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THE CHRISTIAN IDEA
OF ATONEMENT

THE CHRISTIAN IDEA
OF ATONEMENT

LECTURES DELIVERED AT
REGENT'S PARK COLLEGE, LONDON, IN 1903

BY
T. VINCENT TYMMS, D.D.
(st. Andrews)
PRINCIPAL OF RAWDON COLLEGE

fLottUon
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
I904
All rights reserved

Richard Clay and Sons, Limited,
bread street hill, e.c, and
bungay, suffolk

THE ANGUS LECTURESHIP
IN CONNECTION WITH REGENT'S PARK COLLEGE.
The Rev. Joseph Angus, D.D., was President of the
College, formerly at Stepney, and now at Regent's Park, from
1849 to 1893. He was eminent as a Scholar ; a member of
the New Testament Revision Committee ; an Author whose
books had a wide circulation ; a sagacious and trusted leader
of the Baptist churches.
The Lectureship which bears his name had its origin in a
Testimonial offered to him on the completion of thirty years'
service as President. At his own request the money then
contributed was devoted to the establishment of a permanent
Lectureship in connection with the College, to secure the
delivery of periodic lectures on great questions connected with
Systematic, Practical, or Pastoral Theology.
The appointment of Lecturers rests with the Trustees and
the College Committee jointly. It need scarcely be added
that for the opinions advanced in any of the Lectures, the
individual Lecturer is alone responsible.

PREFACE
THE present volume contains the substance of
eight Lectures which were delivered in May, 1903,
but, as previously arranged with the Angus Trustees,
it includes much additional matter. The closing
Lecture on Justification was not delivered, the
seventh, on The Significance of Christ's Death, was
divided into two parts, and other Lectures were given
in an abbreviated form.
I have not founded my discussion of the Atone
ment on the Fatherhood of God, although to my
mind this expresses the most fundamental as well as
the loveliest conception of God's relationship to us,
and nothing at variance with it can be predicated of
Him. But our Father in Heaven is also the blessed
and only Potentate, the Lawgiver, Judge, and King
of all the earth. Each of these analogical titles
represents an aspect of the Deity which should never
be ignored, and each is associated with a set of cor
relative terms which cannot be disused without loss,
and become incongruous if intermixed. Hence it

PREFACE vii
appears preferable to found our discussions on a
definition of the Divine Nature rather than upon any
relative term, however beautiful. God must always
be the same in all His relations, and under all the
analogical forms in which these can be partially ex
pressed. Therefore, when we start with a definition
of His nature, we have a clue to the harmonious
interpretation of all the names and titles which have
been multiplied, to give breadth and fulness to our
faith. My sincere thanks are due to the Rev. Archibald
Bisset, of Ratho Manse, Midlothian, and to my es
teemed colleagues, the Rev. Professor Glass, M.A.,
and the Rev. Professor Medley, M.A., who have
rendered valuable assistance in the preparation of
these Lectures for the Press.
T. V. T.
Rawdon College,
March, 1904.

SYLLABUS Introduction.

PAGE

Reasons for offering a new discussion of the Atonement. I
LECTURE I.
Review of Theories.
Method of study. The dangers of conciliation. The
duty of criticism. Types of Theory defined. Reasons
for at once testing the basal principle of all Penal
Theories, viz., that the Divine Nature demands for its
satisfaction the punishment of all sin. A denial of this
principle is not a denial that sin deserves punishment.
This principle unknown to the early Church. Patristic
theories of satisfaction. Marcion, the earliest and
truest precursor of Anselm. Views of Irenseus, Origen,
Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen,
Augustine. Mediaeval developments of Penance and
Satisfactions. Gregory the Great. Anselm's Theory
reviewed. Modified and Supplementary doctrine of the
Reformers. Inferences from this review  13
LECTURE II.
First Principles.
Definitions of the word Punishment. Reasons for reject
ing the Penal Theory : — (1) Its basal principle is not
affirmed in Scripture. Fundamental passage, Gen. ii.
"17, does not preclude forgiveness. Same words linked
with offer of pardon, Ezek. xviii. 20, 21. Echoed in

SYLLABUS

Rom. v. 12, vi. 28 ; 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22 ; Jas. 1. 18.
Irrelevant texts. Christ's sufferings for us not said to
be penal : texts examined. (2) It is a contradiction of
explicit declarations in the Old Testament. Exod.
xxxiv. 6, 7 ; Ezek. xviii., xxxii., etc. God's Name, or
revealed Nature, the hope of sinful men. (3) It is
incompatible with the teachings and actions of Christ.
The command to forgive imperative, a refusal unpardon
able. God's actions must accord with His commands.
Anselm's evasive reply. Human forgiveness confirmed
in heaven, Matt, xviii. 18, 20 ; John xx. 23. Christ's
attitude towards sinners a revelation of God's. (4) It
fails to do justice to God's inexorable hatred of sin.
Extermination stronger term than punishment. Exter
mination of sin implies either the extinction of sinners,
or their salvation from sin. Universalism and
annihilation neither axiomatic nor demonstrable. Con
clusion reached. God's nature demands for its satis
faction the use of all possible measures to secure (a) the
extermination of sin, (6) the salvation of sinners. These
objects complementary. This principle the basis of
any true theory of Atonement. ... • • • ¦ 39

LECTURE III.
The Factors of the Problem of Atonement.
God's measures for His own satisfaction determined
(1) Primarily by His own Nature. He cannot deny
Himself. " God is Love." Unworthy ideas of love :
confounded with lust, with mere liking. Love may
intensify anger, must be inexorable — more than an
attribute. Its nature an integral part of Revelation.
The cross God's definition of Himself. (2) The
Nature of Man. (3) The Nature of Sin. The dis
cussion of these unified, "Sin is Lawlessness," 1 John
iii. 4, d/xapn'a not an innocent failure. John's definition
extended. Transgression may include moral states.
Responsibility delimited. Heredity. Environment.
Culpability to be included in the term Sin in this
discussion. Reasons assigned. Definition may in
clude some unconscious transgressions, but not all.
Infants not moral agents, except potentially. Paul :
Calvin ; Dr. Cave. Divine law not an arbitrary decree.

5 YLLABUS

Ethical duties implied in personal relations. Law
eternal, legal codes temporal. Man's duties to God
determined by his character. Objective conformity to
law may be sinful, and vice versa. What is not of
faith is sin. God will distinguish between error and
sin, between injury suffered and wrong done. Reluc
tance of Theologians to maintain this distinction well
meant, but disastrous. (4) The consequences of Sin.
Physical, Intellectual, Moral, Circumstantial. Classifi
cation arbitrary, but convenient. Evil of exaggerating
or underestimating any single class. For some of
these consequences man not responsible, for others
wholly, or in part. God alone can discriminate. The
Pelagian Controversy  84

LECTURE IV.
Remedial Measures.

Separate remedies for evil and sin not requisite. God can
tolerate neither. Error needs light, but may thereby
be developed into sin. The supreme problem is the
remedy of sin. Some non-remedial expedients, Anni
hilation, Eternal conscious punishment, Coercive re
pression. The only remedy is that which cleanses the
springs of conduct. God can be satisfied only by
voluntary obedience. This cannot be enforced by
omnipotence. Hence remedial action may be in
definitely prolonged. How can voluntary obedience be
secured ? God's will summed up in the words " Thou
shalt love." Love is the fulfilling of the law. Hence to
exterminate sin and save sinners God must beget love
in man. God's love eternal and spontaneous ; man's
love derivative. God can beget love only by first loving
us. Conclusion : — That for the satisfaction of His own
nature and the fulfilment of His purposes, God will
commend and impart His love to men at any cost to
Himself. Sundry objections. That God cannot love
sinners. Augustine, Calvin, Hodge. That the revela
tion of love is not a primary object of Christ's Life and
Death. Dale. These objections all based on similar
idea of Propitiation. This idea repudiated. The appeal
to Scripture. Damaging concessions by Dr. Fairbairn
and Bushnell  • •  15S

SYLLABUS

LECTURE V.
Biblical Ideas of Propitiation.
Atonement in the Old Testament : usual etymology of
-kipper accepted. The idea of covering sin lost in re
ligious usage or expressed by different word. Man's
attempts to cover sin before God denounced by the
prophets and never sanctioned by any ritual code. Sin-
offerings always confessional. The idea of placating God
excluded by the idiom. God never named as the object
of the verb kipper. Pagan usage illustrated in Gen.
xxxii. 20 ; Prov. xvi. 14. God's readiness to forgive
presupposed by the law of sacrifice. The idea that
sacrifice could take away sin scrupulously shut out. Heb.
ix. 22 relates historically to the Hebrew law. No atone
ment allowed for wilful sins. Four exceptions which
magnify the principle. Dilemma : either no serious
sins were remitted while the law reigned, or they were
remitted without blood-shedding. The ritual law in
strict harmony with the prophets and with Psalm li.
Moral basis of sacrificial legislation. God's Name, or
revealed Nature, the ground of hope in His mercy.
Ancient Semitic religion and Hebrew ritual. The law
of sacrifice corrective of false ideas of propitiation. The
Septuagint. The perplexity of translators. Etymo
logical equivalents of kipper refused. Greek sacrificial
terms adopted ; this fact misinterpreted by J. Morison.
Meaning transformed by Hebrew idioms. Startling
effect on Greek readers. Hebrew sacrifices shown to
be unique. The New Testament writers followed LXX.
Hilasmos in I. John ii. 2, iv. 10, excludes the idea of
placating God. Rom. iii. 26. Morison. Sanday.
Hilasterion, how used. God the author, not the object,
of propitiation. Christ demonstrates the righteousness
of remission. The fact must precede the demonstration.
Conclusions confirmed by use of other terms, specially
Reconciliation. Redemption involves the same prin
ciple as atonement. The law of God. The duties of
kinsman often costly. The idea transferred to God.
Israel redeemed out of Egypt, but no price paid. The
death of Christ a "ransom." Men redeemed from
" bondage," " destruction," " iniquity," " death," " vain
manner of life," but no vendor conceivable. Redeemed

SYLLABUS

unto God, not from Him. Christ God's agent in re
demption as in creation. Propitiation and redemption
the costly activities, not the price, of God's love . . .191

LECTURE VI.
Salvation by Love Through Faith.
The question resumed — How could God reproduce His
own love in man ? The answer of Scripture clear —
John iii. 16, xvii. 3; Romans v. 8. Slowness of the Church
to appreciate this answer. Doubts suggested. Is the
doctrine true, or has God failed ? Why Christ so late
in coming ? If love can cure, why not prevent sin ?
The difficulty of revealing love. The holier it is, the
more inexplicable its ways. Giving restricted by recep-
tiveness. Love has no regenerative power until recog
nised and believed. Hence the problem arises. How
can God awaken faith? Man died to God through
doubt, and can only be begotten again through the
truth. Faith cannot be given as a substantive, yet the
gift of God. Human analogies. The initial difficulty
antecedent to sin and its consequences. Distinction
between faith and the absence of doubt. Faith is the
conquest of doubt. In an ideal paradise the highest
love unknowable. The cross a meaningless horror.
Some trial involvingpossibihty of doubt a prerequisite of
faith. Increase of faith involves progressive difficulty.
Triumphant faith implies the maximum of trial. Hence
things against us are for us. Man's extremity God's
opportunity of self-revelation. No delay in Christ's
advent. The cross not a rectification of mistake or
delay, but the crown of God's work of love  251

LECTURE VII.
The Significance of Christ's Death.
The work of Christ the culmination of remedial activities.
His Death the central interest of the Gospels. But in
separable from the life before and after. Social contact
the condition of personal revelation. Ends served by
His chosen course of life. The cross the goal, and not

iv SYLLABUS PAGE
a mere incident, of His career. Why made a public
spectacle ? Death, terrible in proportion to the fulness
of life. What was death to the Son of God ? Dread
strangely blended with resolve. Physical pain lost in
mental anguish. The martyr's exultation absent. The
great cry, a sermon to the world, not an utterance of
weakness. The rending of personality the last trial of
faith. No severance of heart or will. A mutual sacri
fice for man's reunion with God. Specific reasons why
Christ's death was necessary for man's redemption, (i)
Had Christ not died He would have escaped that which
men most dread, thus limiting His range of manifested
sympathy. (2) He would have escaped the extreme
force of temptation, and so failed to inspire faithfulness
even unto death. (3) He would have been unable to
give His disciples an assurance of fellowship with Him
self beyond the grave. (4) He would have evaded the
last injury which human hatred could inflict, thus lessen
ing His powerto convince of sin. (5) He would havegiven
no adequate demonstration of God's power to forgive.
(6) He would have imperfectly revealed the impotence of
sin against God. (7) He would have failed to reveal
the truth that God is grieved by sin. Reluctance of the
Church to admit that God can suffer, yet the Man of
Sorrows is the manifestation of God. Some elements of
the sorrow thus made known ; {a) Because of the havoc
wrought by sin in human nature ; (b) On account of the
anguish God beholds in man ; (c) Because of the limita
tion imposed by unbelief upon the benignant use of
Omnipotence. This kind of sorrow commonly affirmed
in Scripture. It meets the dilemma that God is either
not good or not omnipotent. Comparison with J. S.
Mill's solution. The weakness of Christ mightier than
omnipotence. Illustrated by the Golden Parable. (8)
Without dying Christ would not have given the strongest
possible demonstration of God's antagonism to sin. (9)
He would have failed to reveal the unspeakable difficulty
and costliness of mercy. All these aspects of the cross
essential to its power to shine into our hearts the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God ; and without this
there could be no redemption . . . 276

SYLLABUS

LECTURE VIII.
Justification by Faith.
Is the preceding view of Faith complete ? Is Justification
the rectification of life only, or is it a Judicial Act ? The
question demands a review of the Epistle to the Romans.
Not a systematic treatise. Its theme, the Righteousness
of God. Its aim to commend the righteousness of
mercy. Its peculiarities of style due to missionary
fervour. Its structure logical. To establish God's
righteousness Paul needed (i) To convict all men of
sin. Method of proof personal, not abstract. (2) To
show that his gospel included an assurance of Universal
Judgment by one Judge, and in flawless equity. (3) To
demonstrate the righteousness of God in justifying
believers in Christ. This argument evasive unless
dikaiod, a forensic term. Why this significance of the
word has been repudiated. Thomas Erskine's aim ex
cellent, but his method fallacious. Justification is
equivalent to God's reckoning of Faith for righteous
ness. Why Abraham was introduced. Logizomai al
ways denotes a real judgment. Traditional dogma of
imputed righteousness an unscriptural invention. The
views of Wicliffe and Luther Pauline. Why Paul des
pised "the righteousness which is of the law." (a)
Because necessarily imperfect ; {bj Because even if
perfect it would lack the finest ethical qualities. Her
bert Spencer's ethical ideal similar to Paul's, but his
scientific theory sterile. Paul's idea of the righteous
ness of Faith derived from Christ. Illustrated by
Christ's own perfection as a Son ; by His parables of
the Publican, the Prodigal Son, and the Great Feast.
How harmonise a judicial act with God's Fatherhood ?
No incongruity between Kingship and Paternity. The
King is our Father in Heaven. His kingdom is also a
Royal Family. God's principles of government the
same through all dispensations. Paul's illustration :
the son while under legal subjection is none theless a son.
At maturity he is legally released from legal obligation.
So a forensic act may deliver from bond service into
the freedom of filial life. Sonship is God's satisfaction.
He sees this in the repentant Prodigal, but not in the
punctiliousness of the elder brother. Justification apart

SYLLABUS

PAGE
from the works of the law seen in the Prodigal's uncon
ditional restoration to the privileges of home. Faith in
Christ as the Saviour means participation in His hatred
of sin, and His devotion to the Father's will. Vital
union issues in likeness of spirit and character. For
equitable reasons there is no condemnation to those " in
Christ." The development of Christian life is the out
growth of Faith, and demonstrates its ethical value.
The righteous mercy of God in Christ is the basis of
Christian ethics. Romans xii. enjoins a righteousness
which exceeds the highest thoughts of Jewish Pharisees
and Gentile stoics. Paul's conception of religion
sublimely simple. Christianity is patriarchal Theism
enriched by ages of Divine tuition, and with all the
wealth of spiritual power supplied by Christ. Atone
ment an all inclusive word to describe God's part in
overcoming evil with good  • 341
Atonement and Law.
Faith in the reign of law essential to the idea of a Cosmos,
and therefore to the idea of God. The strength of
Anselmic theology lies in its supposed maintenance of
this principle. Its satisfaction of law unreal. The
Author of Nature cannot violate His own order. Nature
no respecter of persons or of moral qualities. Forgive
ness does not imply an arbitrary arrest of consequence.
The order of nature includes the operation of causes
which modify and arrest trains of sequence. Remedial
action familiar in physics and morals. Moral remedies
include forgiveness. Pardon under right conditions
promotes reform, and works downwards to remove the
causes of disease. Physical and moral remedies work
conjointly to counteract the destructive tendencies of
sin. Death' God's physical remedy for the physical
consequences of transgression. Science can frame no
objection to the atonement considered as a remedial
spiritual force. The effects of this force can be scien
tifically observed. Faith in the Gospel as the power of
God is their only rational explanation. The forecast of
Science is racial Death. The cross is a pledge of
victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus
Christ . .  . ... 419

THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF
ATONEMENT

INTRODUCTORY
EIGHT hundred years ago Anselm was reluctantly
persuaded to supply an answer to the question, Cur
Deus Homo ? For several centuries .thought upon
this deep mystery of the Gospel had been almost
stagnant. A debased theology diverted attention
from the significance of Christ's work for men, to
those sacrificial masses which were offered by
priests, and those laborious prayers and works
which were imposed on penitents as the conditions
of pardon by the Church. But late in the eleventh
century there was a new stirring of religious
thought. Small communities were gathered outside
the ecclesiastical fold, and were persecuted for
heresy ; while many who remained inside began to
ask questions to which the dominant Church had no
replies. Most notably they inquired : Why did

z THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT
Christ come into the world ? How could His death
avail for man's salvation ?
The two facts that Anselm was plied with these
questions, and that he made a most memorable
attempt to answer them, mark an epoch in the
history of Christian thought. The Reformation was
still far distant, but this turning of men's hearts
towards Christ was a sign that the dark age was
ready to pass away, and the dawn of a new day at
hand. Since then men have never ceased to ask the
same solemn questions, and many have aspired to
give a satisfactory reply, yet, strange to say, no
answer has sufficed to stop this questioning. To
day more people are asking, and more are answer
ing than ever, but no one dares to think that his
reply is final and complete. Few seekers after
truth are thoroughly content with any answer they
have heard, and many capable thinkers declare that
no answer has been or ever will be found, and that
the darkness which surrounds the Cross is a Divine
obscurity into which it is useless and dangerous for
the human intellect to intrude. Let us be satisfied,
they plead, to hear the voice of mercy which
speaks to our hearts from Calvary, and desist
from all attempts to frame an intellectual theory of
Atonement. It is enough to believe that Christ
suffered on our behalf, and that in His name repent
ance is granted, and remission of sins proclaimed to
every creature.
There is a large element of truth in this plea.

INTRODUCTORY

The history of Christianity demonstrates that
Christ crucified, and not any theory of Atonement/
is the power of God unto salvation. The fervent
heat of sacrificial love has passed into human hearts
through teachings which have sadly failed to trans
mit the rays of intellectual light. Thus spiritual
life has survived, and borne rich fruit in at least a
few rare saints, even in the darkest ages of the
Church. But while these facts are indisputable, and
in their way consolatory, they afford no adequate
support to the plea so often based upon them.
Those who deprecate attempts to elucidate the
principle of Atonement appear to overlook a most
vital distinction between the conditions of individual
salvation and the conditions of victorious Christian
work. It would be unworthy of a great God ten
base the forgiveness of sin upon an intellectual
grasp of the mysteries of His kingdom, for in
this case only theologians could be saved^, A
message sent from Heaven to a world like this
could not be a gospel unless its essential meaning
were simple enough to be appreciated, and taken
down into the heart by feeble and uncultured
people. We may well thank God that His good
tidings can be revealed to "babes and sucklings,"
and are hidden from the "wise and, prudent"
until humbled to become as little children. But
Christianity makes provision for something more
than bare salvation. Its most characteristic note is
discipleship, and the Master's method is to treat His
followers as friends to whom all His thoughts and
B 2

4 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT
plans may be confided, thus fitting them to become
fellow-workers with the Truth in the recovery and
enlightenment of the world. We are well assured
that none will perish because of crude thinking, but
the power of the Church to propagate her faith is
largely dependent on her power to commend the
great truths of the Gospel to the understanding as
well as to the hearts of men.
This principle is written large in the history of
the Reformation. The great power of the Reformers
lay in the fact that they cleared away a mass of
traditional teaching, which tended to obstruct per
sonal relations between individual souls and Christ
They did not clear away all the semi-pagan
rubbish which had gathered round the Cross, but
they removed much, and with no faltering voice they
directed men to look to Christ for wisdom and
righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Their
statements of doctrine were not made in unison.
The chief leaders were strongly opposed to each
other's teachings on important subjects, and none of
them was perfectly consistent in the development of
his own doctrinal system ; but they were all of one
accord in setting forth Christ and Him' crucified as
the sole and all-sufficient object of faith. The great
outstanding fact of the epoch is that Christ was
preached, and that multitudes were taught to say :
" Thou O Christ art all I want
More than all in Thee I find."
But as time passed men became more painfully
aware of their differences and less conscious of their

INTRODUCTORY

agreement. Hence controversies arose ; criticism
became keener, more general, and, worst of all,
more acrimonious. Sects multiplied. Official creeds
stereotyped expressions of opinion which became
tests of fellowship and divisional banners. To-day
there is a strong yearning to reverse this deplorable
process ; to abandon strife, to make less of differ
ences, and to unite more widely for fraternal inter
course and common service on the ground of
a common loyalty to Jesus Christ as Lord of
all. But while rejoicing in this healthful movement
of the Christian spirit, we cannot disguise the fact
that the reuniting hosts are not exerting such a
commanding power as might have been expected.
Churches are not conscious of augmenting influence.
On all sides men are asking why such vast numbers
absent themselves from public worship. Cries of
weakness are heard from trusted leaders, and
thousands are depressed as when standard-bearers
faint upon the field.
The causes assigned for these discouraging facts
are manifold, and most of them are, I believe, really
operative, so that no short and simple explanation
can be given of what is obviously a most complex
problem. It is not my intention to discuss this
grave question, but no one will controvert the state
ment that one of the most potent causes of the evil
is a widespread enfeeblement of confidence in the
Bible as a treasury of Divine Revelation.
But here, again, we have to recognise complexity,

6 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT
for this diminished confidence in the Bible is not
traceable to any single cause. By many it is set
down to the unsettling effects of the Higher
Criticism ; but others retort by throwing the blame
on those who entrench themselves behind a theory
of Scripture, which not only critics but thousands
of illiterate people have rejected as incredible. The
uncertainty of mind produced by this controversy is
widespread, and for the time being its effects are
calamitous. But if this were all, we might hope for
an early recovery of confidence. Nothing can per
manently weaken the real authority of the Bible,
which is compatible with reverence for its religious
teachings. Martin Luther anticipated some of the
supposed results of recent criticism respecting the
authorship, dates, and composite character of several
books. Yet his faith flourished and was potent in
its works. The members of the Society of Friends
are less unanimous than formerly in accepting
Robert Barclay's doctrine of Scripture, but it still
represents the views of a large majority, and it
keeps them in characteristic peace as calm
spectators of the present strife.
These facts encourage a belief that the evan
gelical churches would not find their position
weakened if they were to put themselves more in
accord with Martin Luther, and in some respects
with the Society of Friends.
But a deeper and more formidable cause of mis
trust, which the Higher Criticism did not originate,
is at work, and would remain, and be equally

INTRODUCTORY

operative if the Higher Criticism were silenced :
viz., the intense repugnance which is felt by an
ever-growing number of people to certain doctrines
which the Bible is supposed to teach ; and of these
the most vital are those which relate to the redemp
tive value and significance of the Death of Christ.
The state of opinion on this subject is not easily
definable, because modes of expression are marvel
lously varied, but the main question at issue can be
given without prejudice to particular differences.
The theory of Atonement, which for several centuries
has been widely upheld as the true doctrine of
Scripture, is one which identifies vicarious .suffering
with vicarious punishment. Careful defenders of
this view refrain from saying that Christ was
punished, but they draw a distinction, which simple
minds have some difficulty in appreciating, by
saying that although Christ was not punished He
bore the punishment of man's sin ; and that He
bore this for our salvation, because if God were to
forego the execution of the death penalty, He would
thereby violate His own immutable justice and
falsify His threatenings. Teachers of this school
differ much in their account of the effect produced
on God's mind by the sacrifice of Christ, the
persons for whom it was offered, and the manner
in which its benefits are distributed ; but they are
of one accord in declaring that God can right
eously forgive sin, only because the extreme
sentence of the law has been inflicted upon a sin
less substitute,

THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT

We are sometimes told by sanguine Christian
thinkers of another school that this theory of Atone
ment is obsolete and therefore negligible ; but this
is preposterously untrue to the facts. This theory
remains in the standards of numerous Denominations,
and in the trust deeds of many churches and col
leges. Its fundamental principle is taught explicitly
in some of the most widely used text-books of theo
logy, and implicitly by many writers and preachers
who perhaps too carefully soften its terminology.
True or false, fashionable or unfashionable, it repre
sents the convictions of a countless host of Christians,
and outside the churches there is a widespread
impression that it is the actual doctrine of Scripture,
arid that those who repudiate it on ethical grounds
do thereby, consciously or unconsciously, pronounce
an adverse judgment on the religious value of the
Bible. Those who take this view are in my judgment
totally mistaken, but they are confirmed in it by the
language and attitude of many influential leaders
of Christian thought. Horace Bushnell, for example,
to whom I shall have to refer more fully hereafter,
plainly declared that the language of Scripture ac
cords with the pagan idea of propitiating God by sac
rifice, yet he denounced this idea on ethical grounds,
and sought to escape the dilemma thus created, by
asserting that the New Testament writers did not
really mean what their words mean ! Without
going so far as this many theologians and
practically all the Higher critics profess to find this

INTRODUCTORY

idea of propitiation in the Old Testament ritual
codes, and contrast it with the teaching of the
prophets. Almost all who reject the Penal Theory
of Atonement do so on ethical grounds, and few
attempt to interpret such terms as Propitiation,
Atonement, and Redemption, in harmony with their
own conception of God's character, or make any
serious effort to explain the prominent way in which
the blood of Christ is connected in the New Testa
ment with the remission of sins. Many preachers are
silent on these subjects, and betray a dislike of theo
logy, and a marked preference for semi-political,
social, literary, or at best ethical themes for pulpit
discourse. Others affirm that the Scriptures certainly
declare that Christ propitiated God, but manifest
some aversion to the pagan sense of this expression,
and say that only God Himself can know what this
word means in relation to Himself.
It is not strange that in view of these rather
sinister facts, vast numbers of people conclude that
the Scriptures really do teach the doctrine which so
many Christian teachers disavow or silently avoid,
and so many more express in euphemistic terms ; nor
is it strange that a suspicion should be abroad that
many who detest it most are nevertheless aware that
it is scriptural.
In my judgment the gravest peril to Christian
faith in the coming generation proceeds from this
impression that Biblical authority and enlightened
morality are in opposition. If I perceived any real
antagonism between these two forces, I should have

io THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT
no hesitation in predicting how the strife would end,
or in choosing my own side in the conflict. No
external authority can justify a refusal to obey that
Divine faculty within us which is our chief protection
against temptation and delusion. By this faculty
we discern the difference between good and evil,
between Christ and other masters of the soul. By
our fidelity to the mandates of this kingly power
we shall eternally judge ourselves, and thereby we
shall be judged with infallible rectitude by God.
By this faculty we ask Mohammedans, Hindus, and
others to judge their sacred books and the religions
under which they have grown up. By this we ask
them to approve the majesty and glory of the God
and Father whom we worship, and to recognise the
Divine beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the
long run all religious systems and all thoughts and
customs which this faculty condemns will be
consumed out of the earth ; and unless the doctrine
of Atonement, actually taught in the Bible, can
abide the fire already kindled, it will be among the
things that perish.
My own conviction is that the Christian idea of
Atonement has no resemblance to the dogma com
monly identified with this great word, and that the
more severely the language of Scripture is examined
the more vividly apparent it will be that the one is
not merely a travesty, but a direct contradiction of
the other. My endeavour in the following Lectures
will be to set forth the grounds of this conviction.
The method . adopted is not expository, but my

INTRODUCTOR Y

supreme aim will be to elucidate the teachings of
Scripture in relation to every stage of the argument
to be constructed. The facts already stated make
it obvious that no study of the subject can be
satisfactory to Christians or anti-Christians or to the
neutral multitude unless distinctly Biblical. The
views to which so many object on ethical grounds
are professedly derived from the ancient archives of
the Christian faith, and those who hold them dear
are impervious to arguments or denunciations based
on supposed ethical principles, or on speculative
ideas of what God is, or ought to be, or can reason
ably be supposed to require. On the other hand,
those who reprobate them will not be reconciled to
Christianity by any theory, however beautiful,
which is not convincingly presented as a true render
ing of Christian ideas, as contained in the only
books which have the slightest pretensions to be
regarded as authentic and original sources of
information. Should a fresh review of the Scrip
tures bring to light a doctrine of Atonement which
preserves all that is precious in the Gospel that
" God loved us and sent His Son into the world to
be the propitiation for our sins," while excluding
from its interpretation every element which is
incongruous with the Fatherhood of God, and with
the spontaneity and freeness of His mercy, it will
do more than anything else to add boldness and
fervour to many preachers : and if in relation to
this doctrine we find ethical harmony and a
continuity of thought running through the sacred

12 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT
literature of the Hebrew people, so that as many of
its authors as treat of Atonement or Propitiation are
agreed with one another, and while thus agreed
among themselves are absolutely unique in the
purity and beauty of their doctrine ; such a result
will not only remove a burden from many minds,
but will exhibit a marvellous evidence of the
spiritual unity of the Bible, and do more than any
discourse on inspiration to restore a childlike trust in
this peerless volume as a God-provided Book which
is worthy of all veneration and obedience as the
guide of life.

LECTURE I

REVIEW OF THEORIES

WHEN dealing with controversial subjects, and
particularly in the study of Christian truth, I hold
it wise to spare no pains in widening to its utmost
bounds that region which may be called the
common-land of belief. By adopting this course
we are saved all needless discussion of apparent
differences, and of differences which, though not
unreal, are comparatively unimportant. By this
means, also, mutual respect and sympathy, and a
practical alliance among all Christians are carried to
their utmost legitimate limits, and. differences being
reduced to a truthful minimum, the task of concilia
tion is advanced.
I shall, as far as possible, adhere to this sound
rule in the following endeavour to unfold the
Mystery of the Gospel which lies hidden for our
finding in Him who came into the world " to
minister, and to give His life a ransom for many."
(Matt., xx. 28.) Certainly I shall say nothing
willingly to accentuate differences or to win partisan
sympathy, but, on the other hand, I shall eschew
those too common arts of " Conciliation " which

14 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
conceal or belittle differences by dexterous defini
tions, and still more dexterous indefiniteness of
phrase and terms, and sacrifice truth to amity
rather than amity to truth. Nothing but light can
bring about the amity of Christian men, and " what
soever doth make manifest " even vital differences is
light. This conviction forbids me to reduce our
study of Christ's work to a mere examination of
theories, but it also forbids me to shrink from
criticising any opinions which seriQusly obstruct our
advance along a line of independent and con
structive thought. Governed by these considera
tions, I propose to glance briefly at current theories
of Atonement, as usually classified, to observe how
they stand related to each other, and to deal with
one class as far as may be necessary to determine
the first principles on which all subsequent discussions
must be based.
Theories of Atonement are usually divided into
three main classes, which may conveniently be
labelled : (i) Penal ; (2) Governmental ; (3) Moral.
The first of these classes has its distinctive note
in the assertion that Christ's sufferings were essen
tially penal, and that they constitute a satisfaction
of God's justice as an actual endurance of the
punishment of the sins of men. This essential
principle is expounded in various terms, and these
variations have occasioned many polemical battles,
but all sections unite in affirming that Christ
bore the punishment of human sin, and that
only because of this can God forego the inflic-

I TYPES OF THEORY 15
tion of eternal death on each individual trans
gressor. The second class includes all theories which deny
that the sufferings of Christ were penal, but
recognise that the forgiveness of any sinner,
however obscure, is not a mere personal trans
action between the individual man and God, but
one which affects the stability of God's Throne, and
must therefore not only be right in itself, but must
be justified to the moral universe. Advocates of
this principle differ widely in their conception and
expression of what is involved in such a justification
of Divine mercy, and in their exposition of what
Christ did and suffered to effect it, but they are at
one in the assertion that Christ did suffer to render
forgiveness possible without any weakening of God's
authority as King. Advocates of the penal view of
Christ's suffering do not deny that there is great
truth in the governmental view, but they deny that
by itself it is adequate or scriptural, because, as
they contend, nothing can vindicate God's justice,
or sustain His royal authority, except an actual and
inexorable punishment of all and every sin.
Theories of the third class are numerous and
varied, but all agree in regarding the sufferings of
Christ as solely designed and fitted to exert a moral
influence on sinful men, and to reunite them to God
by inducing repentance, by awakening faith and
love, and so inspiring a life of filial obedience.
Many exponents of this type of theory denounce
the penal theory of the Atonement as intrinsically

16 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
immoral and grossly at variance with the character
of God as revealed in Scripture, and as verified by
man's purest intuitions of what is truly great and
good. They dismiss the regal or governmental
theory as a needless complication of the subject, on
the ground that God's honour and authority need no
defence except the simple exercise of righteousness,
mercy, and lovingkindness in the earth. Feeble
kings, they admit, may need to explain and vindicate
their actions, but the Divine King can afford to let
His government magnify itself as its purity dissolves
obscuring clouds and fills the earth with its glory.
The only difficulty which in their judgment God
can have in forgiving sin is the difficulty of bringing
the sinner into a state of moral preparedness to be
forgiven, and this, say all who hold a purely ethical
theory of the Atonement, is the one hindrance to
salvation which Christ came into the world, and
lived, worked, and died to overcome.
There is some convenience in this classification,
but it must be employed with caution. It truly
represents three types of theological doctrine, but
theologians cannot correspondingly be grouped,
without grave injustice, because many hold
two, and some hold all three of these views in
various modes of combination, and with different
additions, subtractions and explanations. All
parties have some common standing ground in
affirming the ethical object and effect of Christ's
work. Anti-Christian writers have denounced the
Gospel as immoral in its tendencies, and some

I TYPES OF THEORY 17
Christians have indulged in language which has
gone far to excuse if not to justify the imputation.
But even those who have spoken most slightingly of
conduct, and treated salvation as an escape from
punishment rather than a redemption from iniquity,
have always pictured Heaven as a holy place, into
which no defilement can enter. The most extreme
antinomian who ever wallowed in sin, while boasting
his possession of a wedding garment in the
imputed righteousness of Christ, has always
expected to become actually Christlike in character,
when delivered by death and resurrection from the
flesh and from the temptations of the world.
It would be most unfair and misleading, therefore,
to regard those who believe in the penal nature of
Christ's sufferings as thereby committed to a denial
of their ethical tendency and purpose. What they
deny is: (1) that our moral rectification was the
immediate and chief end of Christ's work, and (2)
that this end could have been attained apart from
the endurance of our punishment by Christ. They
affirm that when this particular form of substitution
has been cut out from their Gospel, nothing is left
which can cleanse the conscience and create a new
heart. A similar remark holds good in regard to those
who hold a governmental theory. They, too,
believe in the ethical object of Christ's work ; but
while denying that Christ suffered penally, they
agree in saying that even the ethical power of His
death would have been ineffective had it not upheld
c

THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT i.ecT.

the King's authority, while also- commending His
love. Taking a comparative view of these three types
of theory, it becomes evident that the third stands
alone in two important respects : ( I ) It is universally
admitted to express at least a part of the truth ;
(2) It alone, is maintained to be a sufficient theory
of Christ's work without any need of supplement.
On this account it might seem expedient to begin
our study by surveying and mapping out to its
utmost extent this common land of Christian belief,
leaving differences for treatment later on. But for
many reasons I am unable to adopt this course.
(1) It would unduly postpone a discussion of those
questions to which seekers after truth are most
eager to find an answer. (2) Such a policy would
defeat its own friendly design because, while we
were dwelling on points which none dispute, de
ferred questions would incessantly haunt and
perturb our minds, and would, I fear, suggest doubts
of the value and even the sincerity of much that
might be said. (3) The first type of theory raises
an issue which must be settled before any profitable
discussion of the others can be carried on ; and if
decided favourably would render any further discus
sion superfluous. Given the truth of the first type
of theory, the others, as theories of Atonement, would
disappear, and we could only treat them as branches
which grow out of, and receive their life and fruit-
fulness from, the root principle discovered in the
first. Therefore, however much we may dislike

l THE PENAL THEORY 19
polemics, however earnestly we may long for unity,
and however sure we may be that Christ crucified,
and not a theory of the Cross, can save men's souls,
we must not shrink from, or defer our examination
of, what is affirmed to be almost an axiom, and
certainly a first principle of Christianity — a massive
bed-rock of truth on which alone a Biblical theory
of the Atonement can be upbuilt.
The principle we have to examine may be
summed up in the proposition that the Divine
nature demands the inexorable and invariable punish
ment of all sin. Out of this proposition the penal
theory of Atonement is naturally and inevitably
developed. If all sin must be punished, there must
be someone to bear the punishment; and if the
sinner is not to bear it himself, someone else must
be found to bear it in his room and stead. The
logic is sound, clear, and obvious, and it can be re
futed only by a denial of the major premiss^.
Prior to any satisfactory discussion of this pro
position, it is necessary to gain a clear view of its
actual meaning and force, and to distinguish it from
another statement with which it is commonly but
most illogically confounded, viz., that sin inherently
and for its own sake deserves punishment. These
propositions are manifestly not identical, but a
denial of the first is not seldom denounced as a
denial of the second, and thus all who deny that
God's nature demands the inexorable punishment
of sin are held up to suspicion as teachers of the
so-called "Socinian Doctrine," "that sin does not
C 2

20 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
inherently and for its own sake deserve punish
ment." 1
But this is not only unjust but inconsequent. The
question at issue relates to the remission of penalties,
not to the treatment which sin deserves. Those
who affirm that God's nature permits and inclines
Him to remit punishment under certain conditions do
thereby confess and affirm that sin deserves punish
ment, for this is included in the idea of remission.
The question to be discussed is not " What does
sin deserve ? " but " Is God bound by His own
righteous nature always to, deal with us after our
sins, and to reward us according to our iniquities?"
If it were necessary to enforce the truth that sin
inherently deserves punishment, I should at this
point concentrate all my powers upon the task.
But such an effort would be a waste of words.
The very idea of sin carries with it the idea of
ill-desert, as every awakened conscience knows.
Men who lamentably fail to judge themselves aright,
and are somewhat dull to discern the finer shades
of moral quality in others, are swift to condemn
all flagrant misdeeds, and often clamour for the
punishment of gross offenders. Multitudes who
have no high degree of moral sensitiveness are
moved to indignation when they behold wickedness
triumphant in the world, and they show their con
viction that sin deserves punishment by crying out
— " How can there be a righteous God in Heaven,
who sees and is able to smite such evil doers and yet
1 See Appendix, Note i.

