s 
 sayings on, 171-2 ; relation to millennium, 173-4. 
 
 Agnosticism, 11. 
 
 Atheism, 8, 14, 58. 
 
 Attributes, of God, meaning of, 24 ; division of, 24 ; belonging to God 
 as absolute, 243^ ; as Personal, 27ff. ; specific attributes— 
 natural, 29/. ; moral, 13-14, 317^ 
 
 Atonement, 124^. ; aversion to doctrine, 126-7 ; presuppositions of, 
 127-8 ; in O.T., 129^ ; in N.T,, 1317^ ; in Gospels, 132-3 ; fact 
 and theory in, 133-4; problem of, 134-5 ; modern theories of, 136-7 
 relation to guilt and condemnation, 137 ; elements in, 138-9. 
 
 Creation, $$ff. ; interest of religion in, 56; uniqueness of Biblical 
 doctrine, 5877'.; non-Biblical views of, 58-9 ; truths implied in, 
 60-2 ; relation to science, biff. ; to evolution, 64-5. 
 
 Christ, Jesus, as Redeemer, 1097^; divinity of, 11537.; incarna¬ 
 
 tion of, I3ff. ; divine and human in, 1143^ mystery of Person of, 
 H7ff; Kenotic theories of, 11837.; earthly limitations of, H9ff; 
 freedom from error of, 120-1. 
 
 “ Christian Science,” 59-60. 
 
 Deism, 56. 
 
 Doctrine, prejudice against, 3, 4 ; place of, 5 ; relation to “dogma’ 
 and “ theology,” ff. 
 
 Dogma, nature of, 5. 
 
 181 
 
Index of Subjects 
 
 Election, 34. 
 
 Eternity, of God, 24, 25-6 ; human destiny in, 179-S0. 
 
 Evolution, and creation, 64-5 ; and man, Soff, 85^ 94. 
 
 Faith, Saving, 143, 152-3; relation to repentance, 153-4. 
 
 Freedom, of God, 24, 27-8 ; of man, 30-1. 
 
 Foreknowledge, of God, 30, 67/. 
 
 God, Christian view of, Zff. ; evidence for, 12 ft. ; O.T. view of, 15; 
 teaching of Jesus on, 15, 16; Fatherhood of, 16, 85-6, 157-9 ; 
 Trinity of, 16, yjff. [see Trinity] ; names and attributes of, 21 ff. 
 [see Attributes]. 
 
 Holiness, of God, 31 ; attributes involved in, 32^. 
 
 Holy Spirit, in Trinity, 16, 37, 43-4, 48 ; in salvation, 143^ ; 
 
 Agent in regeneration, 144^ 
 
 Image of God, in man, 78#,, 93. 
 
 Immutability, of God, 26. 
 
 Infinity, of God, 10, 24, 26. 
 
 Judgment, Last, 177-8 ; its finality, 179. 
 
 Justification, its nature, 155^. ; wrong views of, 155. 
 
 Kenotic theories, 118#. 
 
 Love of God, 33 ; relation to Trinity, 17, 37, 46 ; end ot creation, 50. 
 
 Man, place in creation, 76-7 ; made in God’s image, 78/! ; distinction 
 from animals, Soff.; a compound being, 82^.; original condition 
 of, 84^; relation to evolution, 80-1, 85^.; antiquity of 88-9; 
 moral state of (see Sin) ; destiny of, 179-80. 
 
 Names, of God, 21#. 
 
 Nature, revelation in, i 2 ff\ a. creation, 60-1; laws of, 67^. 
 
 Organic constitution of race, 100-1, 109-11. 
 
 Omnipresence, of God, 29. 
 
 Omniscience, of God, 29^. 
 
 Omnipotence, of God, 31. 
 
 182 
 
Index of Subjects 
 
 Pantheism, g, 59-60. 
 
 Personality, of God, 6, 24 ; relation to infinitude, 27-8. 
 
 Providence, of God, 66^. ; in Scripture, 66 ; relation to natural law, 
 67; general and special, 67/i; relation to freedom, yof. ; to 
 sin, 71. 
 
 Purpose, of God, its nature, 49 ; how executed, 50 ; end of, 50-1. 
 
 Redemption, need of, 10377:; possibility of, no^i; completeness of, 
 1037^; nature of, 125^ [see Atonement]; of whole personality, 
 175-6. 
 
 Regeneration, need of, 144-6 ; nature of, 144-5 ; a work of God’s 
 Spirit, 144^- ; not magical, 147 ; through the Word, 147-8 ; 
 psychology of, 14877:; awakening, 149; conviction, 150; 
 
 enlightenment, 150-1 ; renewal of will, 151-2. 
 
 Repentance, 150, 153; relation to faith, 153-4. 
 
 Resurrection, involved in redemption, 175-6 ; mistakes regarding, 
 176 ; true nature of, 176-7. 
 
 Revelation, in nature, 12 ; supernatural, 4, 11 ; in Bible, 7, 12, 14^. 
 
 Righteousness, of God, 32-3. 
 
 Sacrifice, in O.T., 129-30. 
 
 Sanctification, nature of, 159/f. ; human side of, 159-60; standard 
 of, 161. 
 
 Self-existence, of God, 24-5. 
 
 Sin, negation of good, 94; principle of in egoism, 9477. ; depraving 
 effects of, 96/*. ; forms of, 95 ; result of “ fall,” 97/.; superhuman 
 origin of, ggf- ; racial effects of, 100-1 ; guilt of, 101-2 ; penalties 
 of, 102-3 5 need of redemption from, 103 ; conviction of, 149-50, 
 
 . . I53 ’ 
 
 Spirituality, of God, 27. 
 
 Sovereignty, of God, 24. 
 
 Trinity, of God, 16, 17, yjff. ; doctrine of revelation, 16, 3877*.; 
 involved in love and Fatherhood, 17, 37, 46; in formula of 
 baptism, 397?% 41; in O.T., 42-3; in N.T., 41-2; value of 
 doctrine, 44 ff. ; “ Persons ” in, 47^. 
 
 Theology, what it is, ; need of, 7; in doctrine of God, Sjf. 
 
 Union with Christ, how effected, 143^., 152. 
 
 Unitarianism, 37, 44, 112-13, 115.