PATRISTIC DOCTRINE

allows them to survive and flourish ? In the light
of such moral phenomena it requires some hardi
hood to assert that sin does not inherently deserve
punishment. The idea of sin as implying ill-
desert may be rejected by Materialists and
Pantheists, and by all who deny the freedom
of the will ; but such a denial of what is given
to men in consciousness is on a par with the denial
of an external universe, or the principle of causa
tion. It is a speculative quibble which has no effect
upon the conduct of any sane man in dealing with
his fellows on the basis of mutual rights and
obligations. We may treat it, therefore, as an
axiom of Christianity that sin inherently and of
itself deserves punishment ; but this leaves it an
open question whether God's nature demands that
punishment shall always be inflicted.1
The first observation which suggests itself to
anyone acquainted with the history of Christian
thought is that the Church was singularly slow in
discovering the principle now before us. We are
told that it is a fundamental doctrine of Scripture,
and yet, confessedly, it was never formulated until
the twelfth century, and never stated to the satis
faction of its modern advocates until the sixteenth
century. The early fathers freely quoted texts of
Scripture which are now supposed to teach this
doctrine, but those most anxious to prove the
antiquity of their dogma are obliged to own that, as
1 See Appendix, Note 2,

THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

tested by their own standard, "Patristic theology
exhibits but an imperfect theoretic comprehension of
the most fundamental truth in the Christian system,"
and that " the judicial reasons and grounds of this
death of the most exalted of personages were left
to be investigated and exhibited in later ages and
by other generations of theologians." 1
For some purposes this frank admission would
dispense with any need for an independent his
torical review of ancient and mediaeval opinion.
But the late formulation of the dogma is not the
only suspicious and damaging fact. It did not
spring into existence without some antecedent
process of development, and when correctly traced
this process is itself an argument against the
legitimacy of any dogma it assisted to produce.
The first fact to be mentioned will be very
unwelcome to many, viz., that Marcion, the most
famous heretic of the second century, was the
earliest, and, in important respects, the truest pre
cursor of Anselm in the Ante-Nicene period. He
was a man of splendid powers and lofty aspirations,
yet in his endeavours to purify the Church he
stooped to unworthy methods, and in the pursuit of
wisdom he devised foolish theories. His supreme
desire was to elevate the love of God into its true
place as the cardinal doctrine of Christ, and to
deliver the Gospel from all that was obsolete in
Judaism. Unhappily he started with a sentimental
idea of love, and was thus compelled to regard
1 Shedd, History of Doctrine, vol. ii., 212.

PATRISTIC DOCTRINE 23

justice as a foreign and even antagonistic principle,
instead of recognising that it is a constituent
element of love itself. Reasoning from this de
fective basis, he was driven to conclude that the
Divine Father who forgives and saves through
Christ is not the same being as the God who
commands and punishes according to the revelation
of the Old Testament. Rather than forego his
faith in the loving Father, he therefore dealt
violently with the Scriptures, and made havoc of
Monotheism. He taught that the Creator was an
austere Being, the personification of relentless legal
justice, who was determined to punish man for
disobedience to His law. On this account the
Father pitied us, and sent His Son Jesus Christ to
reveal His name for the first time to mankind, and
to redeem us from our hard Master. By His suffer
ings Christ satisfied the claims of the Just God, and
bought us for the Father. Thus man was the
Debtor, the Creator and Law Giver was the
Creditor, the Father was the Buyer, and the death
of Christ was the price paid. Thus Marcion's
theory has a painful resemblance to Anselm's
account of the relations between Christ and God.
Its theism is different, but its conception of Atone
ment is the same.
The general trend of Patristic thought was to
regard Christ's sufferings as endured to redeem us
from the clutches of the Devil, rather than as a
satisfaction of Divine justice, or as a propitiation
offered to the Father. Irenasus is often referred to

24 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

as one of the most representative exponents of this
view, but this is inaccurate. What he really taught
was that in accordance with the promise given to
Eve in Paradise, it was essential that Satan should
be conquered by a man " born of a woman," that
this conquest (not the compensation) of Satan was
the object of the Incarnation, and was accomplished
on our behalf by Christ, who also enables us to
repeat His victory. Irenaeus admitted no right of
possession on Satan's part, but perceived that a
merely forcible snatching of man from his grasp
would be unsatisfactory, and would not constitute a
real redemption from the power of evil. Hence,
he taught, though a little obscurely, that our rescue
from the kingdom of the adversary is effected by
the persuasive power of Christ's death, whereby we
are induced to voluntarily forsake the service of the
Evil One, so reversing the process by which man
entered into bondage at the first. He regarded it as
a proof of God's justice that even against Satan He
would adopt no measures which were violent rather
than moral. The thought may be crude, but it has
no resemblance to the idea of satisfaction rendered
to an evil being, or to a harsh and implacable
Creator, and has nothing in common with the
modern idea of a satisfaction rendered to the justice
of God by the Son.
Origen was the first Christian thinker, whose
writings are extant, to concede that the Devil had
any just claim to the ownership of men. He
represented the Evil One as being duped by God

I PATRISTIC DOCTRINE 25
into a bad bargain. He said that God agreed to
give Christ in exchange for men because He foresaw
that Satan would be unable to keep the sinless
Christ in his hands, and would, therefore, have
nothing in return for the captives he had sold.
This theory commended itself to an age of low
moral ideals, and it seems to have been the source
of no little mirth as a sort of Divine joke at the
Devil's expense. I cannot dismiss Origen's name
without deprecating any contemptuous judgment of
his quality because of this perverted conception of
redemption. He failed to free his mind from some
of the ruling ideas of his age, but he was a man of
genius, who consecrated his powers to the service of
Christ, and nobly served the Church in his day and
generation. Tertullian was the first Christian author who
wrote distinctly of satisfactions offered to God, and
of offerings which avail to appease God's anger, but,
according to him, these are to be presented not by
Christ but by men, and must consist of good works
such as fasting, celibacy, and other mortifications of
the flesh and spirit. He had a high opinion of the
value of baptism for the washing away of previous
sins in all who duly receive it, but in his counsels to
those about to be baptised he thus prescribed a
preparatory discipline. "They who are about to
enter baptism ought to pray with repeated prayers,
and bendings of the knee, and vigils all the night
through, also with confession of all past sins . . .
for we do at the same time both make satisfaction

26 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
for our former sins by mortification of our flesh and
spirit, and lay beforehand the foundation of defences
against the temptations which will surely follow." l
Similarly in reference to prayer he wrote, "we
are not only praying, but deprecating, and mak
ing satisfaction to God our Lord."2 Tertullian's
object was commendable. He wished baptism to
be a sincere and solemn expression of repentance
towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ,
and he thought to guard against an empty and
dangerous formalism in two ways : (i) by protesting
against the tendency to hasten the baptism of
young children, who could not ask for the rite with
an intelligent idea of its meaning ; and (2) by
calling upon all to whom the ordinance was granted
to confess their sins before the Church, and to both
deepen and evince their penitence by watching and
prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Unfortunately his
remedy became an aggravation of the disease. As
the Church, through her officers, increasingly
claimed the power of absolution, and proportionately
ceased to impress on men the obligation and
privilege of personal relations with a God to whom
all things are naked and open, the importance of
these painful and laborious " satisfactions " increased.
It may indeed be freely conceded that on the
hypothesis that the Church possessed such functions
as she claimed, her object in claiming these satis
factions as guarantees of sincerity was commend
able. The human tribunal, unlike God, could not go
1 De Baptismo, xx. a De Oratione, xxiii.

I PATRISTIC DOCTRINE 27
behind men's lip professions, and therefore sagaciously
guarded the confessional against sham penitence.
But by inevitable stages the outward satisfaction
became a substitute for the penitence it was
originally devised to attest, and all the false ideas
thus generated of loss or suffering as a considera
tion given for pardon passed into theology as an
explanation of the vicarious sufferings of Christ.
Such a development was far removed from
Tertullian's thought, but it was his misfortune, and
in some degree his fault, to introduce into the
Church this pagan germ, which found a fertile seed-
plot in the ecclesiastical system which centred its
authority in Rome.
Cyprian did much to develop the doctrine of satis
factions, and in his works it figures prominently. He
lays down the fundamental principle that sins com
mitted before baptism are therein purged through
the blood and sanctification of Christ, but that in
order to obtain mercy for subsequent sins God must
be propitiated by constant and ceaseless labour. He
sustains this view by quoting Ecclus. iii. 30, " Water
will quench a flaming fire, and alms make atone
ment for sin." 1 Confessing that post-baptismal
sins must inevitably occur, he praises the Divine
goodness which has appointed wholesome remedies
for the cure of these new wounds. He declares
that the remedies for propitiating God are plainly
taught in Scripture, and that by " works of righteous
ness " God is satisfied, and specially dwells on the
1 De Op. et. El, 2.

28 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
testimony of the angel Raphael to Tobit and Tobias,
that prayer itself is made efficacious by almsgiv
ing, and that by the same means life is delivered
from peril and the soul from death.1 To the
same effect he writes in regard to the manner in
which apostates may be restored to the Divine
favour. After referring to the efficacy of what priests
and martyrs may do for such offenders he exclaims,
" Or if any one move Him still more by his own
atonement, if he appease His anger, if he appease
the wrath of an indignant God," he will be forgiven
and rearmed and refreshed to resume the battle in
which he has suffered defeat.2
Athanasius discussed the work of Christ only in a
somewhat incidental manner, but he wrote in strong
terms of the necessity of the Incarnation for the
purpose of man's redemption, and his language on
this subject has often been quoted to prove that
he anticipated the assertion of Anselm, that the
remission of punishment under any circumstances
whatever would be incompatible with the nature
and veracity of God. But this is evidently inaccur
ate because we have a distinct statement of his
opinion, that if repentance would have undone the
"mischief caused by sin, God's acceptance of it
would have been worthy of Himself. Writing
against Afians he inquires, What ought God to do
in relation to transgression ? " Ought He simply to
require from men repentance for their transgression ?
For this might be declared worthy of God ; maintain-
1 Tobit, xii. 8, 9. '- De Lapsis, 36.

I PA TRISTIC DOCTRINE 29
ing, that as in consequence of transgression men
had become corrupt, so in consequence of their
repentance they should be restored to incorruption."
He then proceeds to give reasons why, notwithstand
ing the righteous possibility of extending pardon to
repentant sinners, God could not be satisfied with this
facile mode of dealing with our race. Of these
reasons the most pertinent to our present discussion
is in substance that although repentance is a just
ground of forgiveness it is not in itself an adequate
remedy, partly because it does " not preserve intact
the true and reasonable conception of God which
belonged to man's unfallen state," and also because
it could not recover men from the natural conse
quences of their transgression but only causes them
to desist from their sins." To this he adds, "If,
indeed, the fault had alone existed, and not corruption
its consequence, repentance would have been admir
able. But when once transgression had subjected
men to the natural corruption which followed it, and
men were thus deprived of that grace which attached
to their first creation in God's image, what must
then have happened, and what was needed for the
recovery of this grace but the advent of the Logos
of God? . . For surely it was His part to restore
the corrupt nature of man to incorruption, and to
safely recover for mankind the true conception of
their Father." 1
Athanasius did not introduce the question, " How
could repentance have been induced on a broad scale
1 De Incarn. 7.

3b THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
apart from Christ ? " or he might have strengthened
his case ; but we are only concerned to ascertain his
opinion on the equity of Divine forgiveness, and
this is not left in any obscurity. It may be well,
however, to show that the foregoing references to
repentance were not casual utterances, but were
based on a profound view of the truth that although
God may righteously forgive the penitent, yet pardon
alone is no remedy for man's mortal sickness. He
saw that the process of sinning, repenting and obtain
ing forgiveness might continue to revolve in never-
ending cycles, without effecting any progress, and
that this would be inconsistent with the creative and
redemptive purposes of God, and without any real
profit to the world. Thus he wrote : " This had
gone on without limit, and men had remained under
guilt just as before, being in slavery to sin ; and ever
sinning, they had ever needed pardon, and never
been made free, being in themselves carnal, and ever
defeated by the Law by reason of the infirmity of the
flesh." 1 Whether every utterance of Athanasius can
be harmonised with these extracts may be disputable,
but is quite unimportant. The essential fact is that
he plainly asserted a principle which is the direct
contradictory of that on which the Penal theory of
Atonement is founded.2
Gregory Nazianzen agreed in the main with
Athanasius, but was very explicit on some points
of great interest. He scouted the idea that the
ransom was given to the Evil One on the ground
1 Orat. and Arian, ii. 68. 2 See Appendix, Note 3.

I PATRISTIC DOCTRINE 31
that, were this so, the robber would not only receive
a payment from God, but that he would actually
"receive God Himself." Dismissing this hideous
thought, he went on to inquire whether the ransom
was paid to the Father. Admitting that this was
so, he anxiously guarded his meaning against two
misunderstandings. He protests (1) : that the
ransom is not given to God as a being who is
forcibly retaining us in His power, for He is not
such a being ; and (2) that it clearly is not accepted
by God " because He Himself desired or needed it,
but for the sake of conciliation and government,
and because it was necessary to sanctify man
through the humanity which God assumed." J
These two points show that Gregory was a pre
cursor of Grotius, and of all who now hold the
governmental and ethical theories of Atonement
and reject the Penal view.
Augustine boldly reverted to the idea that
Christ's death was a ransom paid to the Devil.
His conception of the Justice which was satisfied
by that death is thus expressed : " It would have
been injustice if the Devil had not had the right to
rule over the being whom he had taken captive." 2
Confessing this, he declares that it was needful
that the Devil should be overcome not by God's
power but by His righteousness. " What then,"
he asks, " is the righteousness by which the Devil
was conquered .... and how was he conquered ? "
The answer is explicit. The Devil outwitted
1 Orat. xlii. 48. 2 De Libero Arbitrio iii. 10.

32 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
himself by slaying Jesus who had done nothing
worthy of death and on whom he had no claim.
By thus seizing and slaying what was not his
own he forfeited his right to retain us. " And
certainly it is just, that we whom he held as
debtors should be dismissed free by believing in
Him whom he slew without any debt. In this way
it is that we are said to be justified in the blood of
Christ. . . . The blood of Christ was given, as it were,
as a price for us, by accepting which the Devil was
not enriched, but bound : that we might be
loosened from his bonds, and that he might not ....
deliver to the destruction of the second and eternal
death any of those whom Christ, free from all
debt, had redeemed by pouring out His own blood
unindebtedly." x Elsewhere Augustine declared that
men were foolish if they thought that the wisdom
of God could not liberate men otherwise than by
assuming our nature, and suffering at the hands
of sinners.2 In other respects Augustine's ex
planation of Christ's death was fundamentally
at variance with the Penal theory, but enough has
been said to exhibit his position.
From the close of the Pelagian controversy to the
twelfth century, the Church passed through a
period of intellectual sterility and moral decline.
The supposed regeneration of infants by baptism
inevitably produced a vast multitude of nominal
Christians who had no spiritual experience. Whole
1 De Trin. Bk. xiii. 13, 14, 15.
1 De Aerone Christiana, io.

I MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENTS 33
populations were thus regenerated and made
members of Christ before they could discern good
and evil, and the great problem of the Church was
not how to awaken saving faith in Christ, but how
to deal with the post-baptismal sins of those who
were numbered with His people. A second re
generation was unthinkable, yet baptism, though
called the " Great Indulgence," could not be re
garded as an indulgence to sin throughout life with
impunity. In the attempt to deal with the difficulty
thus created the doctrine of penance assumed an
ever-increasing importance. This doctrine included
the idea of satisfaction, i.e., the Church by elaborate
legislation guarded her dispensation of mercy to
those who professed repentance, by imposing
penalties, which had to be submitted to as a
guarantee of sincere contrition, and of due sub
mission to the authority of the Church. Apart
from this " satisfaction," no absolution could be
granted . without a flagrant violation of the canon
law. In the twelfth century this doctrine of satis
faction as an indispensable prerequisite of pardon
was a ruling idea, and Anselm, instead of calling it
in question, extracted from it his interpretation of
the death of Christ. His merit is that he helped to
direct men's thoughts to Christ ; his demerit is that
he transferred the ideas of the Roman Confessional
to the work of Christ upon the cross.
Gregory the Great calls for mention only be
cause he definitely, though quite incidentally,
stated that Christ bore our punishment. He
D

34 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF A TONEMENT lect,
affirmed that before Christ suffered, the Devil owned
all men and owns all unbelievers now, but that Christ
propitiated him, and bought off all believers in Him
self. His view of the transaction was that Christ
cheated the Devil. By way of illustration he
represented the Devil as a fish, and God as an angler
who baited His hook with Christ. The Devil
snapped at the lure and seized Christ's flesh, but
unwittingly swallowed the hidden hook of His
Divinity. Inconsistently with this view, he casually
speaks of Christ as propitiating God's wrath, but in
this he regards Christ as our example, not our
substitute, for, said he, we also propitiate God when
we imitate Christ by enduring or working out
penance. This penance he called " the baptism of
tears," whereby post-baptismal sins are washed away.
More than any other man Gregory deserves the
credit or the blame of developing North African
superstition into the Roman form. By Romanists,
therefore, he is appropriately called " the Great,"
but he is not an ancestor of whom any Protestant
should be proud.
Anselm was the first to formulate the doctrine
that the forgiveness of unpunished sin would be
incompatible with the Divine justice. He scornfully
repudiated Augustine's plea that the Devil had a
just claim to possess the souls of fallen men. The
Devil, he said, was a thief, and had no right to keep
what he had contrived to steal from God. He
also shrewdly revived the argument of Gregory
Nazianzen that if Christ were a ransom paid to

ANSELM 35

Satan, this robber would not only be paid by God,
but would actually receive God Himself as the price
of giving up his plunder !
The theory which Anselm propounded starts with
a definition of sin, viz., "To sin is nothing else but
not to repay to God one's debt." What each
rational creature owes to God is the subjection to Him
of his " whole will." " Whoever renders not unto
God this due honour takes away from God that
which is His, and does God dishonour : and this is
sin." The proof, or rather the assertion that this
sin cannot justly be remitted is very summary.
" To remit is but this : not to punish sin ; and since
the just treatment of unatoned sin is to punish it, if
it be not punished it is unjustly forgiven." Hence,
inasmuch as " it beseemeth not God to forgive any
thing in His realm illegally . . . therefore it beseem
eth not God thus to forgive unpunished sin." J
Anselm's general argument is based on the fig
ment that God determined to save a certain number
of men to take the place of fallen angels. Because
of this, he tells us, God was obliged to find a means
of satisfying his own honour. Man could not repay
his own debt because, even a complete obedience, if
it could be achieved by one who has ever sinned,
would not repay the debts of the past.
Having thus reduced the whole problem of
salvation to a question of debt and payment, Anselm
presents the dilemma that although man cannot pay
his own debt, it must be paid by man, since " other-
1 Cur Deus Homo? Bk. i. II, 12
D 3

36 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
wise man does not make amends," and thus in
troduces his solution of the question " Why was God
made Man ? " " If, then, it be necessary (as we have
ascertained) that the celestial citizenship is to be
completed from among men, and that this cannot be
unless there be made that before-mentioned satisfac
tion, which God only can, and man only should,
make, it is needful that it should be made by one
who is both God and man." *
In explaining the manner in which the perfect
obedience and undeserved death of Christ avails for
the remission of sin, Anselm perseveres in the use of
commercial terms. He affirms that the life of Christ
was so precious that its yielding up to death out
weighed the sins of all men, and thus sufficed to
atone for the sins of the whole world, and " infinitely
more." Hence by dying Christ paid to God
more than man owed. Thus a new debtor and
creditor account was opened between the Son and
the Father, according to which the Father, having
been overpaid, owed a great debt to the Son, which
justice required Him to refund. But there was no
way in which God could repay His Son, wherefore it
became necessary that it " should be repaid to some
one else " to whom the Son should will to give it.
" To whom," then, reasons Anselm, " could He more
fitly assign the fruit of, and retribution for, His
death than those for whose salvation He made
Himself man, and to whom He in dying gave the
example of dying for righteousness' sake ? ... Or
1 Car Deus Homo ? Bk. ii. 6.

I THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION 37
whom could He more justly make heirs of a debt
due to Him of which He Himself had no need ? " 1
Anselm's radical principle that the forgiveness of
unpunished sin would be unjust was not generally
accepted by the Roman Church, but it was endorsed
in the sixteenth century by the foremost leaders of
the Protestant Revolution. Its terms were variously
modified, and its proportional measurement of values
was made less prominent, but the chief alteration
was one of addition or supplement. In Anselm's
theory, faith as the subjective condition or means of
appropriating the benefits of Christ's death was
scarcely taken into account.2 It left Romanists free
to say that in baptism the great debt which Christ
paid is cancelled once for all, but that post-
baptismal sin creates a new debt, for which new and
supplementary satisfactions must be made. Thus
Anselm left the Roman system of discipline un-
smitten, and during the centuries which followed, it
became more and more corrupt, until at last the
evil culminated in an unblushing sale of pardons in
which the " satisfaction " rendered was frankly com
mercial, and consisted solely in a money payment.
This insolent defiance of common sense and
conscience provoked the Protestant Revolution.
When Luther nailed his theses to the church door
he was still a Papist, and simply stormed against a
scandalous abuse ; but when he affirmed the
1 (Bk. ii. 14, 19.) For a criticism of Anselm's attempt to defend
his system against the objection that inasmuch as forgiveness is a.
Christian duty it cannot be unrighteous in God, see p. 69.
2 See Appendix, Note 4.

38 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect. I
absolute necessity of personal faith and the worth-
lessness of penance for the satisfaction of God, he
raised an issue which divided Christendom into two
camps, and originated new discussions which are
not yet closed. Seldom has the human intellect
been employed with so much strenuousness or with
so much subtlety and skill as in the conflict which
ensued ; but that conflict lies outside the scope of
this review. My object in giving a brief sketch of
salient facts has been to trace the slow and
suspicious course of development by which the idea
was reached, that the forgiveness of unpunished
sin is unrighteous, and therefore impossible to God.
No conclusive inference can be deduced from these
facts. But when a dogma is presented as a first
principle of Christianity, and is -affirmed to be a
plain and explicit doctrine of Scripture, if not an
absolutely self-evident truth, the fact that it was
first articulated by a schoolman of the twelfth
century is at least a presumptive argument against
its claims.

LECTURE II
FIRST PRINCIPLES
FOR reasons previously assigned I shall not
emphasise what is familiarly known as " the moral
argument " against the Penal Theory. Intrinsically,
ethical considerations are of primary importance,
and, historically, they have done a great work in
enforcing a more critical study of the central
doctrine of Christianity. But if it can be shown
that the theory in question is not entitled to be called
" the doctrine of Atonement " because not taught
in Scripture, it will necessarily follow that ethical
objections have become superfluous and even irrele
vant because directed against no real objective in
the Christian religion. It is only as a supposed
doctrine of Scripture that the theory has any
serious claim to the attention of mankind, and
should investigation prove that it is not a Christian
idea but an ecclesiastical counterfeit, ethical objec
tions would be relegated to an already crowded
museum of obsolete weapons.
Four reasons will be adduced for rejecting the
Penal Theory, of which the first is negative in form,
viz. :
I. That its basal principle is not taught in any of

40 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
the supposed " proof texts " which are quoted in its
support, i.e. that in none of these passages of Scripture
is it stated or implied that the Divine Nature de
mands for its satisfaction the punishment of sin.
Before embarking on a discussion of this
principle it is necessary to define what is meant by
the word punishment, which is so variously under
stood that rival definitions might almost be
described as the trade-marks of opposing schools
of theology. I am not anxious to contend for the
rightness or wrongness of any definition, as such,
but only to clear the discussion of great thoughts
from a profitless dispute about words, and from the
many evils which arise from the use of equivocal
terms. The word punishment as employed by all parties
must necessarily include the idea of suffering
imposed by authority on wrongdoers, but it is used
in radically different senses in regard to the feelings
and designs with which it is inflicted. Some regard
all Divine punishments as originating in the love of
God and intended to reform offenders. Others
view them as vindicatory, and intended to guard
the sanctity of law and enforce respect for
authority. Others say that they originate in God's
anger, and are meant to express His antagonism
to sin and to sinners. According to this last view
punishment is radically different from chastisement,
which is the remedial discipline imposed by paternal
love. The essential difference thus commonly
insisted upon is, therefore, discoverable only in the

II PUNISHMENT DEFINED 41
mind of the being who imposes suffering, because
in outward form punishments and chastisements
may be identical, and indeed the same visitation
falling upon a large community or upon a family
may be, according to this view, an angry punish
ment to some and a loving chastisement to others.
This, of course, opens up a terrible possibility of
misunderstanding and is unspeakably serious,
because the moral effect upon the sufferer con
fessedly depends upon his estimate of God's
motive. When suffering is endured as a proof of
God's anger and hostility it hardens and aggravates,
but when borne as the chastening of love it sub
dues and purifies. It is inconceivable to many
minds that God can ever smite the guilty without
a holy desire for their amendment, but consistent
advocates of the Penal Theory not only admit,
but insist that He does thus punish the wicked
without any remedial purpose, and that it is
punishment of this non-remedial character which
is demanded by His nature and authority as God,
and was actually endured by Christ on the cross.
In discussing this theory we can avoid incessant
circumlocution only by using the chief term in the
narrower sense affixed to it by advocates of the
Penal Theory. This use of the term must not be
construed as an admission that God ever does, or
that earthly parents, or civil rulers ever should punish,
without a desire to benefit the sufferer, if possible, as
well as to sustain authority and guard the sanctity of
law. I consent thus to employ the term partly for the

42 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
avoidance of a profitless verbal dispute, but mainly
because it would be difficult to find acceptance for
any other term, to represent the idea we have to
consider. With this preliminary explanation we
may now proceed to examine the testimony of
Scripture which has been adduced in support of the
principle recited above.
The passage which is regarded as most funda
mental and; unanswerable occurs in the story
of man's probation in the garden of Eden. "Of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou
shalt not eat of it : for in the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. ii. 17).
Those who found a theological doctrine on these
words are bound to read them as an exact trans
lation of what God said to Adam ; but I have only
to urge that whether the narrative should be re
garded as history, parable, or myth, it does not
teach the inexorable necessity of punishment. The
one clear fact about which no dispute can be raised
is that it is presented as an account of the earliest
phase of man's moral experience. Either by slow
development, or by a sudden creation, man arrived
at an hour in which he became conscious of an
obligation to obey a Supreme Being, and by some
means apprehended the fact that disobedience might
be fatal to his life.
Taking the words ascribed to God just as they
stand, I submit that we have no right to regard
them as the fulmination of a threat. They
were ostensibly addressed to innocent persons,

ii DEATH FORETOLD 43
who had as yet shown no disposition to rebel, and
should be read as a kindly and gracious warning
that death would be the consequence of sin. " In
the day that thou eatest thereof thou wilt surely
die" is a fair translation, and it changes the tone
from that of an austere and threatening master to
that of a wise father giving counsel to in
experienced children. This interpretation is not
indispensable to my argument and need not be
urgently pressed. Whether read as a warning or as
a threat, the passage undoubtedly connects death
with sin, but quite as certainly it contains no
declaration which would be violated by an act of
forgiveness after sin had been committed. Prior to
any transgression, no reference to a contingent
pardon would have been utterable. No human law
contains a clause proclaiming pardon to anticipated
transgressors, yet the Royal prerogative of mercy
remains, and a free pardon is never held to be a sign
of the King's untruthfulness. God was not un
truthful when He said to David by Nathan, " thou
shalt not die," though the law indisputably said that
the adulterer and the murderer should surely be put
to death. God was not untruthful when He spared
repentant Nineveh, though He had said by Jonah "Yet
forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed." By the
same canon of common sense we must conclude
that God did not falsify His ancient word to man
when He sent His prophets to preach repentance and
to assure the contrite of forgiveness.
The justice of this contention is more than

44 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
vindicated by the remarkable way in which the
warning is repeated by Ezekiel, and is closely
linked with a promise of pardon. "The soul that
sinneth it shall die," writes the prophet (xviii. 21),
and torn from its context this proclamation, like its
original in Genesis, is incessantly quoted as if it
shut out the possibility of remission, and bound
God, not only by His justice but by His veracity,
never to forego the punishment of a single sin.
But the assumption that we have here an irrevocable
sentence of death upon all transgressors is instantly
reproved and set aside by the next verse, which
reads : " But if the wicked turn from all his sins
that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes,
and do that which is lawful and right, he shall
surely live, he shall not die." Scanning the context
we find that these verses form part of a great
prophetic oracle to declare that all God's threats or
warnings of punishment, and all His promises of
blessing, are conditional, and may be reversed in
accordance with a righteous principle which is here
proclaimed. The theme of the chapter is not the
inexorable severity of God, but the righteousness of
God in dealing with men according to their ways ;
punishing the wicked who persist in their iniquities,
but pardoning those who repent, and punishing no
man except for his own individual transgressions.
The object of Ezekiel was to denounce a false
charge against God which was sapping the founda
tion of faith and morality in Israel, viz., that He
punished men for the sins of their forefathers.

n GOD ALWAYS FREE 45
" The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the
children's teeth are set on edge," said the grumblers
in Babylon. " The ways of the Lord are not
equal," they complained, and to this the prophet
answered in God's name, " Are not My ways equal,
are not yours unequal? Therefore I will judge you
O house of Israel, every man according to his ways,
saith the Lord God. Return ye, and turn yourselves
from all your transgressions ; so iniquity shall not be
your ruin  For I have no pleasure in the death
of him that dieth, saith the Lord God : wherefore
turn yourselves and live."
Other passages relied upon to prove the truth
of what Ezekiel thus trenchantly denies are
Rom. v. 12, vi. 23, I. Cor. xv. 21, 22, James i. 15.
But on examination it will be found that these
verses simply repeat in a retrospective sense the fact
prospectively announced in Gen. ii. 17, viz. : that
death is the outcome and wages of sin. They
neither affirm nor deny any doctrine of forgiveness,
but they leave ample scope for the higher, but
perfectly harmonious truth, that " the gift of God is
eternal life."1
Another group of supposed " proof-texts " will be
found to have even less bearing on the question
before us. In Psal. v. 4, 5, the writer comforts
himself with an assurance that God abhors wicked
ness, and will not tolerate it in His presence. This
is a conviction which every ethical Theist must
approve, but it throws no light on the subject of
1 See Appendix, Note 5.

46 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
forgiveness. Prov. xvii. 15 strongly asserts God's
detestation of injustice. " He that justifieth the
wicked, and he that condemneth the righteous.
Both of them alike are an abomination to the
Lord." This proverb might be tortured into an
execration of the Pauline doctrine that God Him
self "justifieth the ungodly," but obviously the
justification of the wicked here denounced is a
corrupt screening of criminals by shameless judges,
and has no resemblance to the forgiveness of the
contrite. Heb. vi. 4-8, deals exclusively with the
case of those who sin wilfully after tasting the
" heavenly gift," and being " made partakers of the
Holy Ghost." Its import is that such men are in a
more hopeless position than that of unconverted
sinners. The thing denied is the possibility of
renewing them again unto repentance, not the
possibility of forgiveness if repentance were induced
by a fresh preaching of the Gospel. Even this
portentous utterance leaves room for Christ's radiant
word, " With God nothing is impossible " ; and it
plainly implies that if such obdurate offenders
against grace could be subdued to repent, God
would again forgive even as He had formerly
forgiven. Heb. xii. 29 is totally irrelevant, and
the same must be said of Rom. iii. 5. II. Thess.
i. 6-8, declares that God will not fail to ultimately
judge the wicked, and specially refers to those
persecutors of the saints, who seem at times to war
against goodness with impunity. It also agrees
with many other Scriptures, and with the intuitions

n MISAPPLIED TEXTS 47
of all pure hearts in teaching that no sin is so
atrocious as that which wars against the grace,
which brings salvation to man's door. All this is,
of course, a truism to every Christian mind.
One other group of passages remains for notice,
viz., Gal. iii. 13; Rom. viii. 3; I. Peter ii. 24;
II. Cor. v. 21 ; Heb. ix. 28. All these are cited to
prove that Christ actually bore the punishment of
man's sin, and therefore as teaching implicitly,
if not explicitly, that it was necessary to man's
salvation for this punishment to be endured.
The question thus raised is' twofold. We have to
inquire (1) whether any of these texts actually
affirm that Christ bore the penalty of sin ; and, if
so (2), whether the inference drawn from the
fact is valid. Of these two questions the first is
obviously crucial, and if answered in the negative it
becomes final and decisive. We have no interest in
the validity of an inference from imaginary facts,
and the second question will require no discussion
if we find that none of the texts cited assert the
penal nature of Christ's sufferings.
A careful reading of Gal. iii. 1-14, must convince
even prejudiced minds that the passage contains no
reference to any punishment imposed on Christ.
Paul's object was to exhibit the natural impossibility
of salvation by law. Hence he points out that the
Jewish law laid its ban on all who lived under it,
because no man had ever been able, to work out all
the righteousness it enjoined. On this account,
therefore, he points out that the law was incapable

48 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
of fulfilling the promise to Abraham that through
his seed all nations should become partakers of his
blessing. This blessing of Abraham was the accept
ance of his faith for righteousness, and Christ had
come to awaken similar faith throughout all nations
and so to fulfil God's promise. The glad tidings
sent by Him unto the world was that the God of
Abraham was ready to deal with all men as He
dealt with the ancient patriarch. To prepare this
Gospel, and to set it forth as the outcome of God's
righteousness and not merely of His tenderness and
pity, Christ came, and lived, and taught, and finally
surrendered Himself to be cast out and crucified
as a malefactor. Thus in the language of the
Deuteronomist He " became " a curse for us (v-n-ep
not avrl r)fi,G>v) that we through Him might obtain
blessing. The significance of this phrase is illus
trated by Mark who finds a fulfilment of Isa. liii. 12
in the fact that Jesus was crucified between two
thieves and was thus "numbered with" or "ac
counted among'' the transgressors (xv. 28, A.V.).
This comment, whenever made, was evidently based
on Christ's own words, " That which is written must
be fulfilled in me, 'And he was reckoned with
transgressors,' " (Luke xxii. 37) and in this saying
Christ was manifestly preparing his disciples for the
shock of finding their holy and revered teacher cast
out and crucified by men as an evil-doer. There is
no suggestion in any of these kindred sayings of any
punishment being laid on Christ by the Father. The
point in each case lies in the affecting truth, that for

n MISAPPLIED TEXTS 49
the sake of our redemption Christ endured the
shameful death of the cross. This is a fact which
myriads who reject, and millions who never heard
of the Penal theory, have rejoiced in from the day
of Pentecost until now. It is perfectly consistent
with any theory of Atonement which finds a redemp
tive value in the death of Christ, and advocates of
the Penal theory have no right to claim it as an
enunciation of their views.
Rom. viii. 3 must also be set aside as a " proof
text " because it makes no mention of punishment.
Paul is here engaged in the task of defending the
righteousness of his doctrine that there is " now no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus."
This doctrine had been denounced as immoral, and
he repels this charge by exhibiting the ethical effects
of deliverance from legal bondage. It would be
premature to discuss his entire argument, but the
point made in this place is very simple and obvious.
The law could command duty, but it could not
inspire or enable obedience, and " what the law
could not do," viz., set us free from the dominion of
sin and death, God had achieved by " sending His
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and on
account of sin " {jrepi a/iapTia*;). By this means God
had " condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous
ness (Bi/calcofia) of the law might be fulfilled in us,
who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit." x
The passage declares that Christ was sent into
the world to deal with sin, to condemn sin, and to
1 See Appendix, Note 6. E

SO THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
infuse into all who through faith are grafted into
Him a new spirit of life. But condemnation and
punishment are totally different things. The one is
universally necessary and cannot conceivably be
dispensed with, but the other may be, and often is,.
remitted with beneficial effect, as every parent knows.
They are so different that the condemnation of sin
is an essential condition and pre-requisite of forgive
ness, and only those who are brought by Divine
teaching and discipline to condemn themselves can
be pardoned without being morally corrupted, as
Paul explains in I. Cor. xi. 28-34. Condemnation,
it may be added, is not only a pre-requisite of for
giveness, but is actually implied, and inevitably con
tained in the very act of forgiveness itself, for this
act has no relation to what is blameless.
The distinction between these two things which
are so often confounded was vividly illustrated some
years ago in the trial of certain sailors, who had
been parties to the death of a comrade when on the
verge of starvation at sea. Their vessel had been
wrecked, and the few survivors drifted on the ocean
in an open boat for many days. When their scanty
provisions had been exhausted and all were at the
point of death, they agreed that it would be better
for one to die than for all to perish. Each man
offered to be the victim, but none would consent to
accept such a sacrifice unless all agreed to cast lots
and take an equal risk. The lot fell on a youth who
seemed already to be past recovery. They all kissed
him and prayed, and then he willingly died and

n SIN MUST BE CONDEMNED 51
became their sustenance. On landing the survivors
went at once to a police station, and, instead of
hiding their deed, surrendered to take their trial.
The whole country was profoundly stirred, and
millions thought that they ought to be acquitted.
But the Judge who tried them pointed out to the
jury that there must be no blinking of the fact that
murder on the high seas had been committed,
and he unfalteringly declared that in the interests
of all travellers by sea such an act must be con
demned by the court. Judge, jury, barristers and
spectators were painfully moved, but the verdict
was delivered and sentence passed. There was prob
ably not a man in England who thought the men
should be punished, and the whole nation rejoiced
when the Queen gave them a free pardon. They
had sinned, and it was indispensably necessary that
their sin should be solemnly condemned. A verdict
of " not guilty " or a connivance at their escape
would have justified their action, but when the act
had been condemned, a Royal pardon, which also
contained in itself a condemnation of wrong, might
be safely given, and punishment would have violated
the moral sense of all good men.
No human analogy can ever be perfect in all its
particulars, but this at least makes clear the radical
difference between condemnation and punishment.
It helps us to see, therefore, that God's con
demnation of sin must be made clear to the
universe. A wholesale distribution of forgive
ness would becloud man's moral judgments and
E 2

52 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
bring the Divine authority into contempt. The
cross of Christ is the measure not only of God's
love for men, but also of His hatred of iniquity,
and all who enter into living fellowship with Christ
enter into His mind, and are imbued with His
Spirit. As Paul wrote elsewhere, such believers
are " crucified with Christ," they are " baptised into
His death," they " have died to sin," and are
raised again into newness of life. "Therefore
there is now no condemnation to them that are in
Christ Jesus," not because they are faultless, but
because spiritually they are at one with Christ alike
in His condemnation of sin, and in His devotion to
the Will of God. If Paul had wished to say " there
is therefore now no condemnation to them that are
in Christ Jesus " because He has borne the punish
ment of their sins, he had no lack of courage for
such an utterance, but he did not say it, and we are
wiser to take his own words as they stand than to
strain them into agreement with opinions of our
own. In I. Peter ii. 18-24 the apostle is admonishing
Christian servants to patiently endure the injustice
of evil masters and thus imitate the example of
Christ, " because Christ also suffered for you, leaving
you an example that ye should follow in His steps."
With exquisite beauty he displays the truth, that
the sinless Christ suffered wrongfully as an evil
doer, not only as an example but on our behalf
(virlp). It was the sin of the world which laid the
cross on Him, and it was the burden of this sin

ii CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS EXEMPLARY 53
which oppressed and afflicted Him. It was em
phatically our sin, not our punishment, which bowed
His soul in Gethsemane, and ruptured His sur
charged heart at Calvary. The sufferings of Christ
are thus traced to man's iniquity, not to Divine
anger ; to man's injustice, not to God's justice.
Peter makes this clear by reminding his readers
that in the hour of darkness our Lord appealed
from man's misjudgment to God's equity, and
" committed Himself to Him that judgeth
righteously." These expressions and ideas, and the
entire drift of this appeal for Christlikeness are
utterly incompatible with the supposition that
Christ was bearing our punishment. Had He been
suffering penally, His death on the cross would
have been no example for maltreated disciples ; and
there could have been no appeal from the verdict
of those who numbered Him with transgressors, to
the righteous judgment of Him who cannot err.
Before leaving this passage I should like to
express my sympathy with those who have been
taught from early childhood to regard the language
which declares that Christ suffered for us, and that
He " bare our sins," as meaning that He bore our
punishment. Lessons of this kind are associated
with some of our tenderest memories and purest
feelings, and appear too sacred for criticism and
too near the roots of religious faith to be loosened
without danger of destruction to the heavenly
plant. There is a natural fear of accepting any
other interpretation of such words lest it should

54 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
attenuate their spiritual power. But there need be
no such misgivings in this instance. When the idea
of punishment has been eliminated from these
expressions their true power and beauty are
enhanced. It may help some to discern and appre
ciate their significance if they will compare the
words of Peter with those of Paul in Phil. i. 29, 30,
where exactly the same terms are used to teach that
it is our privilege to suffer for Christ. Writing from
his Roman prison to incite his friends to endure
persecution without fear or flinching, Paul goes a
little farther than Peter by saying, " Because to you
it hath been granted on behalf of Christ {yir\p
Xptarov) not only to believe on Him, but also to
suffer in His behalf" (virep avrov irda^etv). Thus
Paul makes the Christian's undeserved sufferings to
be not only an imitation of their Lord, but in a
humble way a reciprocation of His sacrificial service.
Such a thought as this either absolutely excludes
the idea of penal sufferings being borne by Christ
for us, or else it teaches that Christians bear some
punishment that was due to Christ !
In II. Cor. v. 21 Paul uses an expression which
has caused not a little perplexity, and can only be
explained as a vivid paradox. " Him who knew no
sin, He made to be sin on our behalf, that we
might become the righteousness of God in Him."
The Adoptionists took these words in their most
literal sense, and founded upon them the doctrine
of Christ's actual sinfulness. In recent times the
same view has been maintained in Germany, and

n A VIVID PARADOX 55
was at least attributed to Edward Irving ; but such a
monstrous interpretation is forbidden by the words
" who knew no sin " as well as by the spotless beauty
of Christ's character as portrayed in the Gospels.
Avoiding this intolerable literalness of exposition
advocates of the Penal theory read the words " made
sin on our behalf " as equivalent to "was made to
bear the penalty of sin," or " had our sin imputed
to Him." But there is no excuse for such mal
treatment of language. Once again it must be
insisted that, if Paul had wished to convey such a
meaning, he was quite as capable of expressing it as
any mediaeval or modern theologian ; and the fact
that he did not say anything about imputed guilt
or a penal infliction is ample proof that such ideas
were not in his mind. The entire passage (cap. v. 1 1 ;
vi. 2) is a sustained effort to bring the love of God in
Christ to bear upon the hearts and lives of the
Corinthians. Paul traces all that Christ did and
suffered to the grace of God, who " was in Christ
reconciling the world unto Himself; not imputing
unto them their trespasses " ; but he does not say
"imputing their trespasses to Christ," nor could he
have said this without teaching the absurd contradic
tion that God imputed these trespasses to Himself,
because He was actually " in Christ." Throughout,
Paul has in view the constraining and renewing
power of the love of God in Christ; and having
magnified and displayed the wondrous manner of
this love, he beseeches his readers not to receive
such grace in vain. To reconcile us to God and

56 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

bring us into conformity with the Will of God, Christ
died for us, aud died the death of a common male
factor on the cross. He, the sinless One, was thus
made sin on our behalf (hirep •qpwv), and the object
of this subjection of Christ to an ignominious death
was the destruction of sin in our nature, " that we
might become the righteousness of God in Him."
There is no hint of such an exchange as we are
asked to discover. It is not said that our sin is
imputed to Christ and His righteousness imputed
to us. Such a nominal transfer of merit and demerit
is absolutely foreign to the Apostle's plea. The
object of Christ was to draw us into vital union with
Himself, that so we might not merely be accounted,
but truly "become the righteousness of God in Him."
It would be impossible to adequately expound
Heb. ix 28 without a prolonged inquiry into the
real meaning and worth of the Levitical sacrifices,
and such an investigation would be premature in
this place. But without pretending to unfold all, or
nearly all, that the passage does mean, we may
satisfy ourselves that it does not teach that Christ
bore the punishment of sin. In proof of this it
should be sufficient to repeat the remark already
made in regard to other texts of the same group,
viz. : that there is not a word here about punish
ment, nor is there any allusion to a Divine anger
which needs to be appeased, to a Divine justice
which demands the execution of a sentence, or to
any change effected in the mind of God. If the
necessity of punishment had been in the author's

ii THE BEARING OF SIN 57
mind he could not have failed to proclaim it here in
explicit terms, and his silence prohibits the imputa
tion of such a doctrine. It is distinctly said that
Christ was manifested " at the end of the ages to put
away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." It is also
said that He was " once offered to bear the sins of
many," and these sayings declare a great fact which
all who believe in any theory of Atonement what
ever rejoice in as the foundation of their hopes and
the inspiration of eternal thanksgiving and praise.
But, as already shown, the bearing of sin is not the
same thing as the bearing of punishment.
Matthew supplies an illustrative exposition of
the manner in which all human ills were borne by
Christ. Having related how diseased, insane, and
demon-haunted people were brought to Christ, the
evangelist states that Jesus cast out the unclean
spirits and healed all the sick ; and then, recalling
the language of Isa. liii. he declares that in this
way Jesus fulfilled the ancient prediction, " Himself
took our infirmities and bare our diseases" (viii. 17).
Our Lord was not infected by our leprosy or fever,
He was not the victim of demons, nor was He
crippled or insane. He took into His heart the
burden of all the sorrows and calamities, and all
the shame and guilt of those around, and carried
this awful load until at last the heart of flesh was
rent with anguish on the cross. By thus bearing
our sins and carrying our sorrows He has prevailed
to cast out Satan, and cleanse our consciences from
dead works to serve the living God.

58 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

Carefully reading Heb. ix. x. we cannot fail to
see that the writer's great thought is that the
sacrifice of Christ differs from all others in this,
that it has power to cleanse the conscience — to
reconcile men to God by putting His laws into
their hearts, and writing them upon their minds:
i.e., Christ is able to put away sin by inspir
ing love for God and delight in His good and
acceptable and perfect will. The ancient sacrifices
had no such power or tendency, and therefore they
could never put away sin. They were a confes
sional remembrance of sin, without which man
could not approach the Mercy Seat, but they left
the offerer a sinner still, and needed repetition as
long as he lived. But Christ creates a new man in
the heart, and what He has once done avails
eternally, because such a sacrifice as His can never
lose its power.
Another great thought in the writer's mind is
that the blood of Christ is the solemn and inviol
able seal of a new covenant. When Moses set
the Divine law before the people at Sinai, they
deliberately undertook to obey all God's command
ments as the condition of their existence as a
nation ; and in solemn ratification of this compact
animals were slain and blood was sprinkled upon
the altar and upon the people (Exod. xxiv.). In
the covenant thus made and sealed there was not
a syllable about forgiveness. Subsequently pro
vision was made for offerings on account of sins
committed in ignorance, though never for wilful

n THE NEW COVENANT 59
transgressions. But the covenant itself contained
no hint that transgressions could be forgiven. The
blood which sealed it spoke of judgment and death,
not pardon and life. To this terrible fact Jesus
significantly pointed when giving the cup to His
disciples. He was making and sealing a new
covenant, which, in vivid and blessed contrast to
the first, contained a pledge of God's forgiveness
to all who accepted its conditions. Therefore, said
He, "this is my blood of the [new] covenant,
which is shed for many unto remission of sins."
(Mat. xxvi. 28.) These words appear to have been
in the mind of the writer to the Hebrews, and he
links the thought of remission with the thought of
a new covenant such as Jeremiah had foretold
(Jer. xxxi. 33), in which God promised to put His
law into human hearts and minds, instead of in a
book or upon stones. Remission of sins unac
companied with cleansing and regenerative
energies, and without issuing in conformity to God's
will, would be a curse to mankind. But it is
equally true that a renewal of mind and transforma
tion of life, unaccompanied with the remission of
former sins and the assurance of all needed mercy
in the future, would be an aggravation of human
wretchedness. Such a transformation would
produce a creature filled with holy aspirations
and right purposes, and with a quickened con
science, yet would leave him to endure for ever the
punishment of the sins he had learned to abandon
and abhor. Thus renewal of mind and remission

60 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
of sins can never be righteously divorced ; and the
sacrifice of Christ was commended to the Hebrews
as the instrument and pledge of this dual grace of
salvation, this perfect cleansing from the guilt and
power of sin.
Reviewing our examination of the passages
usually cited as proofs that Christ actually endured
the punishment of human sin, it must be claimed
that no such proof is discoverable in any of them.
The utmost concession which can be made is that
some might be found not irreconcilable with the
Penal theory if this could be established on other
grounds. This admission may be freely made, but
it has no effect upon the argument, because the same
passages are equally consistent with any other
theory which recognises that Christ truly lived and
died on our behalf and on account of sin ; while
against any hypothetical advantage to be given
away by the admission, there must be arrayed the
fatal fact that some of the passages have been found
not merely neutral, but diametrically opposed to the
idea that the sufferings of Christ were penal.
In view of these conclusions it would be idle to
discuss the inference drawn from an unwarrantable
interpretation of the texts as a whole. During the
period which elapsed between the publication of
" Cur Deus Homo?" and the Reformation many great
schoolmen, including Bonaventura, Aquinas, and
Duns Scotus, agreed with Anselm as to the alleged
fact that Christ did bear our punishment, but re-

n THE NAME OF THE LORD 61
pudiated as inconsequential the inference that God
could not have justly pardoned men without this
" satisfaction." Their reasons were cogent and were
generally convincing to the thinkers of their age, but
we have no occasion to revive, or even to review, this
academic controversy. It will be enough to add,
that whatever God has done for our salvation must
claim our reverence as the best of all possible
methods which His Divine Wisdom could select ;
but the fact that He selected it is no adequate
evidence that His moral nature left Him no righteous
alternative. The foregoing argument might reasonably be
pressed as conclusive, because it is inconceivable
that an essential principle of Christianity could have
escaped some clear and unmistakable Scriptural
presentation ; but we are not limited to a merely
negative plea and may now advance the positive
proposition : —
2. That the dogma under criticism is a flagrant
contradiction of explicit declarations of the Divine
character and ways, which abound in the Old
Testament Scriptures.
The most fundamental disclosure of God's nature,
and specifically of His nature and ways as related to
sinful men, is contained in the proclamation of His
Name recorded in Exod. xxxiv. 6-y. Here, if any
where in Scripture, we have a sublime revelation of
what God is in Himself and of His manner of deal
ing with sinners. If it were true that His nature

62 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
demands the punishment of all transgressions, this
fact must have been made unmistakably clear in the
disclosure of His nature vouchsafed to Moses in
connection with his Divine legation. Yet, instead of
such a proclamation as Anselm could approve, we
have a glorious intimation that the God of Sinai
desires to be known among men as " The Lord, the
Lord a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to
anger and plenteous in mercy and truth, keeping
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, trans
gression and sin, and that will by no means clear the
guilty!' The words in italics are of course inserted
by the translators as requisite in English to render
the abrupt Hebrew intelligible, and I do not think
that a more felicitous rendering could be found.
The clause thus completed brings the doctrine of the
entire passage into strict harmony with that which
we have found in Ezek. xviii. It warns us that
God's mercy is not moral indifference or judicial
laxity ; that men who do not turn from their sin
will remain under condemnation, and that for such
guilty ones there can be no absolution. Some
religionists of feeble moral fibre may shrink from
this clause as too severe, but without it the Name of
God would be defective. It does not weaken the.
force of the preceding words, and is a most necessary,
equitable, and, rightly viewed, a most merciful caution
to those who might be tempted to drink the assurance
of God's mercy as a moral opiate.
It is highly significant that the graciousness of
God and His readiness to pass by transgressions

ii GRACE THE GLORY OF GOD 63
stand first in this proclamation, and that laxity is
denied in an addendum to avert a possible mis
understanding. Had the order been reversed, so
that retributive justice stood first and bulked more
largely in the oracle, followed by a brief clause about
mercy to the contrite, the effect would have been
different, though the truth might have been the
same. But the order chosen clearly shows that
Mercy is proclaimed to be a fundamental quality of
the Divine Nature, and not a mere attenuation of
His justice. Nothing more impressive could be
imagined than this vision as an answer to the prayer
of Moses, to see God's glory, immediately after that
hour of despair in which he had shattered the first
tablets of the law, and just before he received a
rescript of the great commandments. The law said,
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God," and this vision
revealed Him as a God whom even sinful men might
love. Clouds and great darkness enveloped the hill
to which Moses retired for converse with the Unseen
deliverer from Egypt ; and from the darkness came
thunderings and lightnings, which filled the ranks of
Israel with fear. Yet out of this awful gloom Moses
emerged with radiant face and joyful heart, because
he had found the secret of the Lord, as a God whose
essential nature is not austerity but graciousness, not
implacability but mercifulness.
This interpretation of the great proclamation is
confirmed by the use made of the Name thus dis
closed in other parts of Scripture. In the vivid
narrative preserved in Num. xiv. we are told that

64 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
when the Lord threatened to disinherit the people
because they refused to enter the Promised Land,
Moses pleaded that they might be spared, and urged
this prayer with pathetic earnestness on the ground
that it would be consonant with God's nature as
revealed in His name. The underlying thought of
this plea is that forgiveness is greater and more
difficult than implacability ; and on this account an
appeal is made to the Divine magnanimity, and
its failure under provocation is deprecated as weak
ness. " Let the power of the Lord be great, accord
ing as Thou hast spoken, saying, ' The Lord is slow
to anger, and plenteous in mercy, forgiving iniquity
and transgression, and that will by no means clear
the guilty.' . . . Pardon I pray Thee the iniquity of
this people according unto the greatness of Thy
mercy, and according as Thou hast forgiven this
people from Egypt until now."
This prayer for mercy, in the faith that it is God's
eternal nature and glory to forgive, is the keynote
to all the sweetest songs of Israel. Throughout
the Psalms and Prophets pardon is sued for, and
every kind of blessing besought for God's name's
sake. There is not a single example in the Old
Testament of a prayer based on any trust in the
efficacy of sacrifices to take away sin, nor is there
the least trace of a suspicion that the pardon of
unpunished sin would be unrighteous. This is often
regarded as a proof that the prophetic spirit and
the devotional heart rose superior to every priestly
system, and despised the ceremonial law as a

MERCY NEVER FORECLOSED 65

perversion of religion. It will be shown hereafter
that this is a mistake, and that the letter and spirit
of the ritual institutes, as contained in codes of
different dates, are in strict agreement with the
teachings of the prophets and with the songs of
Hebrew saints. It is enough here to affirm that
in the highest and holiest minds veneration for
Divine law was sweetly blended with faith in Divine
mercy, and that all who longed for God's salvation
sought His throne in a spirit of faith and hope,
which found a warrant m the revelation of His
Name, which, according to their Scriptures, had
accompanied the publication of His Law.1
The doctrine contained in Ezekiel xxxiii. is
exactly the same as in the earlier chapter, and
some of the expressions are the same, but others
are cast in a still more startling form. The
prophet's emphatic and unqualified doctrine is that
the Divine warning (or threat) of death as the
penalty of sin is always conditional, and must be
so understood, even when no condition is expressed,
and no possible alternative is foreshadowed. No
sentence could well be stronger, or, when spoken
to a wicked man, more final and irrevocable, than
the four words, " Thou ' shalt surely die." 2 These
are the very words which were spoken as a
1 For illustrative instances of faith in God's name, cf. II. Chron.
xxx. 9 ; Neh. ix. 17 ; Psalm xxv. II ; xxii. 5 ; lxxix. 8, 9 ; lxxxvi.
5, 15; xcix. 8; ciii. 8-12; cxvi. 4,5; cxxx. 4 ; cxlv. 7-9; Isa.
xlviii. 9-11 ; Jer. xiv. 7, 21 : Ezek. xxxvi. 21-29 ; Dan. ix. 9 ; Joel
ii. 11-14, 32. Also Rom. x. 13 ; Acts ii. 21, applying Joel's words
to the conditions of the Christian era.
2 See Appendix, Note 7. F

66 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF A TONEMENT lect.

warning to Adam, and are constantly cited as the
death-knell of the race, because a decree which
God is for ever bound by His veracity to execute.
But the prophet had to fight the sullen despair of
men who masked their impenitence by a plea of
hopelessness, saying, " Our transgressions and our
sins are upon us, and we pine away in them : how
then should we live ? " And to them he was
inspired to affirm that God had never uttered a
decree by which His tender mercies were fore
closed. " When I say unto the wicked, thou shalt
surely die ; if he turn from his sin and do that which
is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not
die. None of his sins that he hath committed shall
be remembered against him ; he hath done that
which is lawful and right, he shall surely live."
It is extraordinary that in the face of this sun
light revelation of God's principle of moral govern
ment, theologians, whose chief boast is that they
are Biblical, should have the courage to say that the
justice and veracity of God forbid Him in any case
to remit the penalty of death ! It is stranger still
that they should dissect a few words out of a living
body of truth, like the oracles in Ezek. xviii. and
xxxiii., and should offer these mangled fragments
in their dead literalism as authoritative proof of a
doctrine which the prophet was labouring to refute !
The evidence thus adduced from the Old Testa
ment might be indefinitely increased, but it would
be useless to pile up proofs of a proposition which

n THE WITNESS OF CHRIST 67
has already been demonstrated. We may therefore
pass to the teachings of the Master Himself, and in
doing so I submit as a third proposition : —
(3) That the dogma under review is incompatible
with the Life and Teachings of Christ.
If we believe the recorded witness of Christ con
cerning Himself, we must believe that He did
nothing of Himself, but always did " in like manner
what He saw the Father doing" (John v. 19). We
must also believe that the Father was in Christ, so
truly that in seeing Christ we see the Father, and
in knowing Christ's character we know the Father
(John xiv. 9, 10, &c).
This thought is most significantly developed in
the prologue to the fourth Gospel, where John
beautifully identifies the revelation of God in Christ
with the declaration of His Name to Moses which
proceeded from the cloud of glory. " And the
word became flesh and dwelt among us (and we
beheld His glory as of the only begotten of the
Father) full of grace and truth " (John i. 14). In
accordance with this view it will be found that every
thing Christ is recorded to have said and done
corresponds to the meaning of the ancient name of
the Lord which has already been pondered. This
consideration makes it the more certain that Christ's
treatment of sinners and His directions to His
disciples in regard to the duty of forgiveness must
be accepted by all who believe the Gospels as an
exposition of God's thoughts and ways.1
1 See Appendix, Note 8. F 2

68 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
To all who appreciate this principle it is pro
foundly significant that Christ elevated forgiveness
into a primary moral duty. His law of forgiveness
has been variously misunderstood and sadly ill-
observed ; but no one has questioned the fact that He
requires his disciples to forgive one another freely,
nor would it be possible to exaggerate the stringency
with which the command is enforced. We are to
forgive men their offences against ourselves as often
as they say " I repent." We are forbidden to go
behind these words to judge the speaker's sincerity,
and are to accept the verbal profession if offered
even 490 times in a single day, and this " seventy
times seven " evidently imports that there is to be
no arithmetical limit to the words " as often." So
insistent is Christ that mercy shall never be refused
to one who does repent, that He thus prefers to let
any number of false pretences pass unscrutinised by
man rather than have one contrite soul offended
through unjust suspicion. God alone can read the
heart, and He alone reserves the right to go behind
men's words. The disciple's duty is enforced by the
most awful of all possible sanctions. " If ye forgive
not. . . . neither will your Heavenly Father forgive
you." Thus, according to Christ, a refusal to grant
forgiveness to them that seek it ranks with the sin
against the Holy Spirit as a thing which God
will in no wise forgive. In His model prayer
He bids us imprecate vengeance on ourselves if
we venture to approach the Throne of Grace
with merciless hearts to sue for mercy, saying,

II ANSELM'S FALLACY 69
" Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven
our debtors."1
The parable of the unmerciful servant not only
illustrates this law, but intimates that a refusal to
forgive, when the moral conditions are present, will
cause God to cancel a forgiveness which has already
been pronounced.
But while the human duty is too plainly taught
to be denied, efforts have been made to set aside
the inference that what is so solemnly enjoined on
man cannot possibly be otherwise than right in God.
In this connection it is interesting to note that
Anselm congratulated himself on having disposed
of this argument. He makes his imaginary
inquirer say, " It appears to be a contra
diction that He should enjoin that upon us
which beseemeth not Himself."2 To this Anselm
replies, "There is. no contradiction in this in
junction ; for we may not appropriate what belongs
to God alone ; now it appertains to no one to
take vengeance, save to Him who is Lord of all."
To this evasive sentence the disciple feebly rejoins,
" You have cleared away the inconsistency which
I thought existed." Seeing that Anselm was con
ducting the argument on both sides, it was easy for
him to represent his interlocutor as completely
satisfied ; but no real disputant would have been
disposed of in this summary fashion. Any seeker
after truth who felt the difficulty, and had a little
1 Cf. Mat. vi. 14, 15 ; xviii. 21-35 5 Mark xi- z5> z6-
2 " Cur Deus Homo?" Bk. i. 12.

70 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
 — -  — — —  r
logic at command, would have said, "Your ex
planation is fallacious, for you speak of vengeance
and forgiveness as if they exhausted the alterna
tives, which they certainly do not." Such a criticism
would have been perfectly fair. Forgiveness is not
a mere abstinence from self-avenging acts, but a
total and hearty cancelling of the offence. I may
refrain from avenging myself on one who has injured
me, and yet be very far from forgiving him in my
heart. In defiance of Christ's command I may
refuse to hear him say, " I repent," or in obedience
to Christ I may decline pardon because he will not
confess his fault. In either case I may not avenge
myself, and yet may lay my complaint before a
human tribunal, or, refraining from all efforts to
obtain redress on earth, I may carry my appeal
to God. This last mode of action is one which
Christ distinctly sanctioned and encouraged by the
assurance that God will not be indifferent to the
cry of those who suffer wrongfully. It is, indeed,
what Christ Himself is said to have done on the
cross. " Who, when He suffered, threatened not,
but committed Himself to Him who judgeth
righteously " (I. Peter ii. 23). Behind and above
the workings of our fallible intellects and our easily
perverted hearts we are assured that there is One
who will rectify all mistakes and all injustice. If
we forgive one who only simulates repentance, he
will have to account for his hypocrisy as well as for
his original offence before Him to whom all
things are naked and open. If men injure us

II GOD RATIFIES MANS MERCY 71
with a high hand, " I will repay, saith the
Lord." It thus appears that one clear principle determines
God's own dealings and inspires His commandments.
It is not His will that man's misplaced mercy should
prevail to clear the guilty, but His chief concern in
issuing commandments is to guard against the
restraint of mercy through our thirst for vengeance
or our unjust suspicions. He Himself will review
our decisions ; but the only difference between His
treatment of offenders and that which He enjoins
upon us is one which inevitably springs from the
difference between our capacity and His.
If any doubt remained, it should be dissipated by
those marvellous words on which the Church of
Rome has based her whole priestly system (Mat.
xviii. 18-20; John xx. 23). Several questions of
interpretation have excited angry disputation and
still perplex expositors ; but none of these wrangles
touches the point to which I would call attention.
Deeper than any questions in regard to the person,
or persons, or bodies, or officials who are endued
with authority to " bind and loose," there lies in these
words a religious doctrine which no sophistry can
explain away. Christ here proclaims that God can
be relied upon to ratify the acts of men who have
received and are led by the Holy Spirit. What
such men bind on earth is bound in Heaven, and
what they loose on earth is loosed in Heaven.
Whosesoever sins they remit are remitted, and
whosesoever sins they retain are retained. But it

72 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
would be impossible for God to thus ratify and
make His own the acts of men, if the earthly law of
pardon were not the counterpart of His own in
Heaven. Hence, allowing for a measureless differ
ence of authority and scope, to know the earthly
law must be to know the essential principles of the
Heavenly. Seeing, therefore, that the Holy Spirit
cannot inspire and strengthen men to do anything
at variance with our Lord's commands, and that
the acts of men who are led by the Spirit are to be
confirmed in Heaven, we are irresistibly brought to
the conclusion that the law of forgiveness which
Christ enjoined on His disciples is in perfect agree
ment with the nature and practice of God.
It thus becomes evident that when Anselm's
literary puppet said, " You have cleared away the
inconsistency which I thought existed," he, like his
master, was deluded by a plausible scholastic
quibble. The contradiction remained. It never
has been, and never can be, explained away.
Christ's moral precepts are the application of God's
righteousness to our affairs ; and the light which
shines into our consciences is the radiance of the
Divine Holiness. We are to be holy as He is
holy, and perfect as He is perfect, and man is then
most like to God when he frames his life and rules
his spirit in finest harmony with the teachings of
His Son.
It would be difficult to add to the conclusiveness
of this plain and unstrained inference, but the
argument would be incomplete unless we observed

ii THE FRIEND OF SINNERS 73
the consistency of Christ's own treatment of sinners
with His precept. The commandments of Christ are
but a part of His teachings, and can never be divorced
from the active life which illustrates and commends
their beauty, and constitutes our perpetual example.
In this exemplary life nothing was more lovely and
nothing more conspicuous than that readiness to for
give which won for Him a crown of reproach as the
" Friend of Sinners." To set forth all the features
of this example we should have to reprint the
Gospels, but the many incidents which displayed the
tender mercy of Jesus are too familiar to require
recital. Some striking features common to them are,
however, so significant that they demand attention.
It will be acknowledged that when our Lord
publicly absolved men from their sins He was not
merely practising the duty of personal forgiveness,
but exercising a prerogative which belongs to God
alone. He was dealing, not with offences against
Himself as a son of man, but with the accumulated
guilt of many years ; in fact, with the whole burden
of past sins against God. This marvellous claim to
not merely preach but to bestow Divine forgiveness
excludes any suggestion that Christ was acting only
as our human exemplar and not as the Viceroy of
God. It was this assumption of Divine authority
which inflamed the anger of the Scribes and
Pharisees ; and we must admit that these critics were
more than justified in their indignation as long as
they believed that Jesus was no greater than a
prophet.

74 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
This brings to light another remarkable fact, viz.,
that although Christ was assailed with such a storm
of denunciation, He never betrayed the least
consciousness that His actions needed any moral
explanation or defence. On the contrary, He
blamed His censors, not merely for their failure to
recognise His superhuman authority, but for
impugning the righteousness of His ways with the
outcasts of Israel. He often challenged their harsh
judgments, and spoke some of His most beautiful
parables to depict the joy of Heaven over repentant
sinners. Twice He quoted the words in which
Hosea spurned the idea that God required sacrifice
rather than mercy. How, then, can we reconcile all
this with the supposed eternal law that God cannot
forgive unpunished sin ?
We are often told that the remission of sin prior
to the death of Christ was based upon the eternal
value of that sacrifice, which, though offered late in
human history, had no temporal limitations. I
cordially accept that view when properly under
stood,1 but this leaves the conduct of Christ un
explained. If it be true that all sin must be
punished before it can be forgiven, the Pharisees
were subjectively right in their condemnation of
Christ. The theory affirms that Christ was only
able to forgive sinners when on earth because about
to bear the penalty they deserved. According ta
this opinion, therefore, Christ was acting all through
1 Paul announces it in Rom. iii. 24-26 ; cf. exposition of this
passage, pp. 198, 204.

n WERE THE PHARISEES RIGHT? 75
His ministry in a manner which was justifiable only
by His own secret knowledge of the future, and He
was acting in a way which, so far as He allowed men
to see, was wrong. Thus the Pharisees were blamed
for objecting to conduct which, as far as they were
in a position to judge, was incompatible with the
first principles of justice ! On this hypothesis they
were entitled to receive information, not censure;
and the words of Christ, the anger He displayed, and
the very parables He painted to commend His ways,
were neither kind nor candid, but, on the contrary,
were eminently fitted to confound the moral
judgments of His hearers. It is easy to reconcile
the doctrine that sin must never go unpunished with
the censorious judgments of the Pharisees ; but it
cannot be reconciled with what Christ taught men
to do, or with what He did Himself, or with His
stern reproof of those who blamed His mercy.
Therefore, unless we are prepared to side with
Jewish lawyers against Him who came to fulfil the
law and the prophets, we must allow that the
forgiveness of unpunished sin, under the conditions
stated by Christ, is not a violation of law, or in any
way a lowering of the Divine standard of justice,
but that, on the contrary, it is an essential element
of justice, so that its refusal to the contrite is unjust
and a breach of that moral order which is the
eternal constitution of the Kingdom of God.
Those who repudiate the doctrine that there is an
essential principle in the Divine nature which

76 THEZCHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
demands and necessitates the punishment of every
sin are usually frowned upon by its advocates as
tainted with a sickly indifference to the ruinous
results and deadly guilt of transgression. Such an
imputation may not in all cases be unfair, but when
indiscriminately made it is odious and false. In
view of this common accusation it may not be
superfluous to disclaim sympathy with those who
palliate iniquity. The God who commands our
reverence is too pure to look upon iniquity without
abhorrence. He can never tolerate sin, for His
nature is eternally antagonistic to it. He has
declared that judgment is His strange work ; but the
lurid history of nations, the voice of the judging
faculty within our hearts, the voices of holy prophets
and seers, and, above all, the words and the
blood of Christ, unite to convince us that He will
never flinch from judgment in due season. He has
no pleasure in the death of sinners, yet no pity for
their sufferings can ever induce Him to condone or
to compound transgression. He can no more dwell
at peace with sin than light can dwell with darkness,
or fire combine with fuel without consuming it.
These statements should satisfy the most exacting
mind ; but they are not all that can and must be
said, for they do but introduce a final objection to
the dogma which underlies all Penal theories of the
Atonement, viz.,
4. That this dogma fails to do justice to the in
tensity and inexorableness of the Divine repugnance
to sin.

il GOD'S HATRED OF SIN 77
To some minds this objection may appear startling
and paradoxical. What could be stronger, they
will ask, than their assertion that there is an essential
principle in the Divine nature which demands the
punishment of sin ? The reply is obvious. Let
us strike out the word " punishment " and insert the
word " extermination," and the proposition will be
strengthened enormously.1
As thus intensified the formula would be accept
able to many thinkers, but for grave reasons I cannot
adopt it without further amendment. I am well as
sured that God desires the extermination of sin, and
that there is an essential principle in His nature
which can never be satisfied with mere punishment ;
but I dare not presume to assert that the Divine nature
unconditionally demands the total extermination
of sin. There are only two conceivable methods by
which sin can be exterminated, viz., by the salvation
of sinners from their sin, or by their extinction
as persons. In regard to individuals these methods
are mutually exclusive, but in a vast sphere of
government both may operate, and the second may
be kept in reserve as a last expedient to be adopted
in all cases of failure to save individuals. By either
method the universe might conceivably be cleansed,
but it would also be effectually purified if some sinners
were sanctified and the incurable residuum destroyed.
But the two methods, apart or in combination, ex
haust the possibilities of extermination, and must
therefore be separately considered.
1 See Appendix, Note 9.

78 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
Universalists contend that anything less than the
rescue of all moral beings from the power of evil
and their ultimate crowning with righteousness and
joy would be a reflection on God's honour, and would
amount to His failure as our Creative Father and
King. But this is only a speculative opinion, and
cannot be treated as a religious axiom and so made
the foundation of a theory. I have intense sym
pathy with those who rejoice in the faith that God
desires all men to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth ; but while through the love
of Christ I humbly cherish this Divine desire and
cultivate the hope that the Great Father will have
the glory and delight of seeing the last dead son
restored to life again and the last of all the lost
brought home, I dare not say that any consumma
tion which fell short of this would leave a shadow of
disgrace on God or be inconsistent with His good
ness. We know but little of the persistence of
rebellious wills when consciously committed to a
warfare against goodness. We ought not, therefore,
to presume so far as to assert that God, who in the
Gospel makes an appeal to man's volitional nature
through his heart and intellect, will ever depart from
this method, which necessarily involves the abstract
possibility of partial non-success and therefore
excludes dogmatic Universalism.
This and other weighty objections to Universalism
are shared by many who nevertheless assert in an
unqualified manner that God must and will exter
minate sin. They recognise a possible persistence

n CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY 79
in rebellion, but affirm that final perseverance in sin
will issue in the extinction of being. Again refrain
ing from a long parenthetical discussion, I have
simply to insist that the theory of conditional im
mortality is only a theory, and neither a self-evident
nor a demonstrated truth. Locke was logically
right in his contention that the natural immortality
of the soul is not proved or provable ; but he was
not so unwise as to regard this as a proof of its
natural mortality. Scripture and metaphysics have
given no final utterance on this subject. For all we
know, the Creator may have made an indestructible
creature when He made man. We may feel an
•irresistible assurance that eternal conscious suffering
will not be the portion of any moral being ; but our
strongest and most instinctive conviction on such a
subject does not amount to knowledge. On this
account I am not prepared to assert that, failing the
salvation of all God's creatures, the unpurified must
be annihilated, or will naturally sink into nothing
ness. With our present limited knowledge we are
not entitled to exceed the statement, that God's
nature as revealed to us in Christ demands the
extermination of sin to the utmost possible degree of
completeness, and in this word " possible," moral as
well as dynamical considerations must be included.
This means that, in our judgment it is a necessity of
God's nature to adopt all measures which are congruous
with a righteous use of omnipotence to secure the
ultimate extermination of sin.
It will be observed that the proposition thus laid

80 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
down does not shut the door against any theory of
Divine salvation, or any scheme of Divine disci
pline or retribution which is in itself righteous,
and has the extermination of sin for its object.
It assumes nothing which any advocate of the
Penal theory can reasonably object to as false,
or even as disputable ; and it denies nothing
which he can be anxious to affirm. But although
the proposition is thus neutral, or largely tolerant,
in its precise terms, this neutrality disappears
when it is read in conjunction with the reason
ings and Scriptural teachings concerning the nature
of God, which have been set forth in preceding
discussions. As the outcome of all our objec
tions to the dogma that God's nature demands
the inexorable punishment of all sin, we are now in
a position to affirm that there is in the Divine
nature a principle which delights in mercy, and
which finds its supreme satisfaction in the salvation
of sinners from their sin. How far and in what
manner this Divine compassion and graciousness
can be exercised in the forgiveness of sin without
thwarting the desire to banish sin from the creation,
is the problem to be discussed. May we not also
reverently say that this was the problem which
awaited God's solution when He beheld the
ravages of evil in our world ? He could not cease
to detest sin, for the more He loved the sons of men
the more hateful would the cause of their ruin and
misery appear. Against sin He must use all the
righteous resources of omnipotence in a truceless

TWO VITAL PRINCIPLES

war of extermination. But for man's sake, and for
His own joy and glory as a benignant Creator,
He must also do everything righteously possible
for man's redemption. How, then, could these two
necessities of God's nature be unified in action ?
This is the question now before us. The one clear
truth which has thus far been established, is that the
Divine nature could not conceivably be satisfied
with the mere infliction of punishment, for this
would fail to satisfy either of God's feelings and
purposes. He who is full of compassion and
gracious cannot find satisfaction in the ruin
and death of His creatures. He who seeks the
extermination of sin cannot find satisfaction in the
infliction of penal sufferings which inevitably tend
to prolong and aggravate the sin which God
abhors. We may now lay down two propositions which
are absolutely fundamental and vital statements
of ascertained Scriptural teaching, and must there
fore be regarded as first principles on which all
further discussion must be based and by which all
theories of Atonement must be tried.
i. It is a necessity of God's nature to adopt all
possible measures which are congruous with a
righteous use of omnipotence to secure the ultimate
extermination of sin.
2. It is a necessity of God's nature to adopt all
measures which are congruous with a righteous
use of omnipotence to secure the salvation of
sinners. G

82 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
These two principles must never be divorced.
To many minds they may seem to be incom
patible and to require totally different measures
for their fulfilment. They will be found, however,
to be strictly complementary. They correspond
to two Scriptural statements of the purpose for
which Christ came into the world as the anointed
Servant of the Father and of man. " To this end
the Son of God was manifested, that He might
destroy the works of the Devil " (I. John iii. 8).
" For the Son of man came to seek and to save that
which was lost "(Luke xix. io). Many similar state
ments might be adduced, e.g., " God, sending His
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin,
condemned sin in the flesh " (Rom. viii. 3).
" For God sent not the Son into the world to judge
the world ; but that the world should be saved
through Him" (John iii. 17). Our two pro
positions are therefore in harmony with this ac
count of the twofold object of the Incarnation.
Neither is Scriptural if divorced from the other and
presented as a complete truth. Each imposes on
the other an ethical condition. Together, they
exclude both unrighteous lenity and vindictive
severity. The one forbids the salvation of persons
at the cost of tolerating sin. The other forbids the
extermination of sin at the cost of any avoidable
injury to persons. The two principles find their
synthesis in that account of God which proclaims
Him "a just God and a Saviour" (Isa. xiv. 21),
and again as " the Lord which exercise loving-

n TWO VITAL PRINCIPLES 83
kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth "
(Jer. ix. 24). This ancient theism has its culminat
ing expression and its living interpretation in Him
who came into the world not to destroy law but
to fulfil it, and yet was called "the Friend of
Sinners."

G 2

LECTURE III
THE FACTORS OF THE PROBLEM OF ATONEMENT
HAVING submitted what appear to be adequate
reasons for rejecting the Penal theory of Atone
ment as unscriptural, we are now free to institute an
independent inquiry concerning the measures by
which God is able to satisfy the demands of His
nature for the widest possible salvation of men and
the most effectual destruction of sin. While
prosecuting this inquiry we might refuse to consider
any objections against our own principles which
may be expected to proceed from advocates of the
theory set aside. It is not my intention, how
ever, to adopt so peremptory a course. It might
save time, but it would not assist conviction,
nor would it be altogether logical. It is one
thing to dispose of a theory as unsatisfactory, and
quite another to build up and defend a better in its
place. The falsity of one is no proof that any
second theory is true. Hence it will be our wisdom
and duty hereafter to give a respectful attention to
all actual or anticipated objections as step by step

lect. iii GOD'S MEASURES 85
we may come into collision with prevalent ideas.
This may appear to revive a discussion which has
been closed, but it will, I trust, serve to confirm our
fundamental principles, to dissipate misgivings in
minds predisposed against them, and it will have
the further advantage of bringing to light the true
meaning of important terms which are widely and
grievously misunderstood. God's Measures.
The measures which God could righteously
adopt for the extirpation of sin and the salvation
of men are necessarily determined by four great
factors in the problem of moral government in a
world depraved by sin : viz., The Nature of God ;
The Nature of Man ; The Nature of Sin ; and The
Disastrous Consequences of Sin.
The Divine nature must necessarily be the para
mount factor in the determination of God's actions.
He cannot deny or .stultify Himself by the use of
unworthy means, even for the holiest ends. Human
nature must also have an essential place, and must
be preserved intact in any real process of salvation'.
Even to undo the ruinous effects of sin God cannot
destroy manhood without a confession of creative
error. Moreover, if manhood were abolished, there
would be no salvation of men, for the resultant
being would no longer be a man. Hence no
essential attribute of human nature must be super
seded or violated by any process which has for its

86 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
object the recovery of human nature itself from
the malady of sin. It is equally evident that the
nature of Sin itself must inevitably affect, and in
some degree determine, the means by which it can
be remedied or exterminated. No one who mis
understands the disease can prescribe its remedy, or
effectually remove its cause, or even appreciate the
remedy which God has Himself prepared.
These three are the primary factors of the
problem ; but the multiform consequences of sin
have unspeakably complicated the task of salvation
and aggravated the difficulty of extermination.
Some discussion of the nature of these consequences
will therefore be indispensable.
I. The Nature of God.
Our discussion of the Penal theory of Atone
ment has included a partial, and for negative
purposes, a sufficient review of Scriptural teachings
concerning God's nature, but I have advisedly
postponed any notice of the Johannine doctrine
that " God is Love." All that has been said is
consistent with the idea that love is a pregnant word
which includes all God's moral attributes; but -the
term is used in so many different senses that it
requires a separate and independent study before
we can use it in an argument without causing
confusion. There is probably no word in the English
language which has suffered more from misuse, and

m TWO SYMBOLS OF LOVE 87
abuse, than this word love. It has been made to do
duty for many different purposes, and to express
not only many different shades of meaning, but
some altogether opposite meanings — meanings which
are rather comparable to contrasted colours than to
varied tones and depths of a single colour. At one
extreme it stands for a kind of sensual lust, which
is the most intensely selfish passion that we know, a
passion which if uncontrolled by reason, or by an
overmastering sense of duty, leads to the most
remorseless desecration of its objects, and violates
every law of kindness and every principle of social
right. At the opposite extreme, and distinctively in
the Bible, the term love stands for a holy affection
which subordinates all self-regarding desires to the
one desire to confer a blessing on its objects, and is
therefore the inspiration of self-sacrifice instead of
self-indulgence. The symbol of one is a satyr — mere
animal passion linked with human intelligence — the
Incarnation of Lust. The symbol of the other is a
crucified Friend of Sinners — the Incarnation of God,
which is the incarnation of a Love which is love
indeed. Between these two extremes the word
stands for many complex feelings, some pure, others
impure and subtly intermixed in infinitely varied
proportions. But, although the term has this many-
coloured significance, it will be found that as popularly
used and understood it nearly always connotes the
idea of preference and pleasurable regard. On many
lips it means merely an intenser kind of liking,
an affection which seeks its own delectation in a

88 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
pleasant object, and may, therefore, glow as fervently
in unholy breasts as in the pure. The ethical ele
ment of goodwill is often, but not always or nearly
always, implied.
The love of parents for children, of husband for
wife, and of friend for friend should always be
ethical, but it is not always so conceived, and
certainly is often far from ethical in fact. Yet,
whatever its quality, it is called by the same name.
In its highest developments it becomes a sacred
and sanctifying affection, and not seldom it rises
to the glory of self-denial. This love for nearest
kindred often triumphs over the provocations of
ill-temper, the repellent influence of physical or
moral deformity, and lives on in spite of ill-
requital, neglect, and even active hostility. In such
cases it is transformed into, or at least partakes
of, that love which seeketh not her own, and is
nothing less than the pure white flame of holiness.1
But too frequently it is only a marked form of
selfishness, as in the typical case of Eli, who loved
his sons too little and himself too well to take the
pain of inflicting salutary pain on them in early
life, and so he feebly watched their progress in
licentiousness, until at last there came a catas
trophe which brought the whole family to shame.
Blended with this desire to find pleasure in the
possession of its object there is usually a wish to
1 Cf I. Thess. iii. 11-13. " The Lord make you to increase and
.abound m love one toward another, and toward all men . . to the
end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before
God."

ill VITIATED IDEAS 89
give pleasure also but, without being cynical, it is
easy to detect at least a partial explanation of much
which passes for disinterested affection in the fact
that it is pleasanter to see our friends enjoy them
selves than it is to behold them in sorrow or pain,
however profitable such sufferings may be as instru
ments of moral and religious discipline. The love
which can constrain a sensitive and sympathetic
nature to inflict such disciplinary pain with firm
ness and constancy may not be altogether rare ;
but where existent, and manifested, it is very
commonly suspected, especially by its objects, as at
least a dubious form of affection.
The prevalence of low and even vitiated ideas of
love is betrayed in many common expressions, and
these expressions again react to confirm and still
further degrade the thoughts. When, for example,
a foolishly indulgent mother has lived to see an
undisciplined child become a victim to his own un
regulated passions, she has no sense of incongruity
in half-accusing, half-excusing herself by saying, " I
loved my boy too well " ; whereas the truth is that,
like Eli, she has loved herself too much and pre
ferred the luxury of smiles and caresses to the pain
of enforcing rigorous self-control. Similarly it is
no extraordinary thing for a woman to be murdered
by a so-called " lover " because he is jealous of her
preference for someone else. In such a case the
murderer's stock excuse is, " I did it because I loved
her so much." But what is far more significant than
the utterance of such a ghastly paradox is that the

90 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
Press will report the poor deluded wretch's language
without betraying any surprise at the monstrous mis
use of the word " love."
Less melancholy, perhaps, but more fatally mis
leading samples of bad usage may be found in the
phraseology of the nursery — a place of supreme
importance to the theologian, because religious
ideas there take a form which can with difficulty
be changed in after life. A false thought is in
stilled into the minds of children by phrases which
confound love with approval and endearing signs
of favour. It is quite an ordinary thing for a
child to be threatened thus — " I shall not love you
if you do this or that." Similarly after disobedi
ence the little one is told with a frown, " I cannot
love you now." But worse than even these deplor
able sayings are the corresponding formulae which
tend to darken the understanding and hinder sub
sequent belief in the Gospel : — " God does not
love those who act thus " ; " God will not love you
if you do that."
Such nursery quotations may be thought beneath
the dignity of a theological discussion, but they are
highly important and most significant, because in
separably connected with a corresponding looseness
and inaccuracy in the language of professed theolo
gians. Marcion's heresy was founded upon the same
erroneous idea of love as we have found in modern
nurseries ; and out of this same confusion have sprung
direct denials or evasive obscuration of the plain
New Testament doctrine that God loves sinners,

in AN ABUSE OF TERMS 91
together with covert suggestions and even positive
statements that God is the enemy of sinners until
He is reconciled by Christ.
How far theological teachings have caused a
popular misuse of the term love, and how far the
popular usage has contributed to produce the graver
fault, may be doubtful, and need scarcely trouble us.
The essential fact is that the same error is rife
among divines and infants, and these two forms of
error must inevitably act and react on each other.
Thus the language of the nursery represents a state
of mind which religious teachers have at least
fostered, and it is also a potent formative influence
which for centuries has been working in innumerable
Christian homes to perpetuate the ideas it expresses.
Children are so familiarised with the notion that love
is dependent upon goodness and pleasantness in its
objects, that in after years they receive corresponding
dogmas without surprise or protest. Thus the very
words in which the reconciling truth is proclaimed
are vitiated, and the inevitable poverty of language
is aggravated by a debasement of that golden word
love, which may be called the chief coin in that
intellectual currency which is our sole medium of
exchange in the realm of religious thought.
The difficulty thus indicated is not peculiar to
the English language, but besets the Christian
teacher in all the tongues spoken among men.
Readers of the English Bible might perhaps have
been aided a little if at some earlier stage in our
history an effort had been made to translate the

92 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
different Greek terms now rendered " love " by
different English words ; but this help would at
best have been restricted within very narrow limits,
and it has long since become impossible. The
New Testament writers had a more varied choice
of terms at their command than we have, but the
ideas associated with each were viler than any which
trouble us. They were compelled to take the
language of common life, and thus to use words
which had been grievously tainted and debased by
impure lips. Happily these words were charged
with power, because, although linked with vice, they
were also linked with all that was sweetest, tenderest,
and strongest in family life ; but, still, it was an
arduous task to purge these words and consecrate
them to noblest use by filling them with new mean
ings which had come into human thought from
Christ. Students may gather rich harvests of thought and
gain many vivid views of truth by studying the
force of the Greek synonyms, but no study of the
terms apart from the teachings in which they occur
can discover the Biblical idea for which they are
made to stand. The classical value of the terms
cannot determine their force in the New Testament,
for the New Testament writers have enriched and
glorified them. They have indeed so thoroughly
reminted them that they come to us as intellectual
coins, on which has been impressed the image and
superscription of Christ. Hence it is happily true
that all who aspire to know what love means in a

AN IDEAL STANDARD 93

truly Biblical theology may find it out by reading
carefully what is written in their mother tongue.
John gives us the true key to this knowledge in his
great saying, " Hereby know we love, because He
laid down His life for us." Such language is a
clear warning that we may not regard our notions
of love as an ideal standard by which to appraise
the love of God, but must correct our notions by the
Cross. Our wisdom is to take the thought that
Christ died for us, and accept this as the revelation
of what love is, and therefore of what God is,
because " God is love." No philological discourse,
no subtleties or profundities of scholarship, can
impart the knowledge we require. Love submits
not to analysis, and it baffles all description. It
must be seen in living action to be felt, and it
must be felt in order to be understood. The nature
of love is an integral part of the Christian revelation,
and it can no more be conveyed by abstract pro
positions than day can be caused to dawn by an
essay upon Light.
He who would know what love is must read the
gospel story, but the whole Bible is full of pregnant
hints, and even Sinai is bright with fore-gleams of the
light of Calvary. Take the terse, unemotional
precepts of the law, and in one part you read " Thou
shalt love thy neighbour ¦ as thyself." " Thy neigh
bour " must include male and female, i.e., thy neigh
bour and thy neighbour's wife and daughter and
maid-servant. But the love thus enjoined cannot
savour of passionate desire, for elsewhere the law

94 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
becomes a prohibition of all selfish craving for one
whose beauty and charm may fascinate but who is the
treasure of a fellow-man. Again, the injunction to
love cannot conceivably have been intended as a com
mand to delight ourselves in all our neighbours, or
to like them all equally well and thus take equal
pleasure in their persons and ways. These neigh
bours are the common people round about us, with
their many faults and blemishes ; but nevertheless
the law commands us to love them. No freedom is
left for the selection of those agreeable to our taste,
whether aesthetic or moral, nor are we permitted to
turn away from the unattractive and unfit. Obedi
ence to this law admits of no waiting for overtures
to be made to us, no stipulation for winsomeness of
manner, or for prior deeds of kindness. Love is
commanded as a duty, not recommended as a
luxury. The mandate, " Thou shalt love," permits
absolutely no choice of persons, and sternly shuts
out those specious replies to its behests which men
are prone to offer, and by which they palliate if not
defend their callousness and neglect. My neighbour
may be repulsive and degraded, scornful or despic
able. He may have deceived, defamed or perse
cuted me. He may have ravaged my country and
desolated my home, but the Great Judge will not
accept any such plea as a justification of hatred or a
callous withholding of kindness.
Christ added nothing essential to this old law of
love by His parable of the Good Samaritan. He
simply tore away the moss of traditional interpreta-

ill ANCIENT LESSONS 95
tion which had overgrown the ancient stones of Sinai,
and, having first of all, as a new finger of God,
retraced the worn lettering, He afterwards shed
thereon a heavenly light in his parabolic exposition.
Even the widening out of the word " neighbour " be
yond the limits of traditional interpretations was
not an expansion of the old commandment, for the
Deuteronomist had given a similar scope to the law by
declaring that God " regardeth not persons .... and
loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment,"
and on this fact he founded the illimitable precept
" Love ye therefore the stranger : for ye were
strangers in the land of Egypt" (Deut. x. 19). That
this was no casual utterance, but a vital and
dominant principle, is evident from the manifold pre
cepts which give specific directions as to the ways in
which love is to be expressed to strangers, and from
the broad command, " Ye shall have one manner of
law, as well for the stranger as for the homeborn :
for I am the Lord your God " (Lev. xxiv. 22).1
The book of Jonah may be either history or
parable, but in any case it was a reproving lesson,
meant to teach the Hebrews that God's love is not a
mere liking for a chosen family, but embraces
Israel's proudest enemies as truly as the sons of
Abraham. There was nothing attractive in the
people of Nineveh, yet God constrained a Hebrew
prophet to become their minister, and the withered
gourd taught Jonah's kinsmen forever that they
should love their heathen neighbours as themselves,
1 See Appendix, Note 10.

96 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
and that their national mission in the world was to
preach God's mercy to mankind.
Coming to the New Testament we find the same
idea of love, not changed but more impressively
revealed as a moral duty, rather than a passion of
desire for, or luxurious delight in, those who, in a
common phrase would be called " lovable persons."
It is noteworthy also that this duty is everywhere
enjoined on the ground of its correspondence to the
spirit and character of God. Thus Christ taught
in His sermon on the mount " I say unto you, Love
your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you,
that ye may be sons of your Father which is in
Heaven" (Mat. v. 44-5X Unless God loves His
enemies, Christ has deluded us in this precept. He
declares that if we only " love them that love us "
we are no better than publicans and pagans ; but
that we resemble God most nearly when we love our
enemies and do them good, " despairing of no man."
(Luke vi. 35 margin).
Can any reader of Christ's words doubt that in
such teachings we are distinctly required to dis
tinguish between the sins which are hateful and the
sinners who are to be loved, or that our love is
meant to be a reconciling force and a moral help to
deliver from evil those who hate and injure us and
ours ? This precept, prior to the Cross and to the
great apostolic commission, contains in itself a call
for the same kind of love for man as man as was
displayed on the day of Pentecost. Mary, the mother
of Jesus, then united with His brothers and with

ill THE PENTECOSTAL SPIRIT 97
His most affectionate friends in preaching forgive
ness to the city crowd which had a few weeks before
shrieked for His crucifixion. Subsequently they
welcomed Christ's murderers into a brotherhood
which for ever widened the significance of the
word Philadelphia, i.e., brotherly love. Such a
spectacle as that of Pentecost was a new thing
in the earth, but it was not new in principle.
It was simply a glorified fulfilment of the ancient
law. The preaching of salvation by the apostles,
and their reception into fellowship of men who
had hated their beloved One without a cause, is
a perpetual proof that a new spirit had come to
live in human hearts ; but it is also an evidence that
this Spirit is the Spirit of God.
When the gospel is preached, to the effect that
God loved the world, men who possess only earthly
thoughts of love naturally feel staggered. But in the
light of the commandments, and in the light of that
unique historic scene when the mother and friends
of Jesus came fresh from the tragedy of Calvary and
besought multitudes who had blood upon their hands
to read in that shed blood, not a sign which clamoured
to heaven for revenge, like the blood of Abel, but a
sacred seal of their victim's offer of forgiveness, we
gather faith to read the Divinest of all oracles as a
proclamation that God loves the world in spite of all
its crimes and all its enmity. So read, it tells us that
God can suffer human hatred for ages and still be kind ;
that He is ever seeking costliest ways of doing good
to all ; that, looking down upon the awful sight pre-
H

98 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
sented by a world lying in wickedness, He has never
despaired, but, as the God of Hope, has made an un
speakable sacrifice to fill His sinful creatures with
a sanctifying joy and peace in believing in His love.
To these thoughts all the later teachings of the
New Testament are conformed. To exhibit them
in any completeness would require a volume. I
must be content in this place simply to justify the
fundamental distinction between the love which is
mere preferential liking for objects which are enjoy
able because in themselves beautiful, desirable, and
satisfying to the heart, and that love which yearns
to give rather than receive, to bless rather than
to obtain blessedness, to do good, to relieve, to uplift,
to purify and glorify, and which, having this ministry
in prospect, will bear pain and loss, encounter peril,
despise shame, and endure whatever can be called a
cross for the sake of blessing others, even though the
more abundantly it outpours itself in sacrificial ser
vice the less it be loved in return.
Before leaving this theme it may be well to again
emphasise the fact which called for its discussion —
viz., that love is not reduced in the Scriptures to a
mere attribute and so placed on a par with justice,
mercy, pity, kindness, compassion. None of
these terms is regarded as sufficiently broad and
comprehensive to stand for a complete expression of
God's nature ; e.g., it is never said, " God is Justice,"
or " God is Mercy," but only that He is merciful or
just. On the other hand it is never said that " God
is loving," but it is said that " God is Love " • and in

THE SEVERITY OF LOVE

99

the context we are told that they who know what
love is know God. Thus there is more in love than
in any single moral attribute, for God's nature is the
sum of all His attributes, and there is nothing in any
moral attribute which can be excluded from a worthy
idea of love, for there can be no incongruous elements
in God. Justice and mercy may conflict in imperfect
creatures who lack some element in one or both of these
qualities, but this is a mark of personal defective
ness. Pure love will never be unmerciful, and there
fore will never be needlessly severe ; but it is equally
certain that love will never be unjust, and never so
unkind as to flinch from any severity which may be
requisite for the wholesome discipline of transgressors
and the protection of the innocent.
The theme is boundless, and this discussion of it
is but fragmentary ; but enough has been said to
warrant the conclusion that whether we conceive of
God as a Father, a King, or a Judge, there is nothing
derogatory to His character or enfeebling to our sense
of His authority in the declaration that love stands
for all that God is, and that nothing may be pre
dicated of Him morally which cannot be resolved
into some element or some aspect of love. God
would not be love if He could behold His creatures
perishing of sin without doing everything possible for
their salvation, and, this truth is written in our hearts
by the cross. But it is equally true, and indeed it
is a part of the same truth that God would not be
love if He could behold His creatures corrupting>
debauching, or in any way injuring each other with-
H 2

ioo THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
out anger or without sufficient force of character to
visit their transgressions with the rod. The more
certain we are of His love the more certain we must
be that He is against them that do evil, and will
shrink from no measures which may be needful for
the good government of the world. Because He is
love He cannot tolerate hatred, malice, fraud, or any
works which wrong the soul of the doer and mar the
life and peace of others. God's love for all His
creatures must render Him inexorable in warfare
against wickedness, and among the many truths
which are written as with flaming letters on the cross,
this awe-inspiring gospel can be read : That He
who spared not His own Son will spare no agony or
blood which may be needful for the maintenance of
His Law of Love among men. The cross is God's
definition of Himself. " Hereby know we love " ;
and in this the Divine nature is revealed.1

II. The Nature of Man and of Sin.
The nature of man and the nature of sin are so
intimately related that any attempt to treat them
separately would involve needless repetition. It is
impossible to define sin without assuming the exist
ence of man, or of some manlike being, and it is
impossible to define man as a moral agent without at
least implying the nature and possibility of sin.
Our present inquiry does not call for a complete
study of anthropology or of moral science. Our
1 See Appendix, Note n.

SIN DEFINED

subject presupposes that man is a being capable of
committing what is called sin, and our sole concern
is to ascertain the true significance of this term in
Christian theology, and the qualities or attributes of
human nature which constitute man a moral agent,
and therefore capable of committing sin.
The wisdom of unifying the discussion appears
in the fact that the best definition of sin which has
ever been given carries within the full significance
of its terms a sufficiently inclusive account of human
nature. " Sin is lawlessness" (I. John iii. 4). John
here identifies two terms which are etymologically
different. He declares that dfiapria (i.e., a missing
of the mark) is dvop.ia (i.e. lawlessness); and he that
doeth the one doeth the other. By missing the mark,
therefore, he does not mean what the Greek term is
often attenuated to denote, viz., an innocent failure
to strike an object aimed at. The man who misses
the mark of which John speaks is not a well-mean
ing archer who does his best to hit the right target
but fails. He is a man who culpably misses the true
end of life because he disregards the guidance of
law. In other words, he is guilty of trangression
(irapdl3ao-t.<s), i.e., he steps over the line of duty
marked off by law, and he does this because his steps
are not ordered by any rule of conduct but in
clination or self-will. The figurative terms are
different, and each is instructive and has a distinctive
use but John's account of sin is comprehensive. It
includes not only the act of disobedience to written
or oral instructions but also the disregard of moral

102 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

obligation. It covers not only acts but also absten
tion from action, and even the abiding state of mind
which finds occasional expression in acts of dis
obedience to some known rule of life and duty.
" Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness ;
and sin is lawlessness."
This teaching is sufficiently clear and leaves no
fair excuse for misunderstanding ; but the whole of
its purport is not drawn out in explicit terms, and
therefore it becomes necessary to examine its con
tent and to ascertain its presuppositions. Happily
these are not obscure. The doing of sin implies a
doer, and the state of sin or lawlessness implies the
existence of an intelligent, volitional being who is
capable of knowing and disobeying a law, and of
living in culpable disregard of it when known.
Lawlessness furthermore implies the existence of a
law and some actual knowledge of it. It pre
supposes also the existence of a law-giver and judge.
Hence John's definition of sin presupposes the
existence of God as a moral governor, of man as a
moral agent, and the impartation to man of some
knowledge of the law to which he is required to
conform his life. Hence without adding to, or
deducting anything from, John's definition, except a
verbal statement of its indisputable presuppositions,
we may re-state it thus. Sin is the transgression of
the Divine law by a moral agent, i.e., by a person who
is morally accountable for his actions because
possessed of some knowledge of duty and some
power of choice and self-direction.

SIN DEFINED 103

John's doctrine is thus in perfect accord with Paul's
dictum, " Where there is no law neither is there trans
gression " (Rom. iv. 15) ; and again, " Sin is not im
puted when there is no law " (v. 1 3). Thus, according
to both these apostles, lawlessness implies not only
that a law is existent, but that it exists for the mind
of the moral agent who disobeys it — i.e., that it is in
some form existent as a rule of duty in his mind.
Paul never conceived the absence of law from the
universe, but he did conceive and deal with the fact
that pagans were ignorant of the Mosaic law, and he
held them innocent of disobedience to it. They were
capable of being lawless only because they had a law
written in their minds.
This definition is not likely to be challenged as
false, but it may be objected to as incomplete. Some
writers assume that the word " transgression " de
notes only an act of disobedience to declared law,
and on this ground they add to the definition words
affirming the sinfulness of any moral state of non
conformity to the law of God. But these additional
words must be rejected, («) because, while true in part
they affirm too much, and are often held to justify
one of the most deplorable mistakes ever made by
theologians, and, (b) because, to whatever extent they
are true, they are superfluous.
(a) It is true, as already indicated, that lawlessness
includes the state of one who, whether consciously or
unconsciously, is disobedient in spirit as well as in
act to a known law ; but it is not true that it includes
the state of one who is actually but unconsciously in

i04 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

a condition of non-conformity to a law of which he
has and can have no knowledge. It is true also that
lawlessness includes the state of one who despises,
ignores, or carelessly disregards his moral obligations;
but it cannot include the state of one who has never
attained to a consciousness of any moral obligation
whatever. Hence it is true to say that some states
of unconscious non-conformity to law are sinful ; but
if more than this is affirmed the proposition becomes
false. (b) But while admitting that there is a certain
element of truth in the proposed addition to our
definition of sin, I must insist that even to this extent
it is superfluous. The word " transgression " cannot
be restricted to acts, but is wide enough to include
moral states, as far as the rest of the definition per
mits them to be included. God's law not only re
quires certain acts and forbids others, but it condemns
certain states of mind and heart and demands others.
Therefore the man who declines or neglects to cul
tivate the disposition and affections which God
approves, and tolerates in himself the affections and
dispositions which God forbids and out of which
acts of transgression naturally spring, is therein a
transgressor of the law. The state of a man may
thus be sinful, i.e., culpable and deserving of penalty,
because as a moral agent he has neglected the primary
duty of ruling his own spirit and keeping his own
heart. The moral state of a man may be, and com
monly is, his worst condemnation. A bad man is
not less a sinner in God's sight when quiescent, or

in THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER 105
even asleep, than he is when awake and committing
murder or theft ; just as a bad tree is of the same
quality when its boughs are bare in winter as it is
when they are laden with sour fruit in autumn.
The comparison thus instituted is helpful in more
ways than one. It impresses the lesson that while
men may be known by their conduct, they will be
judged and praised or blamed chiefly for what they
are. But it also sets us thinking about the essential
difference between a man and a tree — -viz., that to
some extent at least a man is responsible for what
he is, whereas a tree is not. A tree does not be
come a bad tree through bringing forth bad fruit,
but, growing without choice, it necessarily puts
forth fruit according to its nature. We cut it down
because we are vexed and disappointed, but our axe
is not wielded to punish the tree ; we do not blame
the useless thing, and simply remove it to make
room for a better. But a bad man has usually
become what he is not solely, but to a great extent,
as the result of repeated transgressions. His character
has been determined by habits, and his habits had a
beginning in isolated acts of disobedience or absten
tions from obedience. He has allowed evil feelings
to find a lodgment. He has allowed his thoughts to
dwell on unlawful pleasures, and so has inflamed his
cupidity or lust. In this way, or in countless ways which
resemble this in principle, the man has corrupted
himself and basely yielded to temptation. Hence, in
a deep sense what he is is the fruit of what he has
done and left undone ; and he deserves to be con-

io6 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

demned because he is what he ought not to have
become. But here the question arises, Is this a full
account of the case ? Is this the complete natural
history of a bad man? Instantly, and with one
accord, theologians of all schools, and men who
simply study the phenomena of heredity and
sociology with scientific eyes, reply emphatically,
" No." They have different theories, and look on
the facts from remote standpoints and with most
dissimilar interests and feelings ; but all agree that
the bad man of to-day is to no small extent the pro
duct of his progenitors and of the environment
which has been developed by the history of the
human race. He did not choose the qualities of his
flesh and blood, the time and place of his birth, the
moral surroundings of his infancy and childhood, or
the ideas which were instilled into his mind before
he acquired the power to reflect and to judge for him
self. Is he, then, responsible as a moral agent for his
state, in so far as this state is the product of forces
which he did not originate and had absolutely no
power to avoid or repel or resist ?
In asking this question I assume nothing pre
maturely in the way of answer. Some tell us, Yes,
he is in a wrong moral state, and therefore he is
guilty of sin. He was born thus sinful, and, as such,
was subject to the condemnation of God, and is
deserving of eternal death. Others go to an
opposite extreme and declare that every man is the
.product of forces which have made him what he is,

ill MORAL STATES NOT EXCLUDED 107
and that therefore he is no more responsible for his
character than a tree is responsible for the shape of
its branches or the colour of its leaves. Others,
again, consider both these judgments wrong, yet
despair of finding a middle truth, or of so defining
sin as to include what is true and exclude what is
false in each. Whether the definition already given
can be accepted as supplying this desideratum
remains to be seen. But enough has been said to
show cause why we must refrain from any definition
of sin which forecloses the great question at issue.
A wholesale and unqualified inclusion of unhealthy
moral states in our definition would logically
compel us to hold men responsible for the injuries
they have suffered and the defects they have in
herited, as well as for the corruptions and blemishes
which they have brought upon themselves as
volitional beings. It is because I have to maintain
that these two formative principles are absolutely
different that I adhere to a definition of sin which
does not exclude all wrong moral states, yet does
not sweepingly include them all.
An attempt is sometimes made to avoid the
ethical fault of confounding guiltless defects of
moral nature with the acts and states for which
moral agents are personally responsible by elimina
ting the idea of culpability from the term "sin."
When sin has been defined as " any lack of con
formity either of the moral state of the soul, or of
the actions of a man to the law of God," the way has
been opened for the Augustinian doctrine that men

108 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
are born sinful in a sense which includes guiltiness
and liability to punishment. But writers who abhor
this dogma sometimes continue to use the language
which was framed to express it, but insist that the.
term sin (hamartid) may be used, and is used, to
denote the effects of Adam's transgression on his
posterity, but without any implication of blame, e.g.,
Dr. Fairbairn declares that to Paul " dfiaprla did
not denote the idea of culpability or guilt." 2 It may
be true that Paul sometimes used the word sin in this
attenuated sense, and many writers and preachers
use it thus to-day. But Paul did not always thus
use it, nor can we always restrict it to this mean
ing. When discussing God's method of dealing
with man's acts and moral state we must, in order to
avoid confusion, have some term for what is
culpable ; and if we deny ourselves the use of " sin "
for this purpose, what is left ? We cannot in every
sentence use qualifying adjectives and say " guilty
sin " or " guiltless sin," nor can we use the term in a
fluctuating and ambiguous fashion without per
petuating misunderstandings and perilous confusion
of thought. Hence, particularly when engaged in a
critical investigation, we must elect to use it in one
sense only ; and, doing this, we have no option but to
use it to denote what is culpable as well as in-
accordant with the will of God. This assertion is
made for the cogent, and, I submit, the unanswerable
reason that we must of necessity make use of the
word " sin " as it is used in the prayer " Forgive us
1 Christ in Modem Theology, 312, note.

iii UNCONSCIOUS SIN 109
our sins," and in reference to Christ as exalted to be
a " Prince and a Saviour to give repentance and
remission of sins." Dr. Fairbairn exhibits this
necessity in another part of the volume I have
quoted, for when defining sin he writes, " It involves,
like evil, the notions of suffering and loss ; like
vice, the notions of disobedience and blame ; like
crime, the notions of revolt and wrong, culpability
and penalty" (p. 453). This sentence is admirable,
and whether Paul always uses dpaprta in this sense
or not, he certainly used it in this sense when he
wrote " Sin is not imputed when there is no law "
(Rom. v. 13), and in many other places. It assuredly
represents the meaning attached to the word sin by
ordinary Englishmen ; it also denotes the sin which
is the subject of our definition ; and it correctly
describes what I shall denote by the word sin in the
discussions which follow.
Before leaving our definition we may guard it
against misunderstandings and suspicion by some
observations on a common but most fallacious use of
the terms " conscious " and " unconscious." These
terms have frequently been employed antithetically
to define the difference between what is culpable,
and what, though inharmonious with God's law, is not
culpably so. Not a few writers and preachers habi
tually speak of " unconscious " non-conformity to law
as necessarily blameless, and this naturally leads
their opponents to suspect any definition which does
not explicitly assert the contrary; it also tempts

THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF A TONEMENT lect.

them to make sweeping assertions on the other side.
At the risk of repetition I therefore desire to make
my own position clear by laying down a precise
proposition, and by some endeavour to elucidate its
significance and importance. The following is the
proposition I submit : every conscious transgression
of law is sinful, and some unconscious transgressions
are sinful, but some are sinless.
The importance of this statement and the nature
of the issue raised by it may be seen by some re
ference to a passage in a truly admirable essay on
" The Bible View of Sin " by the late Principal Cave.1
Having defined sin as " transgression of the Divine
law by a moral agent," the writer proceeds to inquire :
'' But must this transgression necessarily be con
scious? ... Is the hardened and habitual and
unconscious transgressor also a sinner ? Nay, more,
is the new-born child a sinner too ? Does the heredi
tary relation involve the child in sin prior to its
own sinful acts ? " These inquiries, which are surely
separate and distinct, the writer consolidates and
answers as if one. " The Bible reply is clear : ' There
is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God ' " (Rom. iii. 22-23). To this he
appends the remark, " nor is this utterance of Paul
individualistic." Any reader of this representative statement might
naturally conclude that Paul had really given an
opinion on the questions asked, and had laid it down
1 Cf a volume of essays by different authors entitled The
Ancient Faith in Modern Light, p. 128,

ill INFANTS NOT CHARGED WITH SIN ui
with authority that there is no distinction between
the classes referred to — i.e., that there is no distinc
tion between the " hardened and habitual and un
conscious sinner " and " the new-born child " because
both alike have sinned unconsciously. But when
we turn to Paul's letter we find that new-born infants
are not mentioned throughout his prolonged dis
cussion of sin and justification, and that there is
ample ground for the assertion that they were not
before his mind while charging all men with sin. In
the .immediate context of the words quoted the
apostle deals with his subject in a manner which
absolutely excludes any reference to those who have
no knowledge of law, and consequently lio knowledge
of sin. His declaration that " there is no distinction "
relates not to infants and hardened transgressors, but
to Jews and Gentiles. There is no distinction between
them, because, as he has previously proved, both classes
have transgressed a known law. The Gentiles have
not broken the law of Moses, for they knew it not,
and will not be judged by it. But they have violated
" the law written in their hearts, their conscience
bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one
with another, accusing or else excusing them." It is
because of this " lawlessness," which is common to
Jew and Gentile, that Paul declares that there is " no
distinction, for that all have sinned.
A further proof that new-born infants were not
under contemplation is furnished in the fact that he
is dealing with the manner of God's justifying grace,
and that the only salvation indicated is one in which

112 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
infants can have no part. Men cannot be saved by
the works of the law, he affirms ; and this would be
an absurd remark to make in regard to new-born
infants ! There is salvation " through faith in Jesus
Christ," but in no other way can those of whom Paul
writes attain salvation. Therefore we must either
use our common sense, and say that Paul discussed
only the case of real moral agents, i.e., persons
possessed of intelligence, conscience, volition, and
sufficient knowledge to allow of choice between
good and evil, or we must admit the awful inference
that the children who die before attaining to an
intelligent faith in Christ perish in what we choose
to call their " sin." J
Looking more broadly at Paul's great argument,
it will be found that his impeachment of the human
race runs on lines which forbid the supposition that
he wished to teach, or ever conceived the thought that
the hereditary relation involves children in sin prior to
their own sinful acts. Had he believed such a doctrine
to be true, he could not have failed to display it in
clear, unmistakable terms. Such a doctrine would at
once have shown that all men are guilty before God,
and the apostle would have needed no other proof.
He would, however, have been compelled to deal,
and to deal fully, with the ethical and magisterial
difficulties which such a theory involves. He must
have armed himself for the task of reconciling such
a view with Ezekiel's proclamation to the contrary.
He must have explained, also, how the propitiation
1 See Appendix, Note 12,

Ill INFANTS NOT MORAL AGENTS 113
of Christ took effect in the case of new-born infants
and imbecile persons unconscious of personal guilt
and incapable of discerning the significance of
Christ's blood. Having done this, he would still
have had upon his hands the task of explaining
how this hereditary sin would be dealt with in the
day of judgment. But Paul never mentioned, or
implied, or left the least room for such hereditary
guilt within the lines of his discussion of God's
judgment. If he does not denounce the idea, it is
evidently because he failed to anticipate its concep
tion. But all that he does say about future
judgment sheds a bright light on the mystery of
Divine fairness in judging men of many nations,
religions, and cultures by one man, Christ Jesus,
and by the one infallible standard of their own
conscious conformity or non-conformity to the light
which was in them.
It must be repeated that the foregoing argument
does not in the least degree conflict with an
admission that transgression of the law by a moral
agent does not cease to be sinful merely because
unconscious. But the word unconscious must be
jealously preserved from ambiguity. I use the
word to mean what alone it can logically mean
in a proposition which contains the words "moral
agent." I do not use it to denote the move
ments, or feelings, or state of a being who is
naturally incapable of ethical obedience or dis
obedience, because not awakened to moral conscious- 1

114 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

ness. Hence the admission that sin may, under
certain conditions, be unconscious is not an ad
mission that infants can possibly be regarded as
sinful. The torpid state into which transgressors
lapse through habitual misconduct is essentially
sinful. The abiding attitude of the unscrupulous
and disobedient is obnoxious to God, and deserves
punishment. To deny or ignore this vital dis
tinction between hardened offenders and new-born
babes is to confound some of the worst symptoms
of moral decay with the phenomena of undeveloped
moral faculty. Infants are included under the
category " moral agents," fallaciously because they
are such only in a most rudimentary, and,
indeed, in a merely potential sense. The utmost
that can be predicated of them is that they are
endowed with latent faculties which, under the
normal conditions of life, health, and training, will
subsequently constitute them responsible moral
beings. Death sometimes carries them out of our
. sight into a state which we cannot depict, and
is not referred to by Paul ; but his doctrine of sin
enables us to commit these little ones to Him who
judges righteously. Sometimes sickness or accident
impairs their faculties and renders them imbecile.
Under extraordinary conditions they may grow up
to be healthy animals, but devoid of any moral senti
ments and ideas, because ignorant of God and with
out human associates to provide the conditions of
relative duty. In such a bestial state, being without
law they are also without sin ; and their case presents

DIVINE LAW 115

no analogy to that of the Jews and Gentiles of
whom Paul said, "There is no distinction, for all
have sinned."
A further mistake which needs to be guarded
against is the supposition that the words " Divine
law" in our definition imply that God's will
arbitrarily determines the distinction between right
and wrong. The use of the word " Divine " is not
intended to convey such a meaning, nor can it fairly
be so construed. We may, without presumption,
say that God no more determines what is right by
an act of volition as distinguishable from an act of
judgment than He determines by an act of volition
the necessary truths of Mathematics. Ethical
duties necessarily arise with the existence of
persons capable of influencing one another. The
words " faithful Creator," " a just God," and many
others of similar import warrant us in saying that
the Scriptures recognise that creation itself involves
responsibilities, even as human parentage involves
duties. Without irreverence we may even venture
to say that goodwill, providential care, and equitable
government, and, whenever needful, remedial action,
are as surely implied in the idea of Godhead as
they are in the idea of earthly fatherhood. God
is our judge, yet we must inevitably exercise
our judgment on all professed representations of
His character. The Scriptures recognise this
truth, and they teem with appeals to men to
pass judgment on God's acts, and to give honour
I 2

116 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
to His name as one worthy of all worship and
praise. In a corresponding way the possession of life and
rational powers by created persons involves, of
necessity, certain duties towards the author and
the only true guide of life; and also towards all
fellow creatures who are bound together by a
common origin, common needs, and common pos
sibilities of bane and blessing. These mutual duties
of created persons may, and for some purposes must,
be included in our duties to the Creator, viewed as
the guardian of all His creatures. In this capacity
it appertains to Him to exercise, and to require of
His creatures that they also shall exercise, righteous
ness and lovingkindness in the earth. It is incon
ceivable that injustice, falsity, or any form of
unkindness could ever be right in God ; or that He
could ever sanction it in those whom He has placed
in social relations with one another. Hence, whatso
ever a man does to his neighbour is done to his
neighbour's God ; and every misdeed which wrongs
a man is a sin against the Creator and Guardian of
men. On this account no definition of sin can be
accurate which speaks vaguely of " law," and omits
any reference to the Divine Lawgiver, King and
Judge. A cup of cold water given to a fainting
human brother is a service done to His Father in
Heaven. A blow dealt to a human brother's flesh,
or heart, is an offence against the guardian of his
life and peace. Therefore, our definition specifies
" Divine " law ; not because the rule of righteous-

LAW ETERNAL 117

ness is subject to repeal or change, or could ever
have been other than it is in this world, or elsewhere
throughout the universe ; but because God is the
fountain of all moral light to created minds, and the
supreme legislator and administrator of justice in
His realm.
One other error must be guarded against, viz., a
narrowing down of the word " Law " to denote a
particular code, like that which is popularly and
conveniently called the Mosaic law. Few mistakes
have done more to becloud Christian theology than
this failure to distinguish between the Law which is
eternal and invariable as the character of God, and
the law, or laws which from time to time have been
reduced to verbal precepts, and, accompanied with
penalties and promises. The great writers of the
Old Testament rose to the height of their great
theme, and saw that the chief function of statute
law is that of enlightening men's eyes to discern
good and evil, and to appreciate distinctions between
good and better, better and best. They saw that
the essence of all law lies in the simple demand
that a man shall do justly, love mercy, and walk
humbly with His God. Statute law taught the
ignorant, and reminded the careless, that certain
forms of conduct were unjust and unloving, and that
no conduct would satisfy the Creator which ignored
and dishonoured Himself. For the hardness of men's
hearts, and to meet the necessities of civil govern
ment, a code with penalties attached was indis-

118 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
pensable ; but the code was only a transient enact
ment which might at any time be repealed without
in the least degree affecting the eternal and absolute
law which is identical with God's will, and is the
same yesterday, to-day, and forever. National pride
and religious formalism led the Jews to identify
their written law with the universal and everlasting
will of God. Paul laboured to prove to them that
this was an utter delusion, and he not obscurely
hints that Moses would have been wiser, and
even more candid, if he had explained to the
people the merely transient usefulness of his legal
dispensation.1 In Paul's usage of the word law
the distinction between temporary, provisional
statutes, and eternal principles of righteousness is
carefully preserved, and he sets before us a wide,
and truly scientific view of this great theme. He
recognises that eternal principles need to be revealed
to created minds, and that no law can be obligatory
to the conscience unless it has in some way been
communicated. But he also enables us to see that
directly the revelation has been received, a sense of
duty is awakened, and moral responsibility begins.
According to this profound teaching, the method of
communication is a non-essential detail. In what
ever way, and through whatever channels, however
devious and intricate, the knowledge has come, it
corresponds with the faculty of moral judgment
and sets in active play the forces of that inward
tribunal which we call conscience. This knowledge
1 Cf, 2 Cor. iii, iv, i-io. (Revised version.)

ill THE LIGHT WITHIN 119
may come through external agencies, or may be
written in man's mind as by the Creator's finger ; it
may be dim or clear, complete or fragmentary, but
the one essential fact is that it is there, as at 'least a
gleam of inward light, and is operating, as all light
does, to open the sleeper's eye. Thus the Divine
law includes all possible instruction in righteousness.
It finds partial expression even in the teachings
of heathen philosophers, lawgivers, and founders
of religion, such as Confucius, Gautama, Manu,
Mohammed, Socrates, Plato, Zeno, and Marcus
Aurelius. Whatever enlightens conscience, and
reveals the beauty and obligation of righteousness,
proceeds originally from the source of all light in
God, and adds to the responsibility of those into
whose minds it shines, none the less because its
source has been forgotten.
It follows from this equitable principle that the
duties which man can justly be required to
render to God must correspond to God's real or
supposed character and disposition. God does
not, and could not justly demand from the
benighted heathen what He claims from those
who have received the revelation of Himself in
Christ. Such a God as the imaginary Zeus
of the Greeks, or the Moloch of the Phoenicians,
could not be thought of as desiring, and much less
as deserving such regards as were claimed by
Jehovah. A just and merciful God righteously asks
for reverence and trust. A gracious God right
eously looks for love. A merciful God may justly

120 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

call upon the wicked to repent. But no moral
being could be forced to think that it was his duty
to trust a fickle God, or to revere an unjust God,
or to love a being who is manifestly cruel, ruthless,
or utterly indifferent to the welfare of the creatures
He has made. Here again therefore we have a
principle clearly scriptural, and as clearly rational
and right, which provides for the equitable judg
ment of men whose religious training has imbued
their minds with degraded and degrading concep
tions of the Power reigning over the world.
A most important application of this principle
requires to be stated, viz. : that it permits, and
indeed compels us to recognise that some actions
which objectively are contrary to God's will, and
evil in their effects, may be altogether sinless ;
and that some acts which are not in themselves
contrary to His will, and are naturally harmless,
or even beneficial, may be sinful in the sight
of God.
As an illustration of the former half of this state
ment we may take Paul's persecution of the
Christian church. It cannot be affirmed that this
was absolutely blameless, but in the main it was the
outcome of a mistaken sense of duty. It is prob
able that the persecutor's zeal was tinctured with
elements of national jealousy and pride. Possibly
some personal antipathies were secretly at work
helping to becloud his vision, and obstruct the rays
of Christian light. But allowing for all these things,
it is true that, before his encounter with Jesus on the

JUDGMENT BY LIGHT

Damascus road, Paul verily thought that he ought to
root out the Galilean sect. Reviewing his career some
thirty years later, and writing in the clear daylight of
advanced Christian experience, the apostle solemnly
declared that in persecuting the Church he had
done what he then believed to be his duty. He
could not, and did not profess that his motives were
immaculate, but he verily believed that he was
doing God service. In so acting, Paul, the zealous
persecutor, was a better man than he would have
been, if while believing the Church to be a cancerous
growth, he had turned aside and left the task of
eradication to others. That his activity was in
itself a war against God is indisputable, but it is
equally certain that in his heart and soul he was
loyally fighting under God's own banner. What he
needed, therefore, was not punishment, but reve
lation, and for this cause he received that light which
augmented and redirected his zeal for God's
Kingdom. His conduct was mischievous in its
effects, but it was neither disobedient in spirit nor
harmful in its intent, and subjectively it was not
only right, but sacredly incumbent upon him until
Divinely taught to labour for the building up of the
Church he had endeavoured to destroy.
A more complete and more abstract view of
this principle is furnished by Paul in his hand
ling of the question whether Christians might eat
meat which had been offered to idols. His
great canon of judgment is that whatsoever is
not of faith is sin, i.e., whatever is done by a man

122 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
who feels sure, or even suspects, that it is wrong, is
culpable (" He that doubteth is condemned if he
eat "), although the same act done by another who
believes it to be right, incurs no condemnation, and
is not sin. It is, therefore, an apostolic doctrine
that conscience is not an infallible guide to action,
but is a faculty of the mind which judges our
conformity, or non-conformity to whatever standard
of duty we inwardly acknowledge. The standard
may be erroneous, but conformity to the standard
thought right is obligatory, and disloyalty to any
sincere conception of duty is a sin. It is thus made
clear that external conformity to God's law may
sometimes be sin, while external non-conformity
may sometimes be sinless ; and where no applicable
rule of life is known, and conscience has no scope
for activity, there can be neither ethical obedience
nor disobedience, and consequently there is no sin.
These elucidations warrant us in saying that sin
in the sense affixed to the word by our definition
presupposes the existence of a moral agent, the
existence, not only of a supreme potentate, but of a
holy, righteous, and loving Lawgiver, whose will is
the supreme fountain of authority in the universe,
and the only infallible guide to what is right. The
word sin also presupposes that this Being has
furnished His creatures with at least some partial
revelation of His will, and that by their conformity
to the revelation afforded them, and by this alone,
they will be judged.
Subtle questions might here be raised in regard to

ill EVIL AND SIN 123
the adequacy of the moral light which some men pos
sess, and the inequality of privilege observable in the
world. But however interesting and important these
inquiries may be in themselves, they do not require
discussion in this place. Having once decided that
men will be held responsible for their actions only
to the measure of their actual illumination, or to
the measure of the light which they might, and
could, and therefore should have received, we have
cleared away every ground of fear that there will be
any unfairness in the Divine judgments. More
than this, we have established the principle which
Paul impressed upon the Jews, and which Christ
had long before proclaimed with clarion voice of
warning, viz., that higher privilege, unless well used,
must issue in deeper abasement ; and that the
clearer the light which shines from heaven upon
the path of duty, the more extreme the guilt of
those who forsake that path, and the more intolerable
the sting of conscience when the secrets of all
hearts shall be revealed.
The definition thus elucidated requires us to
believe that God will recognise a large amount of
evil in the world which cannot be included under
the category of sin, and therefore cannot in justice
be either punished or forgiven. To many this effect
of the definition is its ethical verification, and a source
of strength to their religious faith ; but theologians
of many schools have viewed it with alarm, and
have failed, or refused to consistently maintain the

124 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
distinction. It is remarkable that this reluctance
is peculiar to theology. The most rigorous
Augustinians betray no difficulty in drawing what is
a plain ethical distinction except when discussing
human nature in its Godward relations. In the
common judgments of daily life, and in awarding
praise or blame to historical characters, to con
temporary public men, or to friends and neighbours,
it is freely made by all who have a regard for
justice. Ethical writers of all schools maintain this
distinction, and official judges allow it to modify the
penalties they impose, although for obvious reasons
State-tribunals are compelled to condemn all objec
tive breaches of law. It is God, and God alone, who
can perfectly apply such a principle of judgment since
He alone can unfailingly discern the thoughts and
intents of the heart, and weigh all actions in flaw
less moral scales. Yet strange to say it is God,
and God alone, who is theoretically declared to be
so holy that He must needs set aside this equitable
principle when trying the conduct and determining
the destiny of men !
As my object is not merely to vindicate a
definition of sin, but to sustain, or, if needful, to
induce that faith in God which it encourages, I
venture to offer a few observations on the origin of
the anomalous fact just pointed out. By many
critics the theological confounding of things which
differ has been attributed to harshness of spirit, to
bigotry, and even to obliquity of moral vision, and

ill A SOURCE OF CONFUSION 125
this has given the assailants of Christianity an
objective for their sarcasm and disdain. But
such a censorious judgment has seldom been
deserved. It would be far truer to say that the
anxiety of so many Christian thinkers to charge
humanity with guiltiness on account of much that
is rather our misfortune than our fault, has sprung
from, and still owes its persistence to, a profound
appreciation of the Divine holiness, and of man's
real depravity, which less religious and less intensely
earnest minds have neither felt nor understood.
Men who have looked at their own sin and the sin
of the world in the light of God's countenance lose
all desire to excuse or palliate even the least of all
their faults and errors. They are rightly afraid of
a self-defensive attitude, and are so filled with shame
that alike in confession and admonition, they use
strong unqualified terms, and have no disposition
to indulge in nice distinctions for the abatement of
contrition before God. Out of these feelings have
come the burning words of psalmists and prophets,
and of humble saints in all ages, and theologians
have erred chiefly in hardening these outbursts of
confession and self-denunciation into cold scientific
dogmas. This error is unspeakably serious, but I desire to
speak with respectful sympathy to those who fear to
commit a more deadly mistake by laying it aside.
When we carry the phenomena of moral life out of
the region of social ethics, and away from the bar
of human judgment, to view them in the light of

126 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
God's countenance, their objective differences
become much less clearly marked, although the
distinction itself involves so much more serious
consequences. Viewed in the white sunlight which
brings to view so many stains and spots which
escape detection in the dim lamplight of human
judgment, moral states and acts of an absolutely
sinless quality, are rarely, if ever to be discovered.
In what are called " sins of ignorance " some
vitiating element may usually be detected, and when
not detected, the confessional language of good men,
and our own self-knowledge almost compel us to
suspect its presence, not only in sins of ignorance,
but also in the noblest acts of righteousness ever
achieved, and in the highest states of holiness ever
attained by others or by ourselves. Deeply religious
men always share Paul's thought that even when
they know nothing against themselves they are not
warranted in deeming themselves blameless. Like
the psalmist they recognise the possible presence
of errors, which they necessarily fail to understand
(for if understood they would cease to be errors),
and also the presence below or within these errors
of something sinful — " secret faults " — not merely
sins hidden from the prying eyes of fellow men, but
sins hidden from self-knowledge, and visible only to
the Divine Searcher of hearts. No human analysis
is fine enough to separate these elements of blame
less error or infirmity from culpable ignorance, or
from the astute workings of a self-pleasing spirit ;
and no self-examination can be keen enough to

Ill SECRET FAULTS 127
certify that what we think the pure gold of noble
motive, will not be found to contain some alloy of
subtle sin, when assayed in the great refiner's fire.
These familiar facts go far to explain the reluctance
of many theologians to admit that the distinction
between evil and sin is valid before God ; while they
habitually make allowance for an analogous differ
ence when judging their fellow-men. They regard our
distinction as useless and dangerous, even if true,
because belonging rather to the realm of abstract
thought than to the region of common fact with
which the exponents of religion have to deal. Hence
they are so anxious to foster a wholesome spirit of
humility and self-distrust before God that they read
the severest meanings in the language of Scripture,
and strain its doctrine of man's position before the
bar of God.
It is only just to speak respectfully of scruples
which spring from so honourable a source. We
may also allow them to caution us against all
attempts to justify ourselves, or to preach a false
peace to our neighbours. Unable to pierce the veil
which hides each human soul from direct scrutiny,
it is our wisdom and duty to refrain from judging
one another, and until we have cleansed our own
hearts perfectly we are ill-fitted to condemn, and
even to discern the subtleties of motive and spirit
which God regards. But when man bows before
God it is alike his duty and his interest, not only to
lay bare the inmost secrets of consciousness, but
also to invoke a Divine searching of the dark depths

128 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
below self-knowledge. If sin is to be cured it must
be seen by the Great Physician, and if it is to be
forgiven it must be confessed. It is on this account
that godly men instinctively dread the detestable
and almost suicidal attitude of self-defence before
God. Hence it inevitably follows that a disposition
which every wise and good man ought to cultivate
is also one which theologians and preachers most
properly seek to encourage.
There is nothing new or strange in this lesson, but
it is one which cannot be too strenuously urged.
Looking back on the history of ethical theism we see
that it has been one of the most vital elements of
religious education. It is one which the Hebrew
ceremonial law was manifestly designed to teach.
By this law no atonement was allowed for wilful sins
(except in four notable cases, which serve to render
the rule more evident),1 but it was stringently required
on account of sins of ignorance. The law thus vividly
taught the people that even their errors and un
conscious departures from the right were mixed up
with faultiness. Christ, whose teachings and example
constitute a higher law than even the finger of God
could write on stones or parchments, continually
impressed the truth that God looks more to the inner
life of thought and feeling than to the outer life of
multitudinous acts, and He who needed no repentance
has taught His disciples to pray always for forgive
ness and to avoid the Pharisaic attitude of self-
justification before God. It is not without reason,
1 cf. P. 452.

in FAITH IN GOD'S JUDGMENT 129
therefore, that Christian teachers are more anxious
to promote a spirit of humble self-distrust than to
palliate defects. They rightly feel that however
indefinite in its nature, and however small the
sinful element may be, it is precisely this element
which most urgently demands remembrance and con
fession before Him who meets men only at the Mercy
Seat. It must always be a chief business, therefore,
of applied or pastoral theology to bring this sinful
element to light as a needful preparation for repent
ance and a subsequent remission of sins.
All this must be cordially acknowledged, but it
supplies no reason for any timid reticence about the
theoretical distinction between evil and sin. We
may fear to deceive ourselves by finding excuses for
defective life, and may fear to become prophets of
smooth falsities by furnishing our fellow-men with a
distinction which may be transmuted into a narcotic
poison for their consciences. But we need never
fear that any ill- effect will flow from a doctrine which
teaches every man to repose a perfect faith in the
Judge of all the earth. It can harm no man, and
may save multitudes from rebellion and distrust to
believe that God, with infinite magnanimity, unfail
ing vision, and unerring wisdom, does perfectly what
we so sadly fail to do aright. Only when quite sure
that He will be divinely fair and true can we dare
to say, " Search me, O God, and know my heart :
Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be
any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting." K

130 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
III. The Consequences of Sin.
We have now to consider those consequences of
sin which complicate the work of saving sinners
while overcoming sin itself. These consequences
may conveniently be grouped under four heads, as
Physical, Intellectual, Moral, and Circumstantial.
i. The Physical consequences of sin. These would
at first be exceedingly slight and possibly impercep
tible, but some bodily alteration would certainly follow
any act of transgression. Any struggle betwixt in
clination and judgment which issues in a surrender
of judgment must impair the delicate organism
through which the mind effects its purposes and
acts upon and receives impressions from the outer
world. It must at least affect the precision and
promptitude with which thought is translated into
action by the body, and the tendency of all surrender
to inclination, as against a mental perception of
wisdom or duty, must be to render what Paul calls
the " members " less amenable to the directive con
trol of the mind. Thus the physical effects of trans
gression co-operate with moral deterioration in
bringing about the state of things described in
Rom. vii. The ultimate sense of impotence to
effectuate mental resolves is due chiefly to a weaken
ing of the moral nature, but in part also to cumu
lative physiological defects either organic or func
tional. Every time the mind fails to enforce its
behests on the body there must be some increase of

PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCES

irrational or immoral independence of the lower part
of man's nature, until at last the mind may sit within
— as a discrowned king — thinking, judging, blaming,
and regretting the insurrection of the members, but
tending more and more to become a spectator rather
than the author of the acts it vainly wishes to prevent.
In this way what Paul calls the " flesh " wars against
the mind and becomes more and more automatic in
its actions, i.e., it lives an animal life which the judg
ment and conscience do less and less to impel or
restrain. The exact degree to which this moral
impotence is traceable to strictly physical effects of
transgression on the part of the individual or of his
progenitors need not be discussed, and cannot be
scientifically determined. Many to-day would explain
all the phenomena as physical, while others would
refuse to recognise physical defects as distinct from
moral depravity. But avoiding both these extremes
as erroneous, we must be content to affirm that man's
body is, according to an ancient simile, like a harp
on which the mind plays, and when the music is bad
the explanation is not merely that the harpist is
unskilled, or careless, or perverse, but also that the
strings are overstrained or slack.1
The doctrine of heredity is still in an unsettled
state, and it is impossible to estimate with scientific
precision and certitude the extent to which these
physical effects of sin are transmitted from genera
tion to generation, or to state the precise law under
which they become magnified and complicated. But
1 See Appendix, Note 13.
K 2

132 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
our present purpose only requires us to recognise
two principles, viz.: (i) That to whatever extent
these consequences are transmitted by necessary
physical causation they are outside the region of
ethics, and are injuries suffered, not moral acts or
states for which the sufferer is responsible and blame
worthy ; (2) that however these consequences may
differ in individuals in degree and kind, they must
be allowed for as present to some extent in all men.
Acquired habits are probably not hereditary, but
degeneration of bodily health certainly is, and it
leads to practically the same results. Lowered
vitality under similar conditions renders men liable
to similar diseases, and predisposes them to yield
to similar temptations. How much impaired health
works against contentment, disturbs the balance of
reason and desire, and produces morbid, morose,
passionate, or apathetic dispositions it is impossible
to estimate ; but certainly it renders a sober, cheerful,
kindly, and righteous life more difficult, and to this
extent it must appeal to the compassion rather than
excite the wrath of God.
We are not now dealing with the problem of
Divine goodness in relation to the prevalence of
pain, disease, and death, and are not called upon
therefore, to discuss the question whether these
physical evils are entirely caused by human sin. I
have discussed this problem elsewhere,1 and have
pointed out that, although pain and mortality pre
vailed on the earth for immeasurable periods before
1 Cf. " The Mystery of God," chap. v.

ill PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCES 133
the advent of man, this fact does not disprove or even
militate against the doctrine that human sin is the
final cause of all terrestrial suffering. But whatever
may be thought of this contention, it will not be dis
puted that an enormous proportion of the agonising
wounds and sicknesses which scourge mankind are
the direct or indirect consequences of transgres
sion. With respect to death, opinions will differ.
Some may regard it as a natural change, which in
some form must have been experienced ; others will
persist in regarding it as in every case the penalty
of sin ; others may consider it a consequence of sin,
but not its penalty, seeing that those to whom there
is now "no condemnation" are allowed to die.
Those who take this view may further insist that
physical death is God's physical remedy for the
physical defects produced by sin.1 But few, if any,
will call in question the apostle's words, " The
sting of death is sin." The dismay which death
inspires is partly due to its physical accompani
ments before and after the transitional moment,
partly to our natural aversion to separation from
persons that are dear and places that are at
least familiar, together with our dread of entering
into an unknown and unimaginable environment.
But keener than all these feelings, and lending a
new terror to them all, is the premonition of judg
ment which arises from a consciousness of ill-desert.
Man everywhere regards death as his last enemy.
As we behold the springing up and withering of
1 Cf p. 428.

134 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
generations, and foresee the speedy decline and dis
appearance of all who live around us to-day ; as
we watch the throes of dissolution which wrench be
loved ones from our enclasping hands, and wonder-
ingly ask by what means and with what sufferings
we shall be required to pass, it is natural to feel
fear, distrust, rebellion, and an oscillation of mind
between cringing and defiance as we think of Him
who has appointed unto all men once to die.
Christian faith triumphs over all these feelings, but
the natural effect of death is to alienate men's hearts
from the ruler of the world as an adversary to be
feared, rather than a Father to be trusted and loved.
2. The Intellectual consequences of sin. For the
practical purposes of this inquiry it would be idle
to discuss the more subtle psychological questions
which suggest themselves in this connection. That
sin has wrought mental aberration in millions of
cases is quite obvious. Vice does not spare the
brain, and thus the physical and intellectual are
inseparably related, and the sins of remote
ancestors working in the nerves of their posterity
naturally tend to derange thought and disorder
conduct. But the most significant fact which claims
our notice is that sin naturally and inevitably
becomes a prolific source of intellectual error. Here,
as elsewhere, the law holds good that all fruit is seed.
Sin is in itself the outcome and evidence of some
prior intellectual confusion and mistake, but it is
also true that it tends to produce further errors, and

ill INTELLECTUAL CONSEQUENCES 135
particularly errors of the deadliest kind, viz., those
which constitute personal misjudgment, and con
sequently interfere with peaceful and happy rela
tions. Free and happy intercourse between persons
being once interrupted by injurious acts and
thoughts, the mind is left an easy prey to further
misunderstandings. Thus the separating gulf
widens, and explanations and reconciliation become
increasingly difficult, even when earnestly desired
and sought by one of the divided parties. As
ignorance becomes denser, an evil imagination
supplies the lack of knowledge. The slightest and
most hesitating doubt will, unless banished, become
the parent of many doubts, and if estrangement
does not lead to a total cessation of all relations,
it naturally develops into positive dislike and
enmity, at any rate on the side of the wrong
doer. Thus, according to the Biblical history of
sin, the same feelings which lead men to avoid
their fellows when offended or conscious of having
given offence operated to sever man from God.
The foolishness of man perverted his ways and
his heart fretted against the Almighty. Suspect
ing, fearing, and detesting the Supreme Being as
they conceived Him, men did not like to retain
God in their thoughts. Ceasing to think of God
was equivalent to His dethronement and banish
ment from the conscious inner life ; and thus,
according to Paul, the way was opened for man's
descent into the abyss of godlessness.
But even here the mischief could not terminate

136 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
Man is essentially and persistently religious. He
might lose every worthy conception of the true
God, but he could not stifle all those thoughts
and feelings of dependence and of subjection to
authority, or those anticipations of judgment which
belong to him as a being created for rational
relations with God. Hence the solitude of godless
souls becomes haunted by terrible spectres.
Voltaire once said that even if there were no God,
it would be necessary to invent one to keep man
kind in order. But he might have gone deeper
than this, and said that, even when men have denied
God, they are driven by an inexorable necessity
of their being to conceive some higher powers
peopling their unseen environment, and to believe
in some objective causality to account for those
mysterious movements of thought and feeling of
which they are conscious, but which they did not
willingly originate, and would gladly allay, yet totally
fail to control. Imagination touched by upward
yearning and a sense of personal guilt cannot long
refrain from the work of personifying natural and
supernatural forces. It works not only in waking
hours, but often with intenser activity in unrestful
sleep. Hence came vague impressions of besetting
spirits and superhuman friends and foes corre
sponding to man's desires or fears, which after
wards reacted upon both, and by degrees took shape
in gods and goddesses. Hence all the horrors and
monstrosities of pagan mythology ; the awful
tyranny of priesthoods which pretend to mediate

ill INTELLECTUAL CONSEQUENCES 137
between scared human minds and the superhuman
objects of their dread ; hence also those foul rites of
worship which have sanctified every conceivable
abuse of human nature to propitiate imaginary gods.
The evolution of heathendom with all its foulness
and folly may be partially explained by that
" Ghost Theory " which has been propounded as an
historical account of the origin of all religion. This
theory is only a superficial impertinence when
offered as the genesis of theism ; but it is a frag
mentary truth when given as an explanation of the
process by which many concrete religions have
taken form and been developed. It is chiefly
important because of the undesigned corroboration
it affords to the natural history of paganism pro
pounded in the Scriptures, and because it betrays at
least a feeble perception of the principle that, given
the historical conditions which are affirmed in
Scripture, the evolution of heathendom along the
lines of Paul's review was an absolutely inevitable
consequence of man's estrangement from God. The
tendencies which have gradually produced the full-
grown upas trees under whose baleful shadow many
nations pine are so strong and subtle that, apart
from the presence and activity of a worthy
theistic faith, we may boldly affirm that the
modern world, notwithstanding all its science and
culture, would within no great period of time reel
back into the same bestial condition as that into
which the ancient world had sunk before the
Christian era.

138 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
This law of religious degeneration represents the
most universal effect of sin on the human mind,
and, in comparison with this, individual errors and
mental derangement through physical transgression
become almost insignificant phenomena.1
3. The Moral consequences of sin. At first sight
it might appear that these consequences demand
more careful and prolonged discussion than any
others, and, according to some theorists, they form
the sole subject for consideration. On further re
flection, however, it will be perceived that the
supreme question at issue has already been decided
by our definition of sin, and by our subsequent
conclusion that sin has produced some consequences,
for which each sufferer should be pitied rather than
blamed. Having fully committed ourselves to a
distinction which excludes necessary causation from
the realm of morals, we are forbidden to impeach
the human race as guilty before God of the wounds
it suffers. We have recognised, moreover, that the
distinction we have drawn is one which can be per
fectly applied only by Him to whom all things are
naked and open, by whom alone actions can be
weighed and moral states discerned. Hence it would
be unprofitable to attempt an analysis of human
nature with a view to ascertain the precise extent
to which a man's actions and states are predeter
mined by the operation of natural causes, and to
what extent he acts and makes his own character
1 See Appendix, Note 14.

ui INTELLECTUAL CONSEQUENCES 139
as a free volitional being. In these two important
respects a discussion of the moral consequences of
sin has been foreclosed ; but a few observations
may be offered to clear away some ancient and
persistent misunderstandings which prejudice the
minds of many.
From the earliest days of Christianity it has been
seen by men of spiritual experience that appreciation
of God's grace, and particularly of His grace in
sending His Son into the world to be our Saviour,
must always bear some proportion to our estimate
of the malignity of the moral disease which threatens
mankind with ruin and death. All attempts to
make light of sin, to extenuate man's guilt, and
to take sanguine views of his power to purify and
elevate himself by independent efforts have been
resented as direct or indirect attempts to detract
from the grace of God, and to diminish the value of
the Incarnation and Atonement. This feeling was
never expressed with more intensity or power than
by Augustine in his controversy with Pelagius, and
it was this religious sentiment rather than the force
of logic which gave prevalence to his views, and
has invested his name with sanctity to multitudes
who detest some of the opinions and practices which
he did so much to establish in the Latin Church.
This old-world controversy can never lose its in
terest for Christian students, and though many
consider that it should be consigned to oblivion,
I am disposed to think that a brief glance at its
course may serve to clarify our judgments ; while

140 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
even its antiquity may assist impartiality, and dis
tance favour large and comprehensive views.
The chief issue raised by Pelagius was the validity
of the distinction between the consequences of sin
which men suffer as passive victims of ancestral
sin, and the wrongful acts or states which they
commit or tolerate in themselves after attaining the
knowledge of good and evil. Unfortunately, this
issue was not fairly fought out, and was almost
entirely lost sight of amid the dust and din of
personalities, the discussion of particular but often
non-essential phrases, and loud complaints and shrill
reproaches for real or supposed untruthfulness and
craft. Pelagius was not primarily a speculative theo
logian but a moral reformer. He was appalled by
the wickedness which he saw rampant in Rome,
not only among the laity but in the ranks of the
clergy, and he found his expostulations and appeals
frustrated by replies based upon Augustine's doctrine
of human inability and the correlative doctrine of
arbitrary, dynamical grace. Confronted with this
theological non possumus, Pelagius laboured to break
down what he regarded as a bulwark of iniquity,
and concentrated his efforts on the task of enforcing
a recognition of human accountability. In order
to achieve this purpose, it was requisite for him to
show that however disastrous the consequences of
Adam's sin might be, man still retained some moral
power to comply with God's commands and to re
spond to His messages of mercy and promises of

ill VIEWS OF PELAGIUS 141
help. Not unnaturally, but most unfortunately for
himself and his cause as a reformer of the Church,
Pelagius fell into the common controversial fault of
denying and affirming too much. In his anxiety to
emphasise the necessary conditions of moral respon
sibility he shut his eyes to many of the worst con
sequences of ancestral sin, and admitted little more
than the prejudicial effects of evil example and
tuition. Smitten and perplexed by his antagonist, he
was driven into extreme positions, which were the
logical issue of ill-considered statements but were by
no means indispensable to his argument. To make
matters worse, and for the further confusion of the
debate, Augustine put the most extreme and un
favourable construction upon his language, and
absolutely refused to recognise some of his most
vital distinctions.
It would involve a long excursus to exhibit all
the facts which justify this statement, but one of
them demands our keenest attention. Pelagius
wrote that" nothing good and nothing evWfor which
we are deemed either laudable or blameworthy is born
with us'.' The meaning of this is perfectly clear, and
its ethical soundness as well as its Christian ortho
doxy may be fearlessly maintained. Of course it
was not Augustinian doctrine, and was fairly open
to assault ; but Augustine evaded the issue. He did
not offer reasons or Scriptural authorities for affirm
ing that a new-born child can righteously be blamed
for being what it is when ushered into the world,
but charged Pelagius with teaching that "Adam's

142 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
sin hurt only himself" When Pelagius resented
this charge and reaffirmed his proposition Augustine
scouted the distinction drawn between injury and
culpability. He charged Pelagius with " mendacity
and deception " and with making " fraudulent
and crafty excuses," and insisted that the words
just cited constituted an assertion that man has
received " no wound, in short, inflicted by an enemy." x
It must be admitted that Pelagius had used
language which justified Augustine in charging him
with an exaggerated estimate of the healthy condi
tion in which children are born. He did not acknow
ledge, and probably no one in his age was capable
of seeing, much less appreciating, the importance of
those facts which modern science has thrust into
prominence. I have no interest in the defence or
censure of either combatant, and simply desire to
bring out the fact that the crucial question, Is man
morally responsible for passive injuries ? was lost
sight of, partly through a real or supposed denial
on one side that any injuries were suffered, and
partly by a persistent refusal on the other side to
recognise a distinction between wounds " inflicted
by an enemy" and evil for which we are deemed
blameworthy. It is instructive to recall the fact that Augustine,
prior to the Pelagian controversy, saw and used
this distinction in his denunciation of the Mani-
chseans. These people asserted that God had
surrendered men to become the perpetrators of
1 Augustine on Grace and Original Sin. Bk. ii. caps, xi-xiv.

in AUGUSTINE'S EARLIER VIEWS 143
inevitable sin, and that on account of this sin He
condemned them to eternal darkness. Against this
doctrine Augustine launched his thunderbolts,
declaring that such a surrender of helpless creatures
to unavoidable sin would itself be sinful, and that
to punish these souls for the sin to which He gave
them up by consigning them to a position in which
it was inevitable, would be still more wicked. He
declared that a God who could so act should, in
stead of setting up as a Judge, " confess Himself a
criminal " for " condemning those whom he knows to
have suffered evil rather than done it ... . first giving
them up to incurable contamination, and then, as if
that were not enough, accusing them falsely of mis
conduct." To this he added the pregnant sentence,
" These souls, therefore, did no evil themselves, but
in all this were innocent sufferers. The real agent
was He who sent them away from Himself into this
wretchedness." x
No language could more forcibly exhibit the justice
of the distinction I am anxious to enforce than this
generous outburst of indignation. It sets in the
clearest possible light the vital principle which was
not only lost sight of during the Pelagian controversy,
while polemical passions burned, but was obscured
for many generations by the false issues which, having
once been raised, were perpetuated by sectarian divi
sions. We can scarcely be too generous in making
allowance for the errors which sprang up on each side
from a perverted zeal for godliness ; but we must
1 Reply to Faustus. Bk. xxii. cap. 22.

144 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
deplore the fact that while Pelagius either denied or
explained away some of the darkest and saddest
phenomena of human nature and experience, Augus
tine exaggerated these facts and gave them a false
ethical interpretation. The attitude of the one was
like that of a certain enthusiast who should declare
to the patients lying prostrate in a hospital that
they could arise and fulfil the duties of healthy
life if they chose. The attitude of the other was
like that of a physician who should inform his
patients that it was their own fault that they were
stricken by the plague ; that because of their
disease they deserved to be burned, and could in
nowise assist their own cure, even by asking for
or accepting a prescribed and provided remedy.
In each case the power of appeal to man's con
science was impaired : — in the one case, because
men knew that they were weaker and in a worse
moral plight than Pelagius allowed ; in the other
case, because men resented gross injustice, and made
their moral impotence an excuse for disobedience
to the Divine voice, which bade them stretch forth
their palsied limbs and follow Him who offered
health. Augustine triumphed because, in spite of his
erroneous interpretation, plain men were able to verify
at least the general correspondence of his views to
some of the most humiliating facts of history and
observation, and were conscious alike of their own
infirmities and of the awful force of evil in the world.
Sincere men who had striven after righteousness and
failed to do the good they honestly attempted found

ill WHY AUGUSTINE TRIUMPHED 145
the statements of Pelagius untrue to their experience.
Insincere men who had no desire to fight the good
fight repudiated his views as too stern and con
demnatory, and preferred to take refuge from the
reformer's censures and from self-reproach in the
theological explanation of Augustine. Christian
parents who mourned the defects of their children
put away the Pelagian picture of infancy as ideal.
Saintly men who had made great advances in holi
ness and knew that without inspiration and strength
from Christ they would have remained in trespasses
and sin, thankfully learned from Augustine to trace
all their attainments to Divine grace, and to disclaim
all merit and glory for themselves. Thus from the
most diversified classes of men Augustine found
support and acquiescence upon the ground of ex
perience, and those who acknowledged the soundness
of his facts were naturally predisposed to accept his
doctrinal explanations without subjecting them to
severe critical examination. For all that was true,
strong and reverent in Augustine's teachings the
Church has great reason to be thankful. But we
can scarcely lament too bitterly that he refused to
recognise consistently the distinction between in
jury suffered and wrong done ; between man as
the passive victim of ancestral sin, and man as a
moral agent who repeats the transgressions of his
fathers, and brings upon himself the worst of all
sufferings in the torment of a gnawing worm and
the burning flame of conscious guilt. Centuries of
theological and philosophical debate, supplemented L

146 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
by the scientific investigations of recent years, have
placed the once disputed facts before us in the
clearest possible light ; and it may be hoped that in
no distant day the theological interpretation of these
facts will coincide with Augustine's earlier views and
therein accord with the teachings of Scripture and
of ethical science, and with the moral intuitions of
common men.1
4. The Circumstantial effects of sin. The most
important factor in a man's earthly environment
is man. The subjective effects of sin on the in
dividual being multiplied by the number of men
who suffer them, produces a world which is full
of influences adverse to faith and righteousness.
The sins and follies of ages have evolved political
and social conditions which seem to contradict the
thought of a Divine Order and defy all efforts to
unravel the tangled web. Our ears are daily assailed
with wails of piteous lamentation, with shrieks of
horror, and fierce denunciations of cruelty, heart-
lessness, and lust. Were the tragedies enacting in
a single city uncovered to any gazer, the sight
would stupefy or madden. Even our present super
ficial knowledge of the circumstances in the midst
of which millions pass their days would probably
madden us, were it not for the benumbing influence
of familiarity, and the merciful law which ever tends
to make the realities we have seen become shadowy
.and unreal as soon as they pass from sight. It would
1 See Appendix, Note 15.

ill MAN'S EVIRONMENT 147
serve no good end to load these pages with ghastly
and loathsome particulars. In some measure they
are known to all, and at some time they smite every
thoughtful mind.
It is not merely true, as Pelagius confessed, that as
intelligence awakens, children are exposed to the
pernicious influence of evil example ; but the wrongs
which they behold are full of appalling suggestions
to the mind, and fraught with evil provocations to
the heart. Speaking of an approaching crisis, our
Lord foretold that because iniquity would abound
the love of many would wax cold, and His words
direct us to the worst effect of an evil environ
ment. The prevalence of iniquity deprives each
heart of that nourishing and refining stream of
social influence which in a city of God would
develop love and good works, as fruitful trees are
nourished by a river. Not only is this "river of
God " depleted of its waters, but foul streams take
their place. Evil example may sometimes act as
a deterrent because of some repulsive features or
shocking consequences, but even in its most hideous
forms it tends to propagate itself by the provocation
of anger, revenge, or other destructive passion, and
when it wears a garb of pleasantness it not only
allures to imitation, but fascinates and attracts to
some responsive fellowship in sin. Nor is this the
utmost limit of its noxious influence, for while allur
ing or aggravating to sin it is full of sinister sig
nificance, and renders faith in God's wisdom and
goodness impossible in the absence of some
L 2

148 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
assurance which enables the heart to trust the
Almighty Ruler while the intellect fails to under
stand His ways. Even those who have most faith in
God are often staggered and afraid, so that, like
Jeremiah, they exclaim, " Righteous art Thou O
Lord when I plead with thee — yet let me reason
the case with Thee" (Jer. xii. i). Thus in many
ways, of which these thoughts are but hinted
reminders, the presence and prevalence of the sin
which historically flows down from the obscure
commencement of moral life on earth militates
against that kingdom which is righteousness and
peace and joy in the Holy Spirit of God.
It can scarcely escape attention that the classi
fication of these effects of sin under the words
physical, intellectual, moral, and circumstantial is
somewhat arbitrary, and that no such separa
tion can be observed in the objective world of
reality. We may sort and label the phenomena
thus for the sake of mental clearness, but even
while engaged in the attempt to describe them
separately we find them interlacing and recombining
in defiance of logical analysis. For speculative
minds there might be great interest in an endeavour
to trace their mutual relations, and to think out the
laws of their interaction. Such an inquiry would
also have great practical value if successfully prose
cuted, because it would tend to clear away many
obscurities and to correct several mistakes which lie
near the roots of great and calamitous corruptions of

ORIENTALISM 149

religious thought and life. But, valuable as such
an inquiry might be, it only falls within my province
to indicate a few of the phenomena it would have to
deal with, and to do this only so far as may serve
to give increased clearness and force to the vital
distinction between those consequences of sin which
belong to the region of necessary causality, and those
which belong to the higher realm of free volitional
life in which the terms " cause " and " effect " have
no rational application in their strict scientific sense.
A prolific source of error lies in the tendency to
attach an exaggerated importance to one class of
phenomena as compared with the others, and even
to treat one as if it alone were vitally significant
Thus an undue attention to the physical side of
man's nature has been connected with an almost
materialistic conception of sin. Orientalism, with
its false ideals of purity, very early crept into the
Christian Church, inducing a Docetic Christology and
substituting ascetic ordinances for the Gospel as the
remedy of sin. Hence came the dishonouring of
marriage and childbearing, and the polluting doc
trine which stigmatised the natural desires of the
flesh as sinful. Hence, celibate orders and all the
attendant evils of withdrawal from wholesome
family life, and the inevitable reaction in outbursts
of licentiousness. Hence also, the sullying of com
paratively innocent minds by the prurient questions
of the Confessional, and the consequent creation of
a false conscience, which has marred the sanctity of
married life for millions.

150 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
A striking feature of modern thought is the
tendency to find the cause of immorality in physical
conditions, and to substitute hygiene for the Gospel,
and sanitation for Sanctification.
A similar exaggeration of the intellectual element
found all man's defect in the lack of knowledge,
treated fleshly sins as harmless, and exalted gnosis
as the one thing needful for salvation. The essential
fault of ancient Gnosticism has often reappeared.
It did much to undo the benefits of the Protestant
Reformation by reducing the doctrine of Justifica
tion by Faith to a demand for mere intellectual
assent, and by the elevating of orthodox opinion to
a test of fitness for church membership.
By an exaggerated account of the ruinous effects
of sin on man's moral nature, moral responsibility
was practically undermined. The doctrine of Ori
ginal Sin has tended to sap belief in God's Justice
and to reduce men to despondent helplessness by
stamping the word guilt even on attempts to pray,
and discouraging endeavours after righteousness as
not only vain but sinful.
So, also, much evil has come from a too exclusive
consideration of man's environment. This has
fostered a fatalistic sense of impotence in the
individual ; and has directed remedial efforts too
exclusively towards an external readjustment of
society and the removal of unfavourable conditions ;
because engendering a hopeless and impatient
distrust of the Christian method which works
towards the transformation of society by the salva-

ill COMPLEX PHENOMENA 151
tion of individuals from sin. As one result of this
prevalent mistake many have been taught to rail at
their circumstances where they should have blamed
their own misdeeds and folly, and have learned to
pity themselves as the victims of other men's
iniquities where they should have blamed them
selves as sinners.
The only safeguard against all these mischievous
mistakes is to recognise that the various conse
quences of sin are intermixed in a manner which
defies human diagnosis, although there is one clear
moral principle by which the judgment of God will
be determined — a principle which is also perfectly
clear to our moral judgment, although its judicial
application is outside our province and utterly
beyond our power.
All physical and. some intellectual consequences
of sin fall within the region in which the law of
necessary causation is supreme. Physical injuries
are physically caused, and neither volition nor desire
can sever the effect from the cause. Yet in many
cases the immediate cause is set in motion by the
action of the individual who suffers the effect, and
his action may be due to intellectual error, and this,
again, may be traceable to a subtle moral bias, to
some conscious defiance or neglect of known law,
or to the deceptive character of his environment.
In other cases the physical effect is due to the act of
a second person, so that the sufferer is a passive
victim. Yet again, the act of the injurious person may
be occasioned though not caused by some prior pro-

152 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
vocation such as a blow or a cruel word on the part
of the one who is smitten in return. Or the physical
hurt may be due to remote ancestral causes, to
mental shock produced by evil tidings, to accidents,
bad climate, unskilful handling at birth or in
infancy. These are but suggestive illustrations, and
not more than an infinitesimal part of an exhaustive
list, but they serve to show that there is a funda
mental distinction between these various physical
consequences of sin, though only omniscience can
distribute blame and pity in equitable proportion to
innocence and ill-desert.
Similarly, some intellectual consequences of sin
are due to physical causes which produce effects on
the brain, and so affect the intellectual operations.
Others may be due to strictly intellectual causes
' which furnish false data for judgment, or shut out
essential facts in a manner for which the deluded
thinker is no more accountable than he is for a cloud
which obscures the sun, or for the false news pub
lished by a press agency. Here it is obvious that
moral elements may, in many cases, enter into the
stream of antecedents. A man may yield himself
up too willingly to the bias given .by false news, and
may linger under a cloud which overshadows, when
by an effort he could step out into the light. In this,
and in many similar ways of which it is a sample, a
man may be at least partially responsible for his
own intellectual damage. Hence, although it is
true that in some important respects a man is no
more responsible for his beliefs than a leopard for

iii COMPLEX PHENOMENA 153
his spots, or an Ethiopian for the colour of his skin,
it is .also true that a man is responsible for the man
ner in which he deals with his opportunities to
acquire information, and for the spirit in which he
considers evidence and arguments, and prosecutes the
quest for truth. Our intellectual operations are sub
ject to inviolable law, and a demonstration once seen
must enforce belief; but it still remains possible for
moral qualities to so seriously prejudice the exercise
of thought as to determine the formation of an un
just judgment or a false belief, for which, with all its
issues, the thinker must be justly blamed.
Yet again, it is manifest that a man's environment
is the product of an infinite variety of causes, physical,
intellectual, and moral, which do their work in a
fashion we are powerless to control or modify. The
place, time, and social position in which we are born
exert an incalculable influence upon our lives, and
go far to determine the conditions of our moral pro
bation. We are the children of our age and country
without the possibility of choice or refusal. Yet in
the course of an ordinary lifetime there is always
some scope for selection. A man may drift or even
force his way into an unfavourable environment
through an intellectual mistake, through a culpable
preference, or through an indolent neglect or cowardly
refusal to make and carry out a choice. It was not in
vain that Christ said, " Watch and pray that ye enter
not into temptation " — for men often elect to go into
danger and dally with fascination, or fail to use
due vigilance to avoid entanglements and the peril

154 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect. in
of proximity to contagious sin. It is no uncommon
thing, therefore, for men to ascribe their ruin to.the
force of circumstances, when they ought to blame
their self-exposure to temptation. We may thank
fully remember that God knows where we dwell,
even " where Satan's seat is," and He will estimate
defeats and victories according to the adverse forces
to be overcome ; but He, and He alone, can dis
criminate between our misfortunes and our faults.
These are a few rough hints of the tangled problem
which Divine judgment only can unravel. I make
no attempt to discuss it further than may thus suffice
to confirm and illustrate the principle that in accord
ance with our definition of sin, the Righteous Judge
and Saviour must of necessity distinguish between
the consequences of sin for which the individuals
who suffer them are not morally responsible, and
those for which they are responsible either wholly or
in part.

LECTURE IV
Remedial Measures
The vital distinction which has been drawn be
tween evil and sin commands our belief that a
righteous God will faithfully respect it, alike in
judging and in saving men ; so that we may boldly
say that He will not condemn men as guilty on
account of any passive injuries, or erroneous but
not ill-meaning thoughts or conduct, and will not
do them the galling wrong of affecting to forgive
their wounds or their mistakes, however grievously
these may mar their nature and pervert their influ
ence on others. It by no means follows, however,
that because God will not confound these things
which differ, evfl and sin require, or even admit
of two separate and independent remedial systems.
While attention is fixed upon their ethical qualities,
they seem to demand totally different methods of
treatment ; but a closer investigation leads to an
opposite conclusion by compelling us to recognise
those resemblances and common qualities which
naturally tend to obscure their ethical difference,

156 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
and have actually led to a widespread denial
of its reality. Many forms of sin have their
exact counterpart in guiltless evils, which are out
wardly indistinguishable, being differentiated solely
by subjective qualities which no human eye can
discern. In addition to these external resemblances
they have also some common properties which pro
duce similar effects : they are co-existent in the
same individuals and social groups, and they are in
many ways so subtly interfused that neither can be
perfectly remedied while the other remains. These
facts are so important in their bearing upon subse
quent discussions that they call for a more detailed
examination. The most innocent forms of evil and the most
culpable forms of sin are alike in this, that they are
contrary to the will of God. It is God's will to carry
out sublime plans which involve the temporary
sufferance of things which grieve Him, but this for
bearance does not render them harmonious with His
will ; and His plans include an abiding purpose to
counteract and overrule for good all conscious and
all unconscious, all defiant and all unintentional, all
active and all passive non-confornjity to His will.
He cannot tolerate evil merely because it is not sin.
He must needs be solicitous to rectify the wrong He
pities, as well as that which He condemns. He is the
healer of diseases and the teacher of the ignorant
and foolish, as well as the judge of the wicked and
the pardoner of repented sin. Moreover, while in
dividual men need to be redeemed from their

iv THE REMEDY REQUIRED 157
iniquities, society also needs readjustment, and all the
ramifications and indirect results of man's mistakes
and crimes must be eradicated before the Divine
will can be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
In a pre-eminent degree it is essential that man
kind should be delivered from evils which have worn
the robes of virtue. The world has suffered terribly
from the mistakes of conscientious men, and from
the fruits of religious delusion. These guiltless
breaches of the Divine Order are in some respects
more disastrous in their consequences than unmis
takable crimes, because they help to confound the
moral judgments of mankind and cause evil to be
accounted good. One of the hardest tasks which
await the Christian Church is the complete reversal
ol some pagan notions of duty, and some false ideals
of sanctity which dominate many nations and per
sist to a lamentable extent in professedly Christian
lands. All these wrongful customs, habits, and ideals
must of necessity be abolished before mankind can
be conformed to the Divine will. Against them
God must war with all the resources of righteousness
and truth.
If all the woes of mankind were caused by blame
less ignorance and mistakes, the remedy would be
very simple, for more light would suffice to set us
right, education would transform the race, and cul
ture would produce righteousness. But unhappily
man's mistakes are not all, or nearly all, innocent.
All error is not sin, but sin is always error. Even
the sins of the shrewdest and most highly intellectual

158 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
are stupid blunders, so that the transgressor deserves
in plain language to be called a fool, and in a pre
eminent and Scriptural sense he is " the fool." To
a great extent, therefore, the most innocent and the
most culpable forms of error demand the same treat
ment. Both the ignorant man on whom God has
compassion and the wicked man with whom He is
angry need mental enlightenment. Both classes
need guidance and instruction in the way of life,
although the light which might suffice to emancipate
the mind from error is inadequate for deliverance
from sin.
But the relations of evil and sin are more intimate
and subtle than thus appears. Each is a con
stant cause or occasion of the other. Sin, as we
have already seen, inevitably produces error not
only in the mind of the doer but in others around
and in the generations that follow. The cloud which
darkens a transgressor's sky obscures the heavens to
many more, and casts a gloomy shadow over wide
spaces of earth. Similarly, even innocent errors
which bear fruit in guiltless non-conformity to the
will of God work havoc, set up stumbling-blocks,
and multiply the forces of temptation. Thus error
can never be abolished until sin has been destroyed,
and sin can never be exterminated while error
persists. This leads us into the presence of a still deeper, and
in some respects more painful and almost appalling
truth, viz., that the cure of moral ignorance and
guiltless non-conformity to God's will involves a

iv THE AGGRAVATION OF SYMPTOMS 159
process which often issues in the development
of evil into sin. Enlightenment concerning the
intrinsic quality of certain habits or states of mind,
and their inaccordance with the will of God, does
not always avail to induce their abandonment,
and in every case of failure the time of ignorance
which God can overlook (as Paul explained to the
Athenians) passes away, and the day of judgment
dawns. Directly light arrives the conduct which
immediately before was only evil becomes sinful
unless instantly and finally forsaken. " If I had not
come and spoken unto them they had not had sin,"
said Christ, " but now they have no excuse for their
sin" (John xv. 22). The coming of necessary
light thus enforces on men a conscious choice of
good and evil, and the choice is one in which all
the forces of habit, and very often the blind impulses
of natural propensity and inclination, are on the side
of disobedience. Evil is often pleasant for a season,
and habits are stubborn masters, which cannot be
thrown off without a difficult and painful struggle ;
but the alternative is sin, and sin of a deadly
kind. Paul tells us that a specific function of the Hebrew
law and discipline was to impart this knowledge of
the inherent quality of acts and dispositions. With
startling paradox he calls it a revelation of the " sin
fulness of sin." Before the Divine righteousness
could possibly be revealed for the remission and
purging of sin, men had to know what sin means,
.and what things God abhors and must destroy,

160 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
Such teaching increased the complexity and ardu-
ousness of life. It brought new work for the con
science, new burdens of responsibility for the soul.
Into man's nature it brought a warfare in which
victory was possible only to heroic souls, and even
to them, seemed always remote and often beyond
the bounds of bravest hope. To the most sensitive
and valiant strivers after righteousness the agony
was the most intense. It seemed to them that their
religious knowledge made them worse instead of
better ; and that the law which was meant for their
deliverance from evil intensified the desires it bade
them mortify and filled their hearts with shame.
The coming of Christ carried this process into a
new and more advanced stage, and wherever the
gospel is preached and the glories of holiness are
proffered in Christ's name, the possibility of
heightened sin and deepened condemnation is intro
duced. If Christ is not allowed to become a
Saviour from both the guilt and the power of sin,
the state of those who have once seen Him must of
necessity fee worse instead of better. As the
standard of conduct is raised and the prospects of
better life are made hopeful, the conscience has to
deal with altogether new responsibilities, and as by
degrees the realities of good and evil are perceived,
and all illusions and infantile conceptions are
banished by the growing light, things which were
innocent in times of darkness and almost excusable
in the dimness of early dawn, stand forth in all their
naked vileness as abominations in the sight of God.

ANNIHILATION NO REMEDY 161

These considerations render it obvious that,
although evil and sin must be distinguished by God
as Judge and by God as Saviour — and neither can
be totally eradicated while the other persists — yet
the supreme problem demanding solution is the cure
of sin strictly so-called. The nature of this solution
has therefore now to be investigated.
Preceding discussions have reduced the scope of
this inquiry within somewhat definite limits, and
have prepared the way for a summary dismissal of
several conceivable expedients.
(i) The annihilation of living beings is no remedy
for sin.
If destruction were a cure, prussic acid would
be a panacea for all human diseases ! Sin is a
malady which mars and tends to destroy human
beings. Whether it can work their absolute extinc
tion we have left as an open question, but a world
wide completion of such a process by Divine fiat
would obviously be a despairing confession by the
Creator that He was incapable of repairing the
ravages of sin, and preferred to wipe out the abortive
results of His creative experiment. The only cure of
sin is that which destroys the poison and repairs the
devastation it has wrought in diseased moral natures.
But although the perishing of sinners is not in
itself a cure of sin, we have seen that the ideal pur
pose of Creation is not necessarily forfeited by the
non-survival of some transgressors. The question
of proportion between survivors and failures is
M

1 62 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
one we are utterly unable to- discuss. No
arithmetical calculation can be tolerated, seeing that
we are incapable of estimating the value of even
one glorified creature to God, or to himself or to
his fellows. All we can venture to affirm is that,
given a widely operative cure, which falls short
of universal success, a non-survival of inveterately
wicked men would appear to our minds more con
gruous with the Divine nature and purposes than
the preservation of incurable sinners in conscious
misery and persistent wickedness for ever.
(2) The infliction of eternal conscious punish
ment on impenitent souls is no remedy for sin.
Our first principles do not absolutely exclude a
possible endurance of eternal suffering by persistently
wicked persons, but manifestly such suffering is not
remedial. The idea of remedy is excluded by the
word punishment, as defined by those who insist
upon its necessity, and even if this term were so
defined as to imply a curative design in God's mind,
such a design would still be shut out by the word
" eternal." Unlike the theory of conditional immor
tality, the dogma of eternal conscious punishment
leaves the refuse of mankind to seethe and writhe,
not only in everlasting torment, but in a perpetual
attitude of blasphemous hostility to God. Instead
of remedy, it seems to posit a development of the
plague of sin to its utmost limit of atrocity and
vileness. The fire of Gehenna which consumed the
offal of Jerusalem, and the decaying bodies of
animals, and of executed criminals, is no type of a

iv COERCION NO REMEDY 163
pandemonium in which the wicked are conserved in
their wickedness by the will of a holy God. Such
punishment, therefore, appears to be a frustration
not only of God's desire to save sinners but of His
desire to exterminate sin. Logically, we must admit
its abstract possibility, but only on the melancholy
hypothesis that God has no better alternative within
His power.
(3) The pardon of sin is in itself no remedy.
Pardon must have an important place in any
remedial measures, but forgiveness cannot morally
precede repentance, and therefore cannot originate,
although when subsequently given it may and does
tend to deepen it. Some hope of pardon is essen
tial to salvation, for repentance is precluded by
despair. But unless the prospect of pardon is
associated with some corrective influence, and is
subject to such moral conditions as make for
righteousness, it will aggravate rather than remedy
the disease ; for indiscriminate forgiveness tends to
obliterate moral distinctions and to encourage the
repetition of offences.
(4) The suppression of sin by coercive measures
is no remedy.
It might perhaps be sufficient to say that when
certain moral states have been recognised as sinful,
the very word " suppression " denotes an unthinkable
process. Active transgressions may be suppressed,
but no external pressure or intimidating threats can
put an end to inward disaffection and lawlessness.
Indeed, repressive measures aggravate the desire to
M 2

164 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
rebel. There may be, and often is, a necessity
for repressive governmental action. High-handed
offenders cannot be allowed to work their fell designs
unchecked, or society would be dissolved. There
come times in the history of peoples when the Prince
of Peace may give employment to those forces which
are symbolised in the Apocalypse by the red horse
of war, and the black horse of famine, and the pale
horse of death. But these are not remedies. They
are but temporary expedients to restrain the wrath,
cupidity, profligacy, and arrogance of man, while
slowly operating remedies are applied.
The forcible suppression of sin must be dismissed
as non-remedial for a deeper reason than has yet
been stated, viz., that if it could be made effective it
would be equivalent to the destruction of human
nature. The suppression of personality with its
volitional freedom is in principle the same thing as
the annihilation of persons, because no persons, in
the true sense of that term, are left ; what remains
is but an army of automata, simulating but not
possessing personality. Docetism is not confined
to Christology, but has often been rife in anthropo
logy, for it inevitably enters when free-will, which is
the most essential constituent of a moral agent, has
been denied.1
Any Divine action which determined human
conduct otherwise than through the free play of
human faculties, i.e., through thought, affection, and
volition, would deprive these faculties of their due
1 See Appendix, Note 16,

AN APPARENT DILEMMA 165

activity in relation to conduct, and thus render them
practically non-existent. The power of God to
salvation must necessarily be a moral power work
ing in harmony with man's moral nature. This is
not a mere metaphysical dictum, but is universally
implied in the Scriptures. It is the universal prin
ciple which underlies the particular fact affirmed by
Paul when he said, " I am not ashamed of the
gospel : for it is the power of God unto salvation
to every one that believeth" (Rom. i. 16).
As the outcome of the foregoing discussion we are
now in a position to lay down a broad and funda
mental proposition, viz. : — That the Almighty can
not remedy sin by annihilating sinners ; by inflicting
upon them eternal penal sufferings ; by an indis
criminate amnesty ; or by forcible repression. These
measures are within the scope of His omnipotence,
but they would leave the Father's name unhallowed,
the Father's throne in human hearts unoccupied, and
the Father's will undone by men.
Conjoined with principles previously affirmed, this
statement seems to introduce a dilemma. It has
been agreed that unless God were to abdicate, and
cease to be either God or good, He could not
condone or tolerate the transgression of His own
righteous will. The Divine nature impels God to
employ His omnipotence in all possible ways for the
extermination of sin and the salvation of sinners.
But we have now ascertained that by a mere
exertion of power God can do nothing to constrain

1 66 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
men to forsake sin and work righteousness. How,
then, can these two principles be co-ordinated ? It
is of supreme importance that we should feel the
full force of the difficulty, but there is no real
dilemma. The two principles are not only com
patible but complementary, and serve to explain
much that is perplexing in the slow and painful
course of human history. The one principle renders
it inconceivable that God should ever cease to war
against sin ; the other compels us to acknowledge
that the weapons of this warfare are spiritual, and
that the strife may be indefinitely prolonged
because the moral nature of God's object precludes
the mere quelling of insurrection by force. Thus the
duration of the strife depends not merely on His
power, nor on His combined power and benevolence,
but on these as God allows them to be resisted by
human perversity, so that the hour of victory is de
ferred by the tenacity with which man cleaves to his
evil ways. The one principle assures us that God's
nature will not permit Him needlessly to lose any
time or spare any possible activity for the attain
ment of His object ; the other compels us to
acknowledge that the nature of man, and the nature
of sin, and the devastating effects it has produced
may protract rebellion through immeasurable time.
Hence the two principles when co-ordinated prepare
us to witness the passing of ages, during which
God's longsuffering tarries ; but they forbid us to
regard the slowness of Divine conquest as a mark
of weakness, or as a portent of failure, or as

iv OBEDIENCE MUST BE VOLUNTARY 167
reflecting unfavourably on the Divine wisdom or
goodness or zeal. They assure us that the long-
suffering of God is not to be ascribed to slackness
or indifference, but to His passion for salvation.
He bears long with puny creatures who set their
wills against His own, because He has respect for
the work of His own hands, and can be satisfied
with nothing less than the voluntary obedience of the
moral beings He has made.
By this co-ordination of apparently conflictive
principles we are conducted to the immediate though
not the final object of our quest. The only real
remedy for sin, and the only perfect satisfaction of
God's nature, must consist in the reconciliation of
man to a state of voluntary obedience to the Divine
will. Nothing less and nothing else can harmonise
the salvation of sinners and the extermination of
sin. Only thus can God and man be satisfied
together, and be made perfect in one according to
the prayer of Christ. The inquiry before us, there
fore, now takes this definite form : — By what
measures can God elicit a voluntary obedience to
Himself? These measures must of necessity correspond to
the exact nature of God's demands. Hence it must
be our first business to define the obedience which
God requires and would induce. Happily for us
this task is quite simple, for we have only to remind
ourselves of most familiar words. The language of
Scripture is of sunlight clearness, and both Testa
ments give the same account of the whole duty of

168 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
man. All God's commandments are summed up
in three words, " Thou shalt love " ; all the precepts
of the Decalogue, all the teachings of the prophets,
and all the precepts and persuasions of Christ hang
on these immeasurable words. Everything else in
the ethical teachings of the Bible is an expansion,
an explanation, or a particular application of this
one law, which in the moral realm is the law of
laws. Against this there can be no righteous
legislation ; beyond this no just legislation can
extend. It includes our duty to God and to our
fellows ; and thus in the most literal sense love is
the fulfilling of the law. Nothing else can conceiv
ably fulfil it, and he that is guilty of transgressing
the least of God's commands is necessarily guilty of
the whole. Selfishness may obey many particular
precepts, it may suppress the movements of ill-
will, it may simulate the actions of benevolence, it
may induce a lavish sacrifice of wealth, it may
incite to deeds of spurious devotion, and may give
a man's body to be drowned, or burned, or im
prisoned ostensibly for the sake of others ; but
selfishness, whether it take the form of prudence or
imprudence, cannot fulfil the Divine law, because
however subtly masked, and however much it may
be lauded by those whom it deceives, it is inherently
the ethical opposite of love. Nothing but love can
fulfil the law of God, or put men into harmony with
the universal order of which He who is love is the
Head. This definition ot the obedience God requires

iv THE GENERATION OF LOVE 169
marks an important stage in our inquiry. We have
found that God's measures for the salvation of
sinners and the extermination of sin must of
necessity be such as are designed and adapted to
reconcile men to a voluntary obedience to His per
fect will. Advancing yet another step we have
ascertained that this obedience can be induced only
by measures which inspire that love which is the
spring of all the conduct God enjoins, and the sum
of all that' He requires to see in human hearts.
Thus our problem immediately resolves itself into
the further question, By what means can God
generate love in man ?
The Generation of Love.
Guided by the law that "like begets like," and
also by the great saying of John, "We love Him
because He first loved us," we may with all con
fidence affirm that love can only be generated by
love. The apostolic theory of Christian love is thus
seen to be not only consonant with reason, but the
sublimest conceivable illustration of an inexorable
natural law. It is also verified by the history of the
gospel, and by all personal experience. " Love is of
God," i.e., all the love which can be found in creatures
is derivative, and, like created life, it can only be
accounted for by an eternal, self-existent source
in God. God's love has no source outside His
nature. It is neither caused nor nourished
by the love of other beings, nor can any lack

170 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
of love in others lessen it. Man's heart, unfed
by the love of friends on earth or by some fresh
supply from Heaven, waxes cold. It is but a fire in
which the fuel which burns emits itself in heat, and,
unless replenished, must expire. But God's love is
self-originated and independent of all external
provocation. Hence man can no more save himself
morally than he can warm his own body when
benighted amid Alpine snows and destitute of food
and shelter. Without love man cannot do God's
will, and God alone has love to give. Seeing, there
fore, that it is a necessity of God's nature to do every
thing in His power to save His creatures by destroy
ing sin in their hearts and enlisting them as willing
servants to Himself ; seeing, also, that He can only
secure this end by so communicating His love as to
reproduce it in them and make them partakers of
His Divine nature, we are entitled to conclude that
God will commend and impart His love to men at
any cost to Himself. Objections.
To an ever-increasing number of Christian
thinkers the great principle now affirmed stands
verified by its own luminous sublimity and by the
clearest utterances of Scripture. To them it is the
radiance of Divine glory which shines into our
hearts from the face of Christ, putting to shame all
lower thoughts of God's character and ways, and
rendering every adverse doctrine not only incredible

iv AUGUSTINE ON GOD'S LOVE 171
but monstrous. But this assurance is still unfelt
by many, and, before advancing on the path logically
open, we must frankly meet some objections.
The most radical objection with which we are
confronted is a denial that God loves sinners. This
denial is based on the assumption that such love for
sinners is inconceivable because God, who hates sin,
must needs regard the sinner and his sin as in
divisible until justification has taken effect. When
baldly stated this opinion sounds like a categorical
denial of numerous texts of Scripture, and those
who propound it are painfully aware that there
is some " appearance of contradiction " ; but this
appearance they endeavour with not a little courage
and subtlety to explain away. Their method is
to restrict the declaration of God's love for enemies
and sinners exclusively to the elect prior to the
date of their conversion. They attribute His love
for the elect not to the magnanimity which can
love them while regarding them as foes, but to
the fact that He chose them out of the world and
foreordained them to be members of Christ. No
one has ever put this more plausibly than Augus
tine. He freely states that " God had love toward
us even when we were practising enmity against
Him and working iniquity," but he will not allow
that this love for " us " as His chosen people had
any other ground or reason than His own work in us.
Commenting on the words of Christ "Thou hast
loved them as Thou hast loved me," he observes that
the word " as " does not mean " equally " or " in the

172 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

same way," but " because," i.e., " Thou hast loved
them because Thou hast loved me," and then adds,
" He could not but love the members of His son,
seeing He loveth the Son Himself ; nor is there any
other reason for loving His members save that He
loveth Himself (i.e., the Son) .... He loveth us
inasmuch as we are members of Him whom He
loveth ; and in order that we might be so He loved
us on this account before we existed " (on St. John,
Tractate ex. 5, 6).
This places before us in a clear light the ruling
principle on which all Augustinian interpretations
of Scripture, whether ancient or modern, are based.
God is not said to love sinners because it is His
nature to love, and nothing unloving can proceed
from the unmixed fountain of His goodness; but He
loves some sinners because they are from all eternity
incorporated with Christ by a sovereign and un
conditioned decree. Viewed chronologically and
from our earthly standpoint God loves the elect
while they are " practising enmity " and sinning
against Him ; but this is simply because He regards
them by anticipation as His children through their
predestined union with Christ. Thus the love of
God has no outgoings beyond the circle of His
adopted children, and even in their case it is not
allowed that Christ came into the world to commend
and communicate it as the instrumental power of
salvation.1 Calvin takes the same view as his ancient master,
1 See Appendix, Note 17.

iv CALVIN ON GOD'S LOVE 173
but states it a little more roughly. Thus he writes
that " no man can descend into himself and
seriously consider what he is without feeling that
God is angry and at enmity with him."1 Thus
he assumes that the estimate of God's mind and
attitude, which is formed by the workings of a guilty
conscience, unenlightened by the gospel, may be
cited by a theologian as good evidence to support
his doctrine that God hates sinners ! In so doing
he also fails to distinguish between anger and
enmity, and betrays no consciousness of having
identified two things which, though commonly
combined in evil men, are perfectly separable, seeing
that enmity is the opposite of love, and must always
be wicked, whereas anger is often righteous, and is
felt most keenly when those we love best do wrong.
In the same strain he declares " that God who pre
vents us with His mercy was our enemy until He was
reconciled unto us by Christ." In perfect harmony
with this view it is taught that God's love for His
friends is bestowed upon them only because He has
been reconciled to them by what Christ has done.
It is therefore an effect which Christ produces in
God, and in no sense the cause of man's reconcilia
tion to God. It is in no degree the efficient force of
man's salvation, but is a boon bestowed upon a few
because they are saved by a Divine decree. Con
sequently God's love is not the essence of His
character, which neither sin nor unbelief can alter,
and the gospel is not a message of equal truth to all
1 Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book ii. u. 16 § 2.

174 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
the world or worthy of acceptance by every
creature.1 I should be glad to think that these antique
theological ideas were also obsolete, but, unhappily,
the supposition would be incorrect. That such
ideas are discarded by many who subscribe Con
fessions of faith which affirm them must be
acknowledged with mingled satisfaction and regret.
It is also true that they find little expression in the
literature which commands a wide public acceptance.
But writers of some eminence and of far-spreading
influence still teach that out of the fountain of the
Divine nature there flow the sweet waters of
love and the bitter waters of hostility. I take
the following passage from a work which is
extensively used as a theological text-book in
English and American colleges. Discriminating
between punishment and chastisement the author
writes : " The punishment of the wicked is always
in Scripture referred to the anger of God, and the
chastisement of His people to His love . . . the
wicked and the good do not stand in the same
relation to God as objects of benevolence . . . when
suffering is seen to come from a Father's hand, and
to be a manifestation of love, it has a sanctifying
power ; but when it comes from the hand of God, as
a judge and an avenger, and is the expression of
displeasure and a proof of our alienation from God,
its tendency is to harden and exasperate ....
only when reconciled to God and assured of His
1 See Appendix, Note lS.

iv MODERN CALVINISM 175
love do they bring forth fruit unto God." 1 Here
it will be seen that love is so conceived that
it can be antithetically set over against anger, i.e.,
love and anger are regarded as opposites, and as
leading to totally different modes of action. We
are forbidden to tell men who feel the stripes of
castigation, and are thereby hardened and exasper
ated, that they misconstrue the feelings of God.
We may not assure them that God desires to correct
their lives, and that every stroke laid upon trans
gressors has a kind intent. On the contrary, we ar„e
informed that there is no benevolent design in their
sufferings. Thus the difference between the
reconciled and the unreconciled is not traced to the
fact that the one class believes the truth about God
and the other disbelieves it, but that God is friendly
to the one and hostile to the other. Thus the belief
cherished by each party corresponds to the facts,
and neither is deceived <in regard to God's actual
disposition. The Christian who joyfully declares
" He loved me" has a true faith ; but we have no
right to tell an unconverted man who believes in
God's hostility that he is cherishing a lie in his
heart. When one man suffers chastisement and
ascribes it to a Father's love he is right and is
benefited. When the other endures similar sufferings
and ascribes them to God's enmity, he also is right,
and being thereby hardened and enraged, he
experiences the natural and inevitable effect of God's
actual disposition and attitude towards himself.
1 Dr. Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology, vol. i. 418.

176 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
Thus the rod is to one a curse and to the other a
blessing, but in each case the effect corresponds to
God's foreknowledge and design.
One other objection to our position remains for
notice, and it claims the most patient and respectful
consideration because it proceeds from men who
fervently believe, and freely teach, that God's love is
universal, that He truly loves sinners, that this love
is the fountain of salvation, and was truly displayed
in the life and death of Christ, but who deny that the
revelation of love was the primary object of Christ's
coming, and contend that it is only an incidental and
secondary effect of His death.
This contention may most conveniently be con
sidered as advanced by Dale in his work on the
Atonement, and particularly as re-stated and em
phasised in his Preface to the seventh edition.1 The
passage to be examined follows a quotation from
Bushnell's work on " Vicarious Sacrifice," which Dale
regarded as a piteous confession, that the " moral
theory," as stated by the writer, " if true, is powerless ;
and the objective theory, if false, is effective." 2 It
cannot be conceded that " objective " and " Penal "
are, as this sentence assumes, synonymous or inter
changeable terms ; but apart from this misleading
assumption there is nothing unfair or exaggerated in
1 I make this selection partly because Dale is deservedly esteemed
as a broadminded, large-hearted, and unconventional theologian, and
also because no other work on the subject has been so widely read in
the present day.
2 The Atonement, Preface to seventh edition, Iii,

iv DALE'S ARGUMENT 177
the verdict it pronounces. From a totally different
standpoint I shall shortly have to deprecate Bush
nell's handling of the subject, but at present wish
only to explain the particular form in which Dale's
independent argument was introduced.
As a sequel to his trenchant criticism of Bushnell,
the following passage is presented as an adequate
proof that the Penal theory is not only effective but
true : —
" Nor is it only on the practical side that the
' moral ' view is fatally defective. Theoretically it
has a fatal flaw, at least when presented under its
most ordinary form. Most of those preachers who
deny that there is any direct relation between the
death of Christ and the remission of sins are in the
habit of saying that Christ died in order to reveal
the greatness of the Divine love for mankind, and
that this revelation of love is intended to draw the
hearts and lives of men to God. But, unless there is
something more to be said, this statement cannot pos
sibly afford us any intellectual or moral satisfaction.
" Let me use a homely illustration. If a friend of
mine had a son in San Francisco seriously ill, and
was unable to go to him, I might offer to go myself.
By crossing the Atlantic and the North American
continent in order to nurse my friend's child, by re
maining with him till he became strong enough to
bear the journey home, by taking all the trouble
necessary to bring the invalid back to his father's
house, I should show in a very effective way my
affection for my friend. But suppose that my friend
had no son in San Francisco, and no other interests
there which required personal attention, would there

178 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

be any sense in my saying that I meant to go to New
York, and to travel across to the Pacific coast, simply
to show my affection for him ? When I returned,
would he be able to attach any meaning to my words
if I told him that I had made the journey to demon
strate my friendship ? If the son was lying ill at
San Francisco, my chief motive in going there might
be a desire to show my affection to the father ; but
unless some object apart from the showing of affec
tion was to be secured by going there, the journey
would be no proof of my love for my friend. And
so, unless the death of Christ had some direct end
to answer in the redemption of the race, I confess
myself unable to attach any meaning to the state
ment that the death of Christ was a revelation of
His love.
" To take an illustration which lies a little closer to
the subject under consideration. If my brother made
his way into a burning house to save my child from
the flames, and were himself to perish in his heroic
venture, his fate would be a wonderful proof of his
affection for me and mine ; but if there were no
child in the house, and if I were told that he entered
it and perished with no other object than to show
his love for me, the explanation would be absolutely
unintelligible. The statement that Christ died for
no other purpose than to reveal His love to mankind
is to me equally unintelligible.
" It may of course be argued that the death of our
Lord was one of the necessary incidents of His In
carnation ; that in assuming our nature and living a
life of courageous righteousness He was certain to
provoke the cruel passions of wicked men ; and that
having undertaken the great work of founding the
kingdom of heaven among men, by teaching and
example, He demonstrated the greatness of His love
for us by not shrinking from the sufferings and death

iv REPLY TO DALE 179
which were the inevitable consequences of His work.
This is, at least, an intelligible theory ; but were the
sufferings and the death the inevitable consequences
of His work ? It does not seem that our Lord Him
self regarded them so. ' Thinkest thou not,' He said
to Peter at the moment of His arrest, ' that I cannot
now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give
me twelve legions of angels ? ' In the second lecture
I have endeavoured to show that ' to our Lord's own
mind His .death was something more than the in
evitable consequence of His fidelity to the truth, and
of His antagonism to the corrupt ambition, the
hypocrisy, and the evil passions of the ecclesiastical
rulers of the Jewish people.' It was His intention to
die for men ; and I submit that while such a death
as Christ died was a transcendent revelation of
love — if the death itself was in any way necessary for
human redemption — the death is left without ex
planation if we are simply assured that He died to
show His love for us."
Reviewing the entire passage, I find myself at a
loss to understand how so strong and usually clear
a thinker could have written it, and written it as a
final and conclusive defence of his position. His
argument largely consists of illustrations intended
to show that the revelation of love, apart from a
direct end to be served, over and above the mere
demonstration itself, would be futile, and that a sacri
ficial act which had no ground or reason except the
display of love would afford no intellectual or moral
satisfaction. That there is a large element of truth
in this contention may cheerfully be admitted.
Theatrical displays of affection by wilful self-sub-
N 2

180 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

jection to pain or loss in ways which confer no
benefit on the beloved objects are not only sense
less but are an insult to the intelligence and right
feelings of their objects. The cases supposed by
Dale to illustrate this point are perfectly clear, and
in some respects convincing. My sole objection to
them is that they are utterly irrelevant. It must be
confessed that if I take a journey to San Francisco
without any object, except to prove to a friend in
England that I am ready to undertake such a labour
and expense for his sake, I am more likely to excite
his pity or his laughter than his affectionate grati
tude. But beyond this, my friend will certainly have
cause to complain that I have wronged both his
intellect and his heart by imputing to him a need
for such a silly demonstration, and by my sup
position that it could possibly be a source of comfort
and satisfaction to his mind. It is also clear that
if my friend has a son in San Francisco, and I go
to nurse that son in a dangerous illness, and presently
bring him home to his father, I do indeed prove my
love for my friend very effectively, just as Dale
represents. But this illustration betrays an astonish
ing lapse of logical acumen, and fails to throw any
light upon the subject under consideration. There is
no analogy whatever between a man going to
America to prove his love for a friend whom he leaves
in England and Christ's coming away from His
Father in Heaven to prove that Father's love for
His rebellious human offspring here on earth. To
exhibit anything like a true analogy, the illustration

REPLY TO DALE

ought to have depicted a case in which the friend
had a son in a far land who was estranged and
hostile and was wrecking his life because ignorant or
incredulous of his father's affection, and who therefore
needed to be reconciled to his father. But such an
illustration would have been fatal to Dale's argument.
Equally futile and irrelevant are the other cases.
No one has ever suggested as a theory of the
Atonement that Christ came into the world and died
to prove His own love for the Father. Still less has
any one suggested that Christ came into a world
where God had no sons in sickness or dire peril to
be saved and restored, and died here a needless
death to prove His love for the Father in Heaven.
The theory which Dale needed to grapple with is
one which in all its forms affirms that Christ came
because the Father sent Him, and sent Him to com
mend not His own love for the Father, but the
Father's love for men, and that He did so because
their understandings were darkened, "being alien
ated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them" (Eph. iv. 17-18), and because it is
eternal life " to know God and Jesus Christ whom
He hath sent." This theory assumes, or rather
accepts, the statements of Scripture that men are
perishing for lack of precisely such knowledge of
God as Christ conveys and verifies in His life and
death. Dale's illustrations have therefore no rele
vance, and they show how utterly he has failed to
touch or even to apprehend the position he proposed
to assail.

1 82 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
The same extraordinary misapprehension is be
trayed in the entire body of the discussion, and is
emphasised with italics • in a sentence which was
meant for a trenchant and triumphant " Q.E.D." " I
submit that while such a death as Christ died was a
transcendent revelation of love — if the death itself
was in any ivay necessary for human redemption — the
death is left without explanation if we are simply
assured that He died to show His love for us"
(p. Iv.). This sentence assumes that the revelation
of love was not inherently necessary for human re
demption, and it also assumes that the death was
not necessary for the adequate revelation of this
love. We have already found that the revelation of
God's love to men in their present condition as
sinners, and to some extent as the victims of sin,
is indispensable to the production of love in men,
and therefore to their reconciliation to a voluntary
obedience to His will. Hence we have concluded
that the demonstration of God's love is essential to
the satisfaction of His own nature and the fulfil
ment of His purposes as the Creator and Moral
Governor of the world. We have not yet formally
introduced the death of Christ as the supreme
commendation of His love, but we are in a position
to so far anticipate future lines of thought as to say
that the only evidence yet lacking to complete our
disposal of Dale's argument is a reasonable proof
that, without the Cross, Christ's demonstration of
God's love would have been inadequate for the
perfect accomplishment of His designs. If this can

OBJECTIONS REVIEWED 183

be supplied in its due place, we shall be in a
position to claim Dale's support to our position,
because we shall have shown that the " death itself
was . . . necessary for hitman redemption!'1
Reviewing these representative opinions it will be
seen that while they differ in their thoughts of what
love is, they are unanimous in denying that the reve
lation of Divine love is the primary need of humanity,
and betray a total failure to conceive that such a
revelation is a necessity of the Divine nature, be
cause essential to God's purpose in the salvation of
sinners and the extermination of sin. Those who
limit the love of God to a portion of the race, and
some who rejoice in its universality, are agreed in
the contention that Christ did not come into the
world to bring this love home to men, as the efficient
force of reconciliation, but in some way to propitiate,
satisfy, or reconcile God, or in more abstract terms
to satisfy the claims of His justice by enduring
the penalty of sin as the prerequisite of forgiveness.
In principle this contention has been disposed of
by anticipation in our discussion of God's nature,
but it requires to be dealt with in its present form
as an objection to the validity of our projected course
of thought. Its special claim to attention lies in the
fact that it introduces the great word Propitiation,
and assumes that we are running counter to or
setting aside the Biblical doctrine which that word
represents. Such a plea as this is so grave and
1 See Appendix, Note 19.

1 84 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

specific that it must be met on its own ground as an
alleged doctrine of Scripture. This necessitates an
examination of Biblical references to propitiation.
The task is not an easy one, because we have to deal
with terms which have long been identified with
ideas which, as I hope to demonstrate, do not pro
perly belong to them. It is also complicated and
painfully prejudiced by serious concessions which
have been made by various writers in regard to
traditional interpretations of Scripture.
The first concession demanding notice is frequently,
though not always, made in order to lighten the ship
of Christian theology by throwing overboard the
Old Testament idea of sacrifice as a survival of
ancient Semitic heathenism, while insisting that in
the New Testament this heathenish idea is not only
discarded but reversed. A distinguished theologian
draws this distinction by observing that " the change
in the priesthood signified a radical change in the
relation of God to sacrifice. In the Levitical as in
other religious systems the sacrifice was offered to
please God, to win His favour, to propitiate Him by
the surrender of something precious to man. But in
the Christian system this standpoint is transcended ;
the initiative lies with God .... whatever the death
of Christ may signify, it does not mean an expedient
for quenching the wrath of God, or for buying off
man from His vengeance. This was a gain for
religion greater than mind can calculate."1
If convinced that the Levitical system was thus
1 Dr. Fairbairn, The Philosophy of the Christian Religion, p. 500.

iv LEVITICAL SACRIFICES 185
on a par with pagan religions in its conception of
God's relation to sacrifice, I should rejoice with Dr.
Fairbairn in the deliverance of mankind from such a
superstition ; but although our recognition of facts
must never be deterred by any fear of consequences,
we must frankly confess that grave misgivings would
arise from such a breach of continuity in Biblical
theology as this opinion postulates. A vast stride
in advance is consonant with our thought of Christ
as the consummator of the religion which constituted
the Hebrews a peculiar people ; but a complete
reversal of the significance of sacrifice would mean
the introduction of a new religion, and would almost
justify the contention . of Marcion that Jesus Christ
revealed a new God. It may fairly be said that
the contrast is affirmed only between the Levitical
system and Christianity, and not between the theo
logy of the prophets and the teachings of Christ. If
this were all that could be said, it would at least afford
some relief to those who take Dr. Fairbairn's view of
the New Testament doctrine of sacrifice ; but in my
judgment even this qualified statement is unsatis
factory, because it admits that the idea of sacrifice
embodied in the Levitical ordinances was akin to
that which prevailed in heathen systems of religion,
and terribly at variance with the teaching of the
prophets. This theory of antagonism I reject as
based upon a grave misinterpretation of the ritual
law, and although this places me in opposition to a
formidable array of critical authorities, I am confident
that the position can be established by irrefragable

1 86 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
proof. My contention is that neither in the Levitical
system nor in prophetic writings is there any asser
tion, or suggestion, or implication of the idea that
God needs to be, or conceivably can be, appeased by
sacrifice. If this contention can be sustained on
critical grounds, it will dissipate any painful sus
picion that there was such a breach of continuity
between the old dispensation and the new as some
allege, and by doing this it will help to place the
Christian doctrine of propitiation on a broad, firm
basis. New Testament doctrine must be determined
by severe though sympathetic examination of the
language in which it is stated ; but we may fairly
attach some force to the consideration that it would
be very astounding if we were to discover that
Christianity approximates more nearly to ancient
idolatrous religions than did the Levitical system in
its doctrine of sacrifice in relation to the character
of God.
A far more serious and damaging concession was
made by Horace Bushnell in his work on " Vicarious
Sacrifice," and has already been alluded to as
criticised by Dale. The following extracts include
passages selected by Dale for animadversion : —
" Atonement is a change wrought in us, a change
by which we are reconciled to God. Propitiation
is an objective conception by which that change
taking place in us is spoken of as occurring repre
sentatively in God. Just as guilty minds, thrown off
from God, glass their feeling representatively in
God, imagining that God is thrown off from them ;

BUSHNELL ON SACRIFICE 187

or just as we say that the sun rises, instead of say
ing what would be very awkward to us and yet is
the real truth, that we ourselves rise to the sun."1
" There is no such thought as that God is placated,
or satisfied by the expiatory pain offered Him. It
supposes, first, a subjective atoning or reconciliation
in us ; and, then, as a further result, that God is
objectively propitiated, or set in a new relation of
welcome and peace. Before, He could not embrace
us even in His love. His love was the love of
compassion ; now it is the love of complacency
and permitted friendship " (p. 447-8).
Three grave faults must be pointed out in these
passages. (1) The attempt to distinguish between Atone
ment and Propitiation, which is futile and mis
leading.2 (2) The admission that propitiation is spoken of in
Scripture as occurring in God.
(3) The contention that, notwithstanding the above
admission in regard tothe actual words of Scripture,
the real doctrine of its authors is that the change
takes place in man.
It is much to be deplored that in consequence of
this extraordinary handling of the subject, those
who affirm that the reconciliation of God to men is
taught in Scripture can claim Bushnell as a witness
that, verbally at least, they are correct. It must be
confessed that those who plead that the Scriptures
1 The Vicarious Sacrifice, p. 450.
2 See Appendix, Note 20.

THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

mean what they say are in a stronger position than
those who protest that they must mean something
else. Bushnell's method of interpretation may fairly
be applied to many fervid utterances of religious
feeling, and in particular to some which occur in
poetical writings like the Psalms ; but we no more
expect a confusion of subjective and objective, or of
human and Divine feelings in theological discussions
such as Paul's, than we expect to find a modern
astronomer using the language of the Ptolemaic
system in a scientific treatise when describing the
relations of the sun to the earth. The question
whether God changes or whether man changes is
vital to religious faith and worship, and by attri
buting inaccurate popular phraseology to the
Scriptural account of our relations with God,
Bushnell was guilty of a double fault. He uncritic
ally, though of course reluctantly, allowed himself
to be dominated by traditional interpretations which
misrepresent the language actually used in Scripture,
and then, in order to evade the effect of this error,
he was tempted to attribute an element of insincerity
and unreality to Scriptural doctrine, and thus
undermined, not only his own influence as a
teacher, but the moral authority of the New Testa
ment. The effects of this maltreatment of the subject
transpire in his closing chapter on " Practical Uses
and Ways of Preaching." Like many other
preachers of a moral theory Bushnell felt a grave
difficulty in presenting the gospel effectively as

BUSHNELL ON SACRIFICE

the instrumental power of God in reconciling men
to Himself. He frankly admitted that " any strictly
subjective style of religion is vicious. It is moral
self-culture, in fact, and not religion " (p. 467). Christ is
here, he maintained, " to be the moral power of God
on the world, and the power of God unto salvation.
But if any one should set. himself to preaching only
this, turning it round and round, citing texts for it,
and arguing down objections, he would only post
pone the power he undertakes to assert " (p. 454). In a
similar tone he wrote : "If the question arises how
we are to use such a history (as that of the cross)
so as to be reconciled by it, we hardly know how
to begin. How shall we come unto God by the
help of this martyrdom? How shall we turn it,
or turn ourselves under it, so as to be justified and
set in peace with God ? " (p. 460). But his onlyanswer
was to say, " Plainly there is a want here, and this
want is met by giving a thought-form to the facts
which is not in the facts themselves" ; and again,
"We want, in short, to use these altar terms just
as freely as they are used by those who accept the
formula of expiation or judicial satisfaction for
sin " (p. 463).
This comes perilously near to the offence of using
words in a non-natural sense, and certainly it lends
colour to the charge of borrowing the language of a
rejected theory to cover the leanness of his own. I
agree with Bushnell that we cannot spare the altar
terms of Scripture, but if this " battery " is to be re
taken the feat can only be achieved by a laborious

190 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect. iv
process of elucidation and interpretation which will
serve to show that these terms are not legitimately
used by those who seek at present to monopolise
them. Unless we can honestly use them as thought-
forms, which truly express what is in the facts of the
gospel story, we must relinquish their use and confess
ourselves at variance with Scripture. It is incredible
that God has devised thought-forms which suggest
ideas which are untrue, because a plain statement of
the truth would be less helpful to our minds ! If it
be true, as Bushnell declares, that there is " no sacri
fice, or oblation, or atonement, or propitiation " in the
evangelical facts, we must not trade on all or any of
these terms even to save men's souls. If, however,
it be true that there was in the facts of the history
a most real sacrifice and propitiation, but one which
the Penal theory distorts and Bushnell failed to
apprehend, we are entitled, and indeed are under a
solemn obligation, to use these " altar terms " and to
rescue them from long misuse.

LECTURE V
THE BIBLICAL IDEA OF PROPITIATION
i. In the Old Testament.
FOR the purposes of this inquiry it would be super
fluous to engage in a critical discussion of any still
open questions respecting the authorship, revision,
collection, or date of the Old Testament writings.
By whatever process they were brought together in
their present form the question before us is solely
concerned with their interpretation. The writers of
the New Testament were powerfully influenced by
the writings which they reverently quoted as the
oracles of their ancient faith, and it is to these writ
ings viewed as a collective whole that appeal
is made by Christian theologians in support of
those views of propitiation which are here called
in question. If our examination of the Old Testa
ment brought to light any contradictory or divergent
teachings on the subject of Atonement, it would
become necessary to inquire into their relative an
tiquity, and we might with possible advantage dis
tinguish between the law of the second temple and

192 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
more primitive codes or fragments. But I am un
prepared to admit of any dissonant teachings. I
can find none alien to the spirit of Christianity, and
can therefore afford to refrain from any discussion of
the perturbing questions raised by the higher criticism.
The word Propitiation does not appear in the Old
Testament (R.V.), and the word " Atonement " is not
used in the New Testament (R.V.) ; but although the
two companies of revisers could not agree upon
any plan for preserving uniformity, the two words
stand for the same idea, and represent the same term
in Hebrew, or its equivalent in Greek, as determined
by the Septuagint version. The great Hebrew
word kipper, which is rendered Atone, or, to make
Atonement, is usually, and I think correctly>
traced to a root which signifies to cover, but by
some means it came to be used in the Old Testa
ment in a special religious sense in which the figure
of covering is almost, if not altogether, lost. Indeed,
in some important respects this meaning appears to
be practically reversed. The history of the word
prior to its devotion to a technical religious use may
be untraceable, but if ever used for common pur
poses as a verb signifying to cover, it must have
been gradually reserved for sacred use. About
twenty different Hebrew words are translated
" cover," but " kipper " is never so rendered, and
whenever the idea of covering sin is manifestly pre
sent, another word, kdsdh, is used.1
In several instances kipper is used with God as the
1 See Appendix, Note 21.

HEBREW TERMS 193

subject, and if it be urged that the idea of covering
would in these cases be suggested to a Hebrew
reader, I am not anxious to maintain the contrary ;
though the suggestion seems highly improbable,
except in regard to Jer. xviii. 23, where we read
"forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin
from Thy sight." Here the parallelism may be
thought to favour the rendering, " cover not their
iniquity." In other cases the figure seems incongru
ous.1 The question is not worth discussing, because
God's right to cover sin is indisputable, and thus no
religious or ethical principle is at stake. The idea
of a Divine hiding of sin is certainly expressed else
where by kahsah, and also where totally different
forms of expression are employed, e.g., Psal. Ii. 9 •
Isa. xxxviii. 17 ; Micah vii. 19. For these reasons I
refrain from making a sweeping assertion that the
etymological force of the term is invariably absent.
In the verses quoted I neither admit nor deny its
presence, but leaving this question open as a matter
of no religious importance, I proceed to affirm —
(1) That in the Old Testament use of kipper, the
idea of covering or hiding sin by the person who
offers sacrifice, or his priestly representative, is never
present. Outside the ritual law the doctrinal teaching of
the Old Testament on the great moral principle in
volved is most explicit and consistent. The covering
or hiding of sin is distinctly dealt with under three
1 Cf. Deut. xxxii. 43 ; xxi. 8 ; Ezek. xvi, 63 ; II. Chron. xxx. 18 ;
Psal. lxv. 3 ; lxxviii. 38. 0

194 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
aspects, and in each class of cases the word kasak
is employed. (a) The covering, or non-exposure of offences is
spoken of with approval when it springs from a
generous desire to screen the faults of a neighbour
rather than drag them into publicity, e.g., " Hatred
stirreth up strife, but love covereth all sins " (Prov. x.
1 2). " He that covereth a transgression seeketh love,
but he that harpeth on a matter separateth chief
friends " (Prov. xvii. 9). The charitable disposition
thus commended must not be confounded with a sup
pression of evidence intended to frustrate the admin
istration of justice, and it has nothing in common with
the pride, or duplicity, or moral cowardice which
seeks to escape the humbling duty of confession,
whether to an injured fellow-man or to God.
(b) The covering, or blotting out of sin by God is
spoken of as a blessing which man may seek and
may rejoice in when obtained, e.g., " Blessed is he
whose sin is covered " (Psal. xxxii. 1 ; cf. also Psal.
lxxxv. 2 ; Neh. iii. 37, iv. 5). The same idea is vari
ously expressed, but in no form can God's covering
be confounded with a sinner's effort to conceal or
cloak his sin. On the contrary, man's confession
is always affirmed or implied as the condition of
God's forgiveness.
(c) Man's attempt to hide iniquity from God's
sight is frequently spoken of, and always in severe
terms of condemnation. Indeed, it is clearly taught
both in the Old Testament and in the New that
this futile and offensive effort constitutes a bar to

HEBREW TERMS 195

all forgiveness. It is a fault which admits of re
pentance, but which is unpardonable until abandoned.
This doctrine is enforced in a great variety of forms
and in innumerable passages of Scripture, but we
need only cite those in which the figurative word
" to cover " is used. Job indignantly repels the
thought that he has been guilty of such baseness :
" If like Adam I covered my transgressions by hiding
iniquity in my bosom " (Job xxxi. 33). The general
law is declared in a familiar proverb, " He that
covereth his transgressions shall not prosper, but
whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall find
mercy " (Prov. xxviii. 1 3). The psalm, which,
as already quoted, speaks of the blessedness of the
man "whose sin is covered" by God, is also well
described as " the great confessional psalm," and it
expressly teaches that the only way in which a
sinner can be allowed to seek such Divine oblitera
tion is that of laying bare his inmost being to the
Lord. " I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and
mine iniquity have I not hid. I said I will confess
my transgressions unto the Lord ; and Thou for-
gavest the iniquity of my sin " (Psal. xxxii. 5).
If it were necessary, the testimony thus adduced
might be indefinitely augmented, but the doctrine
as taught in the sacred writings outside the ritual code
is indisputable. The position, therefore, to which
we are brought is this — either the etymological
force of kipper is lost in its special usage as a
technical term for a sacrificial atonement, or we are
shut up to the conclusion that the Levitical law of
O 2

196 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
sacrifice contradicts and subverts the first principles
of moral discipline, and is a flagrant defiance of the
most explicit and persistent doctrines of ethical
theism. Such a conclusion would not be unwelcome to
many critics, for it is practically the same as that
which not a few have arrived at by another road.
The painfulness of such a verdict to other minds is
no disproof of its soundness ; and we must confront
the issue with a fearless love of truth. We have
therefore to inquire whether the idea of " covering "
sin by a sacrifice is discoverable in the ritual law itself.
At the outset I must call attention to a signi
ficant fact which has already been affirmed im
plicitly, but one which is so important that it
demands specific mention, viz., that the word kipper
was never used by a prophet or psalmist when de
nouncing the wickedness of concealing sin. Had
these writers been actuated by any conscious
antagonism to some ceremonial law of atonement,
they would certainly have made their meaning clear
by using the technical term ; but they never did this,
and the technical term is never referred to in the
Old Testament in an unfavourable sense. The natural
inference to be drawn from this fact is too obvious
for insistence, viz., that the law of sacrificial atone
ment was not the object of those denunciations
which were hurled against the detestable notion that
sacrifice could cover and compound iniquity.1
1 I use the expression "the law" broadly but without prejudice to
any critical opinion in regard to dates. However late the Priestly

v SIN OFFERINGS WERE CONFESSIONAL 197
This inference can only be set aside by strong,
clear, and positive proof of contradictory facts.
This negative argument has great force, but we
have stronger and more direct evidence to prove
that the ritual law, as distinct from those illicit
customs which the prophets condemned, was in strict
agreement with the moral principle that, if sin is to
be forgiven, it must be confessed, and not concealed
or covered.
The fact that the law of atonement, whoever
devised it, was proclaimed as a Divine enactment,
is a proof that its object was to secure the un
covering rather than the covering of sin.
The law prescribed what offerings should be pre
sented on account of various offences, and the very
act of the priest in complying with this command
was in itself a confession that a particular offence
had been committed. The offerer brought the pre
scribed sacrifice to the priest, and thus acknowledged
his faultiness, and the priest became his representa
tive and carried up his confession to the altar.
Hence it appears that the idea of confession is
necessarily and inextricably embedded in the law of
atonement. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews
advanced no novel doctrine when he wrote, " But
in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of
sins every year" (Heb. x. 3). Whatever else, and
Code may be brought down, the technical use of kipper must be very
ancient. The argument of the text is therefore valid in reference to
psalms of late date when the Priestly Code was certainly in force ;
and also to the prophets and poets who are supposed to have known
a less elaborate Torah.

198 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
whatever more may be found in them, sin-offerings
were essentially and primarily confessional ; and as
the nature of confession is the moral contradictory
of " covering," it not only warrants, but demands,
a recognition of the truth, that in this regard the
ritual law was in harmony with the first principles
of ethical theism as expounded in the psalms and
the prophets.
This argument is vividly illustrated and confirmed
by the fact that in three cases an atonement was
permitted when offenders voluntarily confessed their
transgressions, although it was categorically for
bidden if these same transgressions were discovered
in spite of endeavours to conceal them.
(a) Under certain conditions an atonement was
permitted for the crime of bearing false witness, and
for the suppression of testimony in a court of justice.
In either form this is a sin which human tribunals
have always found themselves ill-fitted to deal with,
because they are practically impotent for its de
tection in a large proportion of the cases which
arise. Yet it is supremely important that the inno
cent should not suffer, and that the guilty should
not escape through the lying speech or culpable
silence of witnesses. On this account it is eminently
desirable that those who have failed to do their duty
should be encouraged to confess their sin, and, as
far as possible, avert or rectify a miscarriage of
justice. This is one of the few cases, therefore, in
which repentance may safely be allowed to find a
place in civil procedure, because its genuineness is

EXCEPTIONAL LAWS

guaranteed by a spontaneous confession of wrong
doing. The shame thus incurred is itself a punish
ment, and any further penalty would help to frustrate
justice by adding to the motives for concealment.
Hence the law decreed that if a fault of this kind
were freely confessed, though not if it were dis
covered by others', the culprit might be permitted'
to bring a sin-offering to the priest, and that there
upon his sin should be forgiven.
(b) If a man had sworn an oath to do a thing
which he subsequently found would involve the com
mission of a sin, the law provided that he must not
do wrong in order to be consistent, and decreed that
if he confessed his fault, he might bring a sin-offering
and be absolved from the oath and forgiven. By
this law, if known and duly administered, Saul
would have been required to desist from his purpose
to slay Jonathan, and Jephtha would have been
released from the vow under which his daughter
was sacrificed.
(c) If a man committed fraud in the capacity of a
trustee, or dishonestly appropriated property which
he had found, or if he improperly detained or stole a
neighbour's goods, the law decreed that in the. event
of his crime being discovered he must restore the
value of his illicit gain two, four, or fivefold, or in
default should be sold into bondage. In such cases
no sacrifice was allowed. But if the man repented,
and proved his sincerity by voluntary confession and
restitution, he was only required to add one-fifth to
the value of the property restored. Having done

200 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
this — but not before — he was permitted to bring a
sacrifice and forgiveness was assured. This pro
vision endangered no legal or moral interest, and it
encouraged one who had secretly yielded to tempta
tion to undo the consequences of his crime. Zacchseus
might perhaps have claimed the benefit of this law
as a confessor, but he proved the genuineness of his
contrition by undertaking to act as one who had
been convicted of dishonesty. He seems to have
felt that he had been read through and through by
Christ and dared not pose as a confessor.
None of these cases can be regarded as implying
that forgiveness was granted on the ground that sin
had been covered by sacrifice. In each case the sin-
offering was permitted as a most gracious, though
perfectly righteous, concession ; and although the
offering was not only sanctioned but required, the
forgiveness which followed was obviously granted
on the ground that the sin had been repented and
confessed, that all possible reparation had been made,
and chastisement humbly accepted.
(2) The idea of appeasing God or of offering to
Him any inducement to alter His disposition to
wards the sinner was not included in or suggested
by the Old Testament usage of kipper. Several
considerations combine to place this statement be
yond reasonable doubt.
(a) The only grammatical form which could ex
press the idea of appeasing God or effecting any
kind of change in His mind is carefully and con-

v A PECULIAR IDIOM 201
sistently avoided. When the idea of appeasement is
intended the verb must be followed by a mention
of the person to be appeased, placated or propi
tiated in the accusative. This is the constant form
of expression in pagan literature, but the Scriptures
uniformly avoid it, except in a few cases where
God is not the object, and these rare instances serve
by contrast to make the peculiar idiom of the ritual
law more vividly conspicuous.
Two passages have been cited by those anxious
to disparage the religious value of the Old Testa
ment as proving the similarity of the Hebrew view
of expiation to that which has prevailed throughout
the heathen world. It is a most remarkable and
altogether vital fact, however, that these passages
have no reference to a religious act, and are the only
two instances in the Old Testament in which kipper
is thus followed by an accusative of the person to
be appeased. The first case occurs in Gen. xxxii.
20. Jacob, returning from exile, and about to meet
Esau, sends servants in advance with droves of goats
and sheep, camels, and cattle and asses, reasoning
thus within himself: " / will appease him with the
present that goeth before me, and afterward I will
see his face ; peradventure he will accept of me."
The other case occurs in Prov. xvi. 14, "The wrath
of a king is as messengers of death, but a wise man
will pacify him!' x The sense of these passages is
1 If we accept Cheyne's rendering of Isa. xlvii. 11 (Polychrome
Bible), it is a good instance of pagan usage. The prophet dendes
the idea that Babylon will be able to appease " the demon of

202 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
clear, and it is in exact accordance with the pagan
idea of sacrifice as a pacification of the deity with a
view to avert his vengeance. The fact that these
passages stand alone and that God is never named
in the accusative as the object of the verb kipper
forbids us to suppose that the idea of pacifying
or propitiating Him was included in the law of
atonement. (b) A further fact pointing to the same conclusion
is that the law which enjoined atoning sacrifices was
set forth as a Divine ordinance. This fact has already
been viewed under another aspect, but it deserves
further notice. The institution of sacrifice with ex
press orders and promises of forgiveness is in itself
a token of readiness to forgive. It denotes that
forgiveness is attended with moral dangers ; that it
can be granted only under conditions which guard
the sanctity of law and manifest the purity of God's
mercy; and that Divine pardon can be bestowed
only when the suppliant draws near in a manner
which God can righteously regard with favour. But
no less clearly it proves that God has no pleasure in
the death of the sinner, but would rather that all
should turn unto Him and live ; that because of
this He has made plain the way by which He may
be approached, and has condescended to devise
means of help to human faith ; and thus extends
the most gracious encouragements to repentance.
A God who could act like this was not a God
calamity.'' The word "demon" is not in the original, but
' ' calamity " stands as the object of the verb.

v SACRIFICE DID NOT REMOVE SIN 203
needing to be appeased or in any way induced to
show mercy. Thus the ritual law was in itself a
vivid illustration of the Divine Name as this was
proclaimed to Moses.
(c) In close connection with this truth, we must
note that in all cases where a sin-offering was per
mitted the utmost care was taken to show that the
sacrifice in itself was powerless to take away sin.
There was nothing novel in the statement " it is
impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should
take away sins" (Heb. x. 4). This principle
was no doubt lost sight of by many Israelites, but
it is never obscured by the ritual law. The terms
of each enactment plainly teach that, although a
sacrifice is required, or rather is allowed, this offer
ing does not cancel sin. The actual removal of guilt
is not effected in the sacrifice, but is the immediate
work of God which follows obedience to a prescribed
condition. The Levitical formula was : " And the
priest shall make an atonement for him as concern
ing his sin, and he shall be forgiven " (Lev. iv. 26 —
v. 18). Thus in and through the offering the sin is
confessed and laid before God in humble submission
to His authority, and with a simple hope in His
mercy. There is no room for an attempt to hide
or compound for sin ; the sacrifice is an appeal pre
sented in a prescribed form, and as a sequel, " God
is faithful and righteous to forgive " according to
His word.
(d) The most heinous sins were inexorably ex
cluded from the benefits of the ritual law of atone-

204 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

ment. In a much misused passage the author of
the Epistle to the Hebrews makes the statement,
" And according to the law I may almost say all
things are cleansed with blood, and, apart from shed
ding of blood, there is no remission " (Heb. ix. 22).
Too commonly this verse is quoted as if it expressed
an eternal, universal, and immutable law, connecting
physical blood-shedding with the remission of sins.
This mistake has been often exposed, and attention
has most properly been called to the qualifying
words, " I might almost say," and " according to the
law!' These words clearly limit the statement to a
well-known feature of the Jewish code. But this is
only a partial correction. It disproves the univer
sality of the proposition, and leaves it to stand as a
simple exposition of an historical fact ; but it seems
to imply, or, at any rate, leaves room for the inference,
that while the legal dispensation was in force there
was no remission, or scarcely any remission, of, sin
apart from blood-shedding.
But this inference is contradicted by obvious facts,
for, with four well-known exceptions, which serve to
emphasise the principle, no blood-shedding was
allowed on account of any wilful transgression.1
Instead of God demanding to be propitiated or
satisfied by sacrifice before extending mercy to
transgressors, He allowed sacrifice to be offered on
His altars only for sins of ignorance or infirmity.
Great transgressions were left to be dealt with as He
saw fit, and for these no pledge of forgiveness was
1 See Appendix, Note 22.

v THE MORAL BASIS OF RITUAL 205
embodied in a legal covenant. Two great crimes,
viz., murder and adultery, were not only not atonable
under the ritual law, but were specifically excluded
from its scope. " Ye shall take no atonement for
the life of a manslayer which is guilty of death, but
he shall surely be put to death " (Num. xxxv. 3 1 ).
" The adulterer and adulteress shall surely be put to
death " (Lev. xx. 10).
The moral basis of this legislation is not obscure.
The ritual code was a part of the national law, and
thus religious teaching was intermixed with civil
discipline. It provided a legal sanction for a merciful
administration of laws which would have become an
intolerable yoke if enforced without any considera
tion for human frailty and ignorance. Hence sin-
offerings were allowed in cases where mercy was
favourable to individual discipline and to public
order. They also instilled the thought that men
must give an account to God for all their actions,
small and great, and that human tribunals were not
final courts of appeal, so that human mercy could
not grant absolution apart from Divine sanction and
confirmation. For sins of ignorance and infirmity
God could concede a legal covenant of forgiveness,
because no such covenant could conceivably become an
indulgence to commit sin. The man who dared to
commit an offence because the ritual law permitted
a sacrifice for sins of ignorance cheated himself,
because he thereby shut himself out of the law, and
cut himself off from the promise by doing the wrong

206 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
thing wilfully. Such a covenant, therefore, could
not become a constructive permission to sin with
impunity. That this was clearly perceived by in
telligent Israelites is proved by notable Jewish say
ings, e.g., "He who says ' I will sin, the Day atones,'
to him the Day will bring no atonement." x
But if the law had contained a pledge of forgive
ness for wilful sin, feebly conditioned by a demand
for sacrifice, evil men would have been able to calcu
late upon immunity from punishment, and the ritual
code would have become the most corrupting and
anarchical instrument of unrighteousness which even
Satanic ingenuity could have invented. Hence the
stern disallowance of sacrifice in any case of deliberate
transgression, with the four remarkable exceptions
to which reference has been made.
This presents to us a sharply-defined dilemma.
Either there was no remission of any wilful sins
(with the exceptions just mentioned) while the
Hebrew legislation was in force, or they were re
mitted apart from the law and without the ritual
shedding of blood.
This dilemma is grave, and to unprepared minds
it may be painful, but it raises no real difficulty.
No man imagines that for many centuries God
actually shut up His tender mercies within the
narrow limits of a legal covenant, nor can any
reader of the Old Testament suppose that true
worshippers ever entertained such an awful idea
of the Divine Being. During the entire period,
1 Ency. Biblica, col. 387.

v A SERIOUS DILEMMA 207
faith in the Divine Name sustained the lives of
erring men, and caused them to hope for Salvation.
What we truly call " The Gospel " came by Jesus
Christ, but there was always a gospel which in sub
stance declared : " Let the wicked forsake his way
and the unrighteous man his thoughts : and let him
return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy
on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly
pardon" (Isa. Iv. 6, 7). Faith in the freeness of
God's mercy produced a devotional literature which
still remains the best language of the human heart
in the struggles of repentance, and for the utter
ance of those yearnings for peace with God which
agitate all contrite souls. Believing themselves for
given, men were inspired to sing aloud not merely
of God's mercy but of His righteousness (Psal. Ii.
14) in forgiving iniquities, transgressions and sins
for which no remission was provided in the law
of sacrifice. David, though condemned to die by
the law which reigned over kings and people alike,
was assured by the prophet Nathan that God had
forgiven him his double crime of adultery and
murder. Whether he wrote the 51st Psalm or not,
it was written by a man convicted of blood-guilti
ness ; and in strictest harmony with the ritual code
the singer confessed that God would accept no sacri
fice from him, except the spiritual sacrifice of a broken
and a contrite heart. No Christian can doubt that
flagrant sins were freely remitted while the Hebrew
law remained in force ; and when the facts are duly
recognised, it becomes manifest that the worst sins,

208 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
when forgiven at all, were forgiven " apart from the
law," and in the exercise of a Divine prerogative which
the ritual law left unimpaired and unlimited. This
prerogative of forgiveness is so absolutely sovereign
and so sacred, that no rites or ceremonies could
be allowed to influence it, or even apparently in
fluence it in the remotest possible way. In other
words, we are driven to the conclusion that all the
worst sins which were remitted while the ritual law
was in force were remitted without the shedding of
blood. Thus by all it allowed and by all it forbade
this law taught the same great lesson as was taught
by the prophets, viz., that all attempts to buy mercy,
to compound for iniquity, to appease God's anger
against sin, or to induce Him to forego just judg
ment, are an abomination in His sight ; and that
sacrifices, when offered by men whose hands are
stained with blood or spotted by any wilful sins,
are even more detestable to Him than the sins they
are designed to cover.
It may not be superfluous to point out that there
is nothing in the facts or inferences thus presented
which tends to cast doubt upon the necessity, or to
depreciate the value of the sacrifice of Christ. We
cannot effectively deal with this subject until we
come to New Testament teachings ; but I may so
far anticipate a future study as to indicate two
fundamental differences between the sacrifice of
Christ and the sin-offerings of the law.
(i) Christ was obviously not an offering prepared

v CHRIST'S SACRIFICE UNIQUE 209
and presented by guilty men to God, but a sacrifice
made by God at His own expense on behalf of His
sinful creatures. Hence it is impossible for sinners
to imagine that they themselves are inducing God to
show mercy, or that they are compounding for their
crimes in founding their hopes on what was done at
Calvary. They may and do make grievous mistakes
respecting the nature of Christ's atonement, but they
cannot delude themselves by thinking that they them
selves are offering Christ to God. If criminals of all
kinds had been allowed to offer sacrifices in the
Jewish Temple with a view to obtain mercy, this
would have fostered in Israel the awful thought,
which pervaded the pagan world, that the Deity could
be bribed and persuaded into clemency. Kings and
rich men would have slaughtered flocks and herdsj
and burned forests on their altars to atone for wanton
wickedness. The greater their guilt the more numer
ous and costly would have been their oblations, and
all thought of God's righteousness in showing mercy
would have been extinguished. But there is no risk
of this awful delusion being fostered by Christ's
death, even when regarded as effecting a change
in God's mind.
(2) A further and most vital difference between
the sacrifice of Christ and the sin-offerings of the
Temple is set forth by the writer to the Hebrews.
He plainly declares that there was no moral virtue
in the blood of beasts (Heb. x. 4). The animals
slain on Jewish altars were powerless " to give the
guilty conscience peace, or wash away one stain,"
P

210 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
because they were involuntary victims, and their
sufferings made no appeal except to human pity.
But the blood of Christ has power to touch the con
science. The foregoing discussion more than justifies the
assertion that the etymological force of the word
kipper is not only lost but is practically reversed in
its special religious use in the Old Testament.
The change of meaning thus exhibited is one of
the most remarkable of the many startling trans
formations with which philologists are familiar. It
would be unprofitable to spend much time in specu
lating on the means by which this change was
brought about, but we are on sure ground when we
say that it could only take place in connection with
a corresponding transformation of religious ideas,
of which the general character and order of progress
can be safely surmised.
Man's instinct is to hide his misdeeds from the
knowledge of the Great Judge. When consciously
unable to thus hide his fault, his next thought is to
make up for it, to make some sort of compensation,
to do something or give something to God by way
of satisfying His anger. Usually his thought is
that by inflicting on himself some great pain or
deprivation he may avert Divine vengeance. Ac
companying, and in time confirming this process
of thought, secondary meanings of " cover " would
naturally become current, such as we have in the
English language, e.g., " to counterbalance," "to cover

THE RITUAL CODE CORRECTIVE

a loss," i.e., by compensation, or by lodging securities,
&c. In this way the word would readily pass into
religious terminology to denote sacrifices of the
ordinary heathen type which are offered to induce
God to forego punishment.
Recent investigators into the history of Semitic
religion claim, not unfairly, to have established an
intimate connection between ancient idolatrous
customs and the Ritual Code. The fact of this
intimate connection seems also to be confirmed by
the facility with which the pre-Exilian Hebrews
lapsed into the customs of their heathen neighbours,
and by the persistency with which they perverted
their own sacrificial system in spite of the scathing
denunciations of the prophets. The precise relation
which the lawful sacrifices of the Hebrews bore to
ancient ancestral rites, and to the customs of con
temporary peoples, must for the present be open
to debate. It will scarcely be disputed, however,
that the legal sacrifices were designed to be correc
tive of false ideas, and specifically of false ideas of
God, and of God's attitude towards sin.
Many considerations favour the opinion that
while the sacrificial cultus of the Hebrews was
designed to thus teach certain fundamental religious
and ethical principles, it was also so framed as to
minimise the actual practice of sacrifice to the lowest
possible degree consistent with its educational
purpose. The restriction imposed on the place
where sacrifices might be offered, on the persons who
might lawfully present it, and, above all, the jealous
P 2

212 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
way in which the scope and value of sacrifice were
reduced, all point to the conclusion that the Temple
service was meant to play a very minor part in the
common life of the people. Indeed, according to
the Levitical code, a vast portion of the people must
of necessity have passed through life without, even
once beholding a lawful sacrifice, and to all but a
very few participation in the Temple service must
have been exceedingly rare. The fact that Christ
has for ever abolished sacrifice from the order of
human worship is also an assurance that, apart from
a preparatory and therefore transient educational
purpose, there is nothing in sacrifices of the ancient
type which can render them tolerable in God's
sight.1
Propitiation in the Septuagint Version.
We may now pass from the study of the Hebrew
technical term to a brief examination of the manner
in which it was treated in the most ancient of all
known translations. In the time of our Lord the Sep
tuagint version had widely displaced the Hebrew even
in Palestine, and among the Hellenised Jews it was
accepted with veneration as verbally inspired.2
An exhaustive review of the Septuagint render
ings is not called for, but we cannot overestimate
the importance of a clear knowledge of the great
principles by which the authors of the Greek version
1 See Appendix, Note 23.
2 See Appendix, Note 24.

GREEK TERMS 213

were governed in presenting their sacred writings to
the pagan world. A knowledge of the terms they
selected, and of the mode in which they treated
them, throws a flood of light on the teachings of
the Hebrew Scriptures as interpreted by learned
Jews before the dawn of Christianity. Incidentally, it
may also serve to illustrate the probable manner
in which the change in the significance of kipper
took place in an age which was probably earlier than
that of the writing prophets. Above all, it is
supremely important, because the Greek version was
familiar to the authors of the New Testament, and
did much to prepare a religious vocabulary for
their use.
Philo tells us that the authors of the Septuagint
version found precise equivalents in Greek for the
terms employed in their native language, so that
they were able to give a perfectly literal translation,
and to impart their Divine revelation with clearness
and vigour. To a great extent this high praise may
be endorsed, but unless prepared to approve his
theory of miraculous assistance, we must recognise
the extreme difficulty of their task. They must have
been peculiarly perplexed in selecting equivalent
terms for kipper and its cognates. Two courses
were before them for choice. (1) They might render
the Hebrew verb by such terms as kalupto, or epika-
lupto, and the corresponding substantive by poma,
or epithema, and by so doing they would have
strictly preserved the etymological force of their
original terms for Greek readers. Josephus pre-

214 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
ferred this plan when giving an account of Jewish
antiquities to the outer world. (2) They might
adopt words familiar to the Greeks as connected with
religious worship, and specifically with sacrifice.
It is highly suggestive that the LXX trans
lators rejected the first of these expedients. They
used the verb to cover (kaluptd) in translating kasah
in the passages recently cited, viz. : Job xxxi. 33 ;
Psal. xxxii. 1, 5 ; Prov. xvii. 9, xxviii. 13, &c. ; but
they never used this or kindred words to represent
kipper. The only fair inference to be drawn from
this fact is that in the judgment of these Hebrew
translators the etymological force of kipper had
been entirely lost in its special religious use, and
that therefore any attempt to reproduce it in a
foreign language would be misleading.
In adopting the second alternative they of course
ran the serious risk of seeming to identify the sin-
offerings of the Hebrew law with the sacrifices offered
to pagan deities. The principal term selected
(hilaskesthai alone or in a strengthened form) un
doubtedly signifies to appease, to conciliate or even
to bribe ; but in the face of the obvious danger
which afterwards frightened Josephus, they chose
the technical sacrificial terms which were in current
use among Greek-speaking pagans.
It is eminently desirable to ascertain, if possible,
the reasons which determined this remarkable
decision, and to fairly estimate its significance.
At first sight it appears to sanction the common
opinion that the translators were anxious to show

v WHY PAGAN TERMS WERE USED 215
the similarity of Jewish and Greek sacrifices, as
endeavours to appease an offended Deity, but on
closer inspection this impression will be not only
dissipated but reversed.
Dr. James Morison pointed out that Josephus
departed from the LXX model, and ascribed this
fact to his recreant desire to conceal the true
character of the Jewish ritual from his cultured
foreign readers. He also contrasts the meanness
of Josephus in this respect with the frankness and
boldness of the first translators. I should be sorry
to undertake the defence of Josephus, who deserved
the contempt of his countrymen, but in regard to
his rendering of kipper I can only blame him for
adopting a less sagacious method than the LXX.
That he strove rather to contrast than compare
Judaism and paganism is undeniable, and that to
some extent he succeeded must be allowed. But
in this endeavour he was not peculiar, and was
surpassed by those who, having the same object,
chose less obvious but more effective means. It is
regrettable that so keen a critic as Morison failed
to inform his readers that, while pagan terms are
employed in the LXX, the utmost care was taken
to prevent its readers from inferring that the sacri
fices of Jerusalem were similar to those which reeked
on the altars of Phoenicia, Greece and Rome. The
altered sense in which classical sacrificial terms were
employed was vividly displayed by a rigorous repro
duction of the unique grammatical forms which were
distinctive marks of Hebrew religion. That the

216 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
most scrupulous exactitude in this regard was im
perfectly appreciated in ancient times must be ad
mitted ; but this can only be attributed to the
beclouding effect of preconceived ideas, which ope
rated then, as we see them operating to-day, to
bedim the vision of both critical and uncritical
readers. If the literary phenomena of the LXX
version have been overlooked or misinterpreted, it
is not the fault of the men who produced it.
The exactitude with which the LXX follows the
original is exemplified by the fact that only thrice
does hilaskesthai appear in the LXX as it is always
found in classic Greek, viz., as followed by the accu
sative of the person to be appeased. Of these three
exceptional cases two correspond to the Hebrew
already reviewed — i.e., Gen. xxxii. 20 and Prov. xvi.
14 — and in neither case is God referred to, or any
religious act described.
In the third case, which occurs in Zech. vii. 2, the
pagan formula is undoubtedly used to denote what
the translators regarded as a proposed attempt to
propitiate the Lord, and on this account the passage
is absolutely unique in the Old Testament, as known
to Hebrew and Greek readers. The Hebrew verb
in this place might be literally rendered to stroke
down or smooth any one's face, and hence to
appease, conciliate, or soothe. It is used in this
sense with some suggestion of sycophancy in Job
xi. 19, Prov. xix. 6, and Psal. xiv. 12, but nowhere
else does the Septuagint employ the technical
religious term as its equivalent. The question arises,

v ZECHARIAHS PROTEST 217
Why was it used in Zech. vii. 2 ? No reasonable
explanation can be given, except the very simple
one, that the translators wished to make it evident
that in their judgment the object of the deputation
from Bethel was actually " to propitiate God." They
considered that these men, and the people who sent
them, supposed that God could be, and required to
be, appeased by sacrifice, and were anxious to thus
court His favour. Hence they put the name of God
in the accusative as the object of the verb, as was
necessary to express this idea, just as we find it in
Gen. xxxii. 20 and Prov. xvi. 14.
Our English translators have not followed their
most ancient predecessors in this course, but repre
sent the errand of the men of Bethel as simply " to
pray " (A.V.) or " to intreat " (R.V.) the Lord, and
to inquire of the priests at Jerusalem.1 We need
not stay to discuss their wisdom, but, in estimating
the significance of LXX usage, we must note the
fact that in this, the only instance in which it con
forms to pagan usage by making God the object of
the verb to propitiate, it is describing an action which
Zechariah heard of with indignation and vigorously
denounced. The chapter is remarkable as one of
the most trenchant condemnations in the Old
Testament of the impious notion of placating God
by ceremonial observances. It is not absolutely
clear that the LXX rendering can be justified, but
it is clear as noonday that whatever the men of
J Young's "Literal Translation of the Bible" reads "to appease
the face of the Lord."

218 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
Bethel did, or meant to do if allowed, they were
benighted, and at least semi-paganised strangers
to the Temple service ; and their perverted notions
of worship, which were condemned by the prophet,
can only affect our interpretation of the ritual law,
as crimes may assist us to define the laws of which
they are sinful violations.1
The uniform avoidance of the only idiom by which
the idea of appeasing God could be expressed,
except for its condemnation in Zech. vii. 2, is con
clusive evidence that the LXX translators regarded
the idea itself as obnoxious ; but this is made more
obvious by their defiance of classical usage in a
still more extraordinary fashion. Preserving closely
the grammatical forms which they found in Hebrew,
they sometimes set down the object requiring Divine
clemency in the accusative as itself the object of the
verb to propitiate. It is difficult to imagine the
amazement with which Greek readers must have
been filled when they first met with this paradoxical
construction. They would say, We know what is
meant by conciliating or appeasing the gods, but
what are we to understand by such sentences as
these ? " Seventy weeks are determined upon thy
people ... to blot out iniquities and to propitiate
iniquities" (Dan. ix. 24), "and ye shall propitiate
the house" and "the holy place" (Ezek. xiv. 18,
20), " the altar " (xliii. 22, 26), or " propitiate sins "
(Ecclus. iii. 3), " He shall propitiate the sanctuary "
(Lev. xvi. 16). Even to ourselves this mode of
1 See Appendix, Note 25.

v COURAGEOUS TRANSLATORS 219
expression is remarkable. It is indeed so pecu
liar and so utterly incompatible with the ordinary
idea of propitiation, that our translators have not
ventured to reproduce it. Had they not concealed
this startling language by substituting the more
usual formula " to make atonement for iniquities,"
" for the house," &c, English readers would have
been compelled to reconsider their ideas. But what
modern Englishmen shrank from doing, the LXX
translators, writing in the midst of heathen people,
dared not flinch from, and thus, in a far more startling
fashion than Josephus selected, they challenged the
worshippers of evil-minded deities to note the differ
ence between the merciful and gracious God of
Israel and the imaginary objects of their fear.
The ordinary form of speech adopted in the He
brew Scriptures is less remarkable, but equally
significant, and was carefully reproduced in the
LXX, where the verb to propitiate is commonly
followed by prepositions (trepl or virep), which point
out the person or thing needing an atonement.
Had this been the only peculiarity it would have
been inexplicable to a pagan reader, apart from some
instruction in the religious ideas and customs of the
Jews. This common formula when translated into
English excites no surprise in our minds, but it is
none the less a distinctive feature of the Hebrew
faith and has no counterpart in any heathen litera
ture. Taken together the daring innovations of the
LXX demonstrate the fact that in adopting pagan
sacrificial terms the Jewish scholars of Alexandria

220 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
stamped upon them an entirely new meaning, and
thus solved the problem how to translate their law
of sacrifice to the minds and consciences of peoples
who thought that God was altogether like them
selves. By electing to carry out this courageous plan
they entitled themselves to the praise and gratitude
of mankind. By the very terms in which they trans
lated the Levitical code they presented to the world
a unique Theism, and confirmed the doctrine of the
prophets that such sacrifices as those which reeked
on foreign altars were an abomination in God's sight.
Had they, like Josephus in after days, timidly re
produced in Greek the etymological force of kipper,
they would have used terms which conveyed to the
Gentiles no clear idea, but would have suggested a
false one which had no place in their own religious
system. By adopting the bolder course they avoided
all ambiguity, and have left behind them a perpetual
testimony to the freeness and spontaneity of God's
grace.
Propitiation in the New Testament.
The writers of the New Testament closely fol
lowed the LXX in refraining from any attempt to
reproduce the primitive idea of "covering" when
referring to Atonement or Propitiation. They used
kalupto in quoting or alluding to passages where
the LXX employed it, as already explained,1 and
1 Cf. Rom. iv. 7 with Psal. xxxii. i. James v. 20, and 1 Pet. iv. 8
with Prov. x. 12.

NEW TESTAMENT TERMS

in places where the thought of literal covering is
distinct,1 but this renders their avoidance of it in
connection with the work of Christ the more con
spicuous. The passages in which hilaskesthai or its deriva
tives appear are so few that we may review them
all. In one of His parables Christ makes the publican
to say, " O God be merciful to me a sinner " (Luke
xviii. 13). It is obvious, however, that the man
made no attempt to conciliate God by sacrifice, but
prayed as to one believed to be gracious and ready
to answer human prayer.
In Heb. ii. 17 the verb is followed by an accusa
tive of the object, but in a fashion which, to a pagan,
would have seemed preposterous. Strictly trans
lated, this verse would read that Christ was a " high
priest in things pertaining to God to propitiate the
sins of the people " (ra? dpaprla^ tov Xaou).
English translators have not dared to reproduce
this form, or it might have done something to excite
reflection and inquiry. There would be nothing
startling, however, to well-instructed Hebrew readers,
for the same expression appears, as we have already
seen, in the LXX.
The above are the only two places in which the
verb occurs in the New Testament, but the substan
tive hilasmos is used in I. John ii. 2, iv. 10, and the
derivative hilasterion in Rom. iii. 25, Heb. ix. 5.
This rare employment of the term in any of its forms
1 Cf. Mat. viii. 24, x. 26. Luke viii, 16, xxiii. 30. II. Cor. iv. 3.

222 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
is remarkable, and becomes more so when we deduct
Luke xviii. 13, and Heb. ix. 5 (which merely names
the Jewish mercy seat historically), as irrelevant to
the present discussion. Having already dealt with
Heb. ii. 17, we have only three passages to examine.
The language of I. John ii. 2 leaves no room for
the supposition that the idea of conciliating God is
intended. The use of the abstract hilasmos in the
statement that " He is the propitiation for our sins,"
indicates that the person of Christ is the subject of
the sentence, and not merely what He has done or
is doing. So also the use of the present tense forbids
us to look back to any particular period or moment
of His career. John does not say that Christ was
a propitiation while living or when dying ; but,
writing many years after the ascension, and pro
claiming that we have now in Him a paracletos with
God, he goes on to strengthen faith in the virtue of
His advocacy by declaring " And He is the pro
pitiation for our sins " (irepl toiv dpaprimv rjp,Siv),
and not for ours only, but also for the whole world."
By this statement he proclaims that Jesus Christ,
who was dead and is alive again for evermore, con
tains in Himself all the conditions of a righteous
dispensation of mercy to mankind.
We have already honoured the wisdom and
courage of the translators of the Old Testament
in using a pagan sacrificial term, and we are there
fore prepared to appreciate the reasons which must
have weighed with John in following their example.
It is manifest that the relations between a loving

v CHRIST IS A PROPITIATION 223
God and sinful men have little in common with
those supposed by the heathen to exist between
themselves and their deities, yet it must be acknow
ledged that they are alike in one important respect.
However conceived, man's relations with the Deity
have confessedly been strained by offences, and stand
in need of readjustment. Hence, although the means
and conditions of peacemaking must be as different
as are the character of God and the characters por
trayed in Greek mythology ; yet Jesus Christ the
righteous is most fitly put before the world as filling
a place between erring men and God, which, mutatis
mutandis, corresponds to that which superstition
assigned to the sacrifices offered on heathen altars :
i.e., Christ was set before the world as a mediator,
who contained in Himself everything necessary to
effect a reconciliation between sinful men and a
righteous God.
John does not formally explain, nor does the
word hilasmos unfold the reason, why the glorified
Christ can be thus regarded, but this reason is not
obscurely given in the context. Believers in Christ,
while striving against sin, are still conscious of
failure and defects, and because of this their hearts
condemn them, and they lose confidence towards
God. To reassure their minds, John bids them
think of Jesus Christ as one who is their friend and
representative with the Father, and for the relief of
sensitive consciences he adds the epithet righteous,
" Jesus Christ the righteous." He thus accentuates
the truth that we have no immoral pleader, no advo-

224 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
cate who thinks more of our deliverance from
punishment than of our cleansing from sin and the
purgation of God's universe. His plea for mercy is
not only consistent with, but springs from, His
interest in righteousness, and is as truly identified
with His zeal for the Divine will as with His com
passion for human infirmity. Christ is not only a
strictly righteous advocate who will ask for nothing
which would relax the cords of moral obligation or
weaken the authority of God ; but on account of
all He has revealed Himself to be, and of all He has
done and suffered, He is such a living and resplendent
vindication of God's righteousness in showing mercy,
that in view of Him all misapprehension of the
Father's pardoning grace is universally and eternally
precluded. Thus the truly awful danger which attends the
exercise, and especially the public exercise, of mercy,
is obviated. No sinner who receives forgiveness
through Him who died to put away sin can be led
to think lightly of sin, nor can moral beings, human
or angelic, who behold God's ways to others, imagine
that the remission of sins by, or through, Jesus Christ
the righteous, imports that God can condone, or
tolerate, or in the slightest degree lessen his inex
orable hatred of evil.
The language of I. John iv. 10 not only corrobo
rates this interpretation, but contains additional
elements which alone would suffice to differentiate
the Christian idea of hilasmos from anything which
Paganism ever conceived, The sending of Christ to

v WAS GOD PLACATED? 225
be a propitiation is set forth by John as an act of
Divine love, and as constituting in itself a new reve
lation of what love is.. " He that loveth not knoweth
not God, for God is love. Herein was the love of
God manifested in our case, that God hath sent His
only begotten Son into the world that we might live
in Him. Herein is love, not that we loved Him,
but that He loved us, and sent His Son (to be) the
propitiation for our sins." The love thus expressed
in deeds is a reality which transcends the sublimest
human ideals, and it forbids the supposition that
He who thus reveals His nature can require to be
conciliated. Attempts are made to escape the force of this
argument by the plea, that although the propitiation
was not needed to induce love, it was required in
order to set God free to exercise His love towards
sinners. But this expedient is futile because the
gift of Christ is expressly proclaimed to be itself an
exercise of the Father's love for sinners, and no
greater exercise of love could be imagined.
Dr. Morison in his great monograph on Rom. iii.
has clothed the self-contradictory idea I deprecate
in what is probably the most, plausible drapery it
ever wore. He first and lengthily insists that God's
offended feelings were placated, and His anger
turned away by Christ's propitiation, and then with
conscious weakness adds, " But let it ever be borne
in mind that it was in virtue of a self-originated de
sire in the Divine heart — a desire to be willing to for-
give — that God Himself devised the scheme of pro-
Q

226 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

pitiation " (p. 305). How much simpler, more Scrip
tural it would have been, had he written, that God
Himself devised the scheme of propitiation because
He was " ready to forgive," because it is His nature
to be gracious. The words, a " desire to be willing
to forgive " may truly describe the condition of an
imperfect man, who recognises that forgiveness is a
duty, and desires to do what is right, but is still
conscious of a hard and unrelenting spirit. He con
fesses this with shame, and hopes at length to
conquer his unwillingness, but cannot pretend to
have conquered yet, because he is not willing to for
give, but he desires to be willing. Probably all but
the most infantile Christians have passed through
such an experience, but self-reproach should teach
us that a similar struggle can have no place in God.
How weak and even absurd such an expression
would read as a substitute for the delightful words
of Psal. lxxxvi. 5, " Unto Thee do I lift up my soul,
for Thou art good and ready to forgive, and plenteous
in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee." How
fraught with doubt and fear and sinister suggestion
would this verse have been if it had run, " for Thou
art good, and desirest to be willing to forgive ! "
Wish and will, aspiration and attainment are too
frequently at variance with us, but God can have
no such schism in His nature, and we can only trace
His redemptive action to the disposition which Paul
speaks of as a reason why prayer should be made
for all men, including such monsters as the Emperor
Nero. " This is good and acceptable in the sight

GOD THE AUTHOR OF PROPITIATION 227

of God our Saviour, who willeth (6eXei!) that all
men should be saved and come to the knowledge of
the truth " (1 Tim. ii. 4). We cannot translate OeXei
" He desires to be willing," nor can we imagine such
an impotent condition of mind being proposed as a
reason for universal intercession by the Church.
Paul's use of the word hilasterion (Rom. iii. 20) has
given rise to much discussion. Many writers regard
it as a substantive to denote a propitiatory sacrifice
but this appears to be a gratuitous assumption
founded on a misreading of one or two passages
in Greek authors. Others, including Morison, re
gard it as used adjectivally to denote the propi
tiatory quality of Christ. The more general and
probably the correct opinion is that Paul adopted it
from the LXX, and so transferred the name of the
ancient Mercy Seat to Christ as the spiritual reality
of which that was a shadow.
The most important point for immediate notice is
that Paul agrees with John, and with the ancient law,
in ascribing redemption to the Divine initiative. God
set forth Jesus " to be a propitiation." Paul there
fore knows of no propitiation which has God for its
object, but only of one which has God for its author.
In striking harmony with John he also accentuates
the revelation of righteousness, and specifically the
righteousness of God in forgiving. This righteous
ness of God is according to Paul the central principle
declared and demonstrated in and by the propitia
tion which God provides. God had been passing
over the sins of many throughout all ages, and in
Q 2

228 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
various ways He had guarded His mercy against
presumptuous abuse. But no words and no ritual
could adequately demonstrate that the source and
object of all mercy was righteousness, and not mere
pity or personal favour. The setting forth of Christ
before the world (and possibly before the universe)
threw light on God's ways in the past, and throws
light for ever on the transactions prefigured by the
ceremonial of communion with the invisible tenant
of the Mercy Seat. In the blood of Him who suf
fered for our sins we have not only the inviolable
seal of a covenant to forgive, but an eternal pledge
that the covenant itself is righteous ; so that in the
language of John " God is faithful and righteous to
forgive us our sins" when we come to Him con
fessing our faultiness and reconciled to His character
and will by faith in Jesus Christ.
It is supremely important to observe that there is
nothing in this passage which can be tortured into a
suggestion that Christ did or suffered anything
whereby He made it righteous for God to remit
sin. I express myself thus broadly because writers
who apparently shrink from affirming in plain terms
that Christ bore the punishment of our sins never
theless use language which means the same thing, or
something which is indistinguishable from it.1 When
it is said that Christ accepted our liabilities, or
undertook our responsibilities as transgressors of
the law, and thus made satisfaction to God,
and thereby rendered the remission of sins right-
1 See Appendix, Note 26.

FORGIVENESS IS RIGHTEOUS 229

eously possible, this appears to be merely a hesi
tant or euphemistic way of asserting, that He
endured what is due to us as law breakers, i.e., the
penalty of death. There may be some valid
distinction in the minds of those who thus express
themselves, but it is too subtle for my discernment.
Whatever may be meant by these or other similar
expressions, we may meet them all by denying in
the most categorical way that Christ is here said to
have suffered anything to make it righteous for God
to remit sin. Such a thought is not only not
expressed, but is absolutely excluded by the terms
which Paul employs. Christ is distinctly said to
have been " set forth (ivpoeOeTo) to be a propitiation,
through faith in His blood, to shew (or for the
shewing, or the proving, or, best of all, for the
demonstration of) His righteousness because of the
passing over of the sins done aforetime in the
forbearance of God ; for the shewing (or the
demonstration) of His righteousness at this present
season : that He might be just, and the justifier of
him that hath faith in Jesus."
That no English reader may question whether
the rendering, " the shewing," or " the demonstra
tion " of righteousness is too strong, it may . be
mentioned that the same term (evSeifjiv) is found in
2 Cor. viii. 24, where Paul writes, " Shew ye there
fore unto them in the face of the Church the proof
of your love." And in Phil. i. 28 where it is
translated " an evident token!' By this unmistakable
term, therefore, we are forbidden to think that the

230 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
passing by of sin only became righteous in conse
quence of Christ's death. Before the righteousness
of an act can be shown, or proved, or demonstrated,
it must actually be righteous in itself. To say that
a demonstration of a thing, or a quality, can produce
a thing, or confer the quality demonstrated, is
absurd. We might as well say that one of Euclid's
demonstrations renders a proposition true, or that
the proving of an arithmetical calculation makes it
correct, or that the proof of a prisoner's innocence
renders him innocent, as affirm that the demonstra
tion of God's righteousness in Christ makes
righteous a treatment of sinners, which would other
wise have been unjust.
As previously seen, the two chief hindrances to a
free and widespread dispensation of mercy lie not in
any unreadiness in God to forgive, nor in any moral
antagonism between justice and mercy. Speaking
broadly, the first great hindrance lies in the moral
obtuseness of men, which prevents a perception of
the true nature and enormity of sin, and so renders
confession, contrition, repentance, and submission to
God impossible, and apart from these moral condi
tions, there would be no mercy in pardon. The
second great hindrance lies in the strength of a
convicted sinner's remorseful consciousness of ill-
desert, which seems to preclude the possibility of a
righteous forgiveness. Surveying the history of
revelation, we see that it was necessary to deal with
the former of these hindrances by the revelation of

v WHY MERCY IS DIFFICULT 231
God's righteous hatred of sin in law and in severity
of discipline. Afterwards, when law had done all
that it had power to accomplish, it became possible
and necessary to deal with the second great
hindrance, which the discipline of law had
augmented ; and thus Christ was set forth to
demonstrate the righteousness of God in the re
mission of sins.
It is not suggested that these two hindrances, or
the forces employed for their removal, are histori
cally, or in individual experience, divisible into two
sharply defined stages. The age of law was relieved
and lightened by assurances of mercy, and the age
of Gospel light, the age of mercy, is still under the
instructive discipline of God's commandments. The
law which was intended to awe and constrain men
to obedience, contained an implicit Gospel, not only
in its demand for love, but also in its ceremonial,
which always taught that there is forgiveness with
God that He may be feared. The cross, as we have
seen, is the most potent and convincing evidence of
man's iniquity and of God's hatred of sin. God's
claim upon our obedience suffers no abatement
under the Gospel, and the verification of this truth
adds much to the efficacy of Christ's sacrifice to
produce faith in God's righteousness. But the
distinctive and supreme function of the cross is, as
Paul preaches in the verses before us, to become a
proof, an evident token, an absolute demonstration
of God's righteousness in forgiving the sins of all
who called upon His Name in former ages, and in

232 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
pardoning the sins of all who, in this present age,
believe the testimony of the blood of Jesus, and
call upon His Name as thus more resplendently
revealed. It is lamentable that Dr. Sanday in his Com
mentary on Romans, which in most respects is
admirable, has lent the sanction of his name to the
dictum that " when we ask, Who is propitiated ? the
answer can only be, God " (p. 91). He does not give
anydistinct reason for the assertion, and frankly allows
that he cannot interpret the word in such a connection,
and that no human thinker can hope to achieve such
a task. It is " a word which we must leave it to
Him to interpret " (p. 94). I quite agree with
Dr. Sanday that no man is, or ever will be, able to
interpret the word " propitiation " in a Christian
spirit, if, in spite of grammatical forms and idioms,
we persist in declaring that God is the person to be
propitiated. If we will but take the language of
Scripture in its clear and natural sense, the word
needs no further interpretation, but is in itself an
interpretation of God. Divine revelation does not
deal in terms which convey no meaning to our
minds. Still more lamentable is a further statement made
by this author, viz., that " All mercy, all forgiveness,
is of the nature of fiction " ! (p. 94).
That there is nothing fictitious in forgiveness is
demonstrated by the fact that the idea of forgive
ness includes the idea of sin, and as long as a
pardoned creature retains a grateful sense of God's

RECONCILIATION 233

mercy, he will continue to pronounce a condemna
tion on himself. Nothing but sin can be forgiven,
and the new song to be sung in Heaven will remain
an eternal recognition of the truth of God's
judgments. Ritschl has well said that the sinner's
" recollection of his transgression, with its indirect
excitation of pain, will form a guarantee that the
presupposed fact of guilt is not unveraciously
negatived by pardon."1
These thoughts find a strong support and con
firmation in Paul's use of other terms to express the
idea of reconciliation, viz., katallasso and katallage.
The fundamental passage is II. Cor. v. 18 — 20.
Without discussing every vexed question of inter
pretation the outstanding features of this passage
may be clearly stated. The foremost fact is pre
sented in the unmistakable words, " All things are of
God." God is the eternal source of blessing. He
is the author of the gospel, the doer of all saving
works for man. It was " God who reconciled us to
Himself," and He did this " through Christ." In all
Christ did He was God's agent. But God deigns
to employ other agents in the same great business.
He has committed to us "the ministry of recon
ciliation." It is our function to proclaim the
glorious truth that " God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto Himself"; and this constitutes
the reconciling message. Thus Christian preachers
" are ambassadors " entrusted with the honour of
1 Justification, i. 14.

234 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
speaking to their fellow-men about Christ. When
they plead, it is "as though God- were intreat-
ing." Hence Paul writes that in pursuance of
this commission, and as voices for God, " we be
seech you on behalf of Christ be ye reconciled
to God . . . and working together with Him we
intreat also that ye receive not the grace of God in
vain." Thus Paul implores men to yield themselves
up to the reconciling influences of all that God has
done in Christ. He beseeches them not only as
fellow-men to lay aside their enmity, but to hear
his entreaties as God's own appeal, just as the words
of an ambassador are the words of the king who
speaks through his lips.
Efforts are made to evade the natural significance
of such language. Cremer makes the extraordinary
assertion that "In KaTaWdaaeiv stress is laid upon
the truth that God stands over against mankind as
the adversary." There would be some ground for
this opinion if the idea of reconciliation necessarily
included the mutual hostility of two parties, but we
know that enmity is often one-sided, and the sug
gestion that God is man's adversary is a flagrant
contradiction of this passage, in which God is pro
claimed to be the great reconciler of men to Himself.
Peter tells us that the Devil is our adversary, who
appropriately goes about as a roaring lion seeking
whom he may devour. But how could an adversary
be said to dwell in one who '' went about doing good,"
who earned for Himself the title " the Friend of Sin
ners," and at last laid down His life for our sakes?
In order to avoid a recognition of the fact that this

v MAN RECONCILED TO GOD 235
passage is inconsistent with the idea of God being
reconciled to man by the propitiation of Christ,
strenuous attempts are made to exclude from the
passage any reference to subjective reconciliation.
If this element could be banished it would still re
main true that reconciliation originates in God and
is effected by means which He Himself employs for
the purpose. But the subjective change cannot be
eliminated without emptying the passage of all
meaning. Paul refers to reconciliation as a fact of
his own experience, and he entreats his readers to
respond to God's appeal in Christ. It is certain,
therefore, that the subjective change by which God's
enemies become His friends is the most prominent
though not the sole idea in Paul's mind.
Thus repeatedly and in various ways everything
is traced up to the spontaneous, unsolicited, and
amazing grace of God. God was in Christ, and He
is behind every human preacher who proclaims the
gospel and pleads with his fellow-men. In Christ
God has taken the initiative in making peace, but
reconciliation is not consummated until the terms of
peace are embraced by His revolted creatures, so
that His adversaries are subdued to submit them
selves to His sway.
The passage in Rom. v. 10, 11, is little less
important and equally clear. In the first verse peace
as a state of relationship with God is attributed to
faith.1 Faith is not magnified as a merit or set
up as an independent activity of man's mind. On
the contrary it has both its object and its origin in
1 See Appendix, Note 27.

236 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
God, who delivered up Jesus " for our trespasses "
and raised Him up " for our justification." Neverthe
less, without faith there is no peace with God. This
fundamental passage therefore forbids us to under
stand the word reconciliation in verses 10 and n as
denoting merely a new relation set up by God irre
spective of man's response. Reconciliation is the
process which issues in the state of "peace with
God" referred to in verse I. It is represented as a
divinely initiated process by which God's enemies
have had their antipathy and dread removed, and so
have learned to put their trust in Him as their
Father and Friend.
If this view were left doubtful by the context an
unprejudiced study of the literary structure of verses
10 and II should certify its accuracy. " If . . . we
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son . . .
we shall be saved by His life." Here reconciliation
by death and salvation by life are antithetic, and as
salvation is a personal experience the reconciliation
which precedes and leads up to it must be the
same. So read the thought is strong and lumi
nous. Nothing less than the death of Christ could
effect our reconciliation, but no further sacrifice
is required to complete our salvation. The thought
thus expounded naturally and beautifully leads
to the glowing words, " and not only so, but we
also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have now received the recon
ciliation." Indisputably this " rejoicing " is subjec
tive, and it is given as a step beyond mere recon-

v MAN RECONCILED TO GOD 237
ciliation or the bare assurance of salvation. Paul
declares that those who once were hostile to God
have not only had their enmity overcome, but have
in the God they dreaded an object of affection and
delight. We are not only at peace with God, but we
rejoice in Him, and this joy is all the work of Jesus
Christ. He is the Alpha and Omega. He is the
author and the finisher of faith, who crowns His
conquest of God's foes by filling them with a joy
which is unspeakable. The verb katallasso is only
found elsewhere in I. Cor. vii. 11, where it denotes
the actual return of a wife to her husband, which
corresponds to the subjective reconciliation of men
to God. This has been disputed, but no objection
can stand. The actual return is more than a subjec
tive change, but necessarily presupposes and includes
it. Paul is not speaking of an arrangement, made for
the parties by some external authority, which legally
re-unites them irrespective of their assent, but of the
wife's renewed acceptance of marital relations.
The verb appears in a strengthened form in
Eph. ii. 16, where the subject of the apostle is the
double reconciliation of Jew and Gentile to each
other and to God. The passage speaks of Christ as
Himself our Peace, because He had broken down
the middle wall of partition which had been erected
in the national law and ordinances of Israel, so
that peace with God might be offered on equal
terms to all peoples. The cross is made prominent
as the efficient instrumentality employed for the
making of peace between man and man and between

238 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
man and God ; but the object of Christ as a peace
maker is not fully attained apart from a due recep
tion of the blessing which is proffered in the gospel.
Thus, as in Rom. iii., so here, man is reconciled to
God, not only potentially by Christ's work for man
kind, but actually, through the power exerted by the
cross to bring men through repentance and faith into
personal relations with each other and with God.
The same strengthened verb occurs in Col. i. 20, 21.
Here the initiative is traced to the " good pleasure "
of the Father, who caused all fulness to dwell in
Christ with a view to the reconciliation of " all things
to Himself." Peace is made through the blood of the
cross, but it is the Father who thereby makes it ;
and, having made it, He proposes to Himself the
business of reconciliation as an ulterior design . Verse
21 describes historically a partial fulfilment of this
purpose in terms which leave its subjective character
quite unmistakable : " And you being in times past
alienated and enemies in your minds, in your evil
works, yet now hath He reconciled" The same truth
is made perhaps even more conspicuous in the words
which follow to declare the Father's final purpose con
cerning those who have been thus reconciled through
the death of Christ, viz., " to present you holy and
without blemish and unreprovable before Him ; if
so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and stead
fast, and not moved away from the hope of the
gospel which was preached in all creation under
heaven." Here alienation yields to the reconciling
influence of the cross, and, subject to the condition

REDEMPTION 239

of persistence in the faith and hope inspired by the
gospel, reconciliation is to be consummated by per
fection of character in the Father's presence.
Katallage occurs in Rom. xi. 1 5 to describe the
benefit which has come to the Gentile world through
the casting away of Israel for a season. The lan
guage is peculiar, but assuredly the casting away of
Israel is not referred to by Paul as a propitiatory
sacrifice whereby the status of the Gentiles before
God was affected. The fall of Israel was not re
quired by God as a condition of Gentile salvation, nor
were the Gentiles received with favour because of it.
The casting away of Israel was contrary to God's
desire and only happened because Israelites were so
jealousoftheirprivileges as a separated people thatthey
stayed out of the kingdom rather than share Divine
favour with foreigners. Thus their downfall was an
incidental but deplorable part of the cost at which
the world was reconciled. God permitted it rather
than forego His universal plans of grace, but it formed
no part of the moral basis of reconciliation for man
kind. This is so far indeed from being the case that
Paul joyfully anticipates that when Israel has been
humbled to accept God's grace her restoration to
favour will be far more beneficial to the world than
is her temporary casting off.
Redemption.
Before closing our review of the Biblical idea of
propitiation it may be expedient to consider another

240 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
set of words which deal with the same subject under
another aspect, viz., that of redemption. These
terms1 are commonly regarded as furnishing de
cisive evidence that Christ redeemed us by present
ing His blood to God as the price of our release
from condemnation, and consequently as a means
of propitiating God. It will be necessary, therefore,
to investigate the grounds of this opinion.
It is indisputable that classical usage would fully
sanction this interpretation of the terms, but we
have already found that the New Testament writers
did not adopt pagan ideas when they employed the
Greek language for the publication of Christian
truth. We must therefore continue our inquiry in
the light of Hebrew history and literature.
The word " redeem " in its various forms carries
us back to the most ancient times. The Hebrew law
enforced (though with supremely important restric
tions) the primitive custom which imposed upon
near kinsmen the duty of espousing the cause of
their relatives, and, pre-eminently, the duty of
avenging them if slain by violence.
The duties thus laid upon the Goel might some
times be to his advantage and gratify his natural
feelings, but frequently they involved self-sacrificing
labour or an outlay of money, and sometimes they
exposed him to a serious risk of life. The land-
laws were based on the principle that the land was
God's, but under Him it belonged to certain tribes,
and within the tribe to certain families, so that the
1 See Appendix, Note 28.

THE LAW OF REDEMPTION 241

individual possessed only a life-interest in his estate,
and was not able to sell it in perpetuity. In order
to raise money he might part with his own tem
porary rights, but could not lawfully alienate the
estate from his family or tribe. It frequently
happened, however, that land which had thus been
pawned could not be recovered by the original
borrower, because dead or hopelessly impoverished,
and in either case the duty devolved on his nearest
kinsman, who was technically known to the law as
the Goel, i.e. " the claimant," the man who had a
right to resume the family title. He could only
equitably exercise this right, however, by paying
the sum due to the temporary holder, and this
fact imported into the term the idea of "buying
back." On the same principle the children of Israel were
regarded in law as God's servants, and consequently
were not allowed to become slaves to their fellow-
men, though they might become bondservants for
limited periods and under rigorous protective
statutes. If an Israelite became poor his Goel was
required to entertain him. If he sold himself to a
foreigner, the Goel was required to redeem him
(Lev. xxv. 39-55). If an Israelite were killed by
violence, the nearest kinsman was forbidden to
receive any compensation for his blood, and was
required to avenge it, or, in later times, to secure
the just punishment of the manslayer. The law
provided for a trial of the offender, and, if not
a wilful murderer, gave him shelter in cities of

242 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

refuge, but if guilty of murder, it inexorably decreed
his death.
These were the chief duties imposed by statute,
but in spirit, and as commonly understood, they
sanctioned a principle which has been recognised
by almost all primitive peoples, and is the root
whence all institutions of civil justice have upgrown,
viz., that the next-of-kin must constitute himself the
champion and helper of his brother in all distresses,
and do everything possible to deliver him from
evil. It requires no elaborate argument to prove that
this law was not, as hasty critics have assumed, a
mere legalisation of revenge. It would sometimes
operate as a sanction of fierce passion, but its
demands were such as human selfishness would
find exceedingly irksome, and cowardice would be
anxious to evade. In extreme cases it might mean
that a poor man would have to encounter the forces
of a wealthy and powerful family, and to run the risk
of being slain himself, in order to avenge a murdered
relative. It was thus God's call for generous sym
pathy, for family affection, for heroic devotion to
another's welfare, even to the laying down of life,
if needful, as a ransom for others.
Hence this legal adoption of a primal obligation
of kinsmanship became the basis of many beautiful
and noble thoughts of God. God was set before the
Hebrews as their Goel, their next-of-kin, their Re
deemer. When they were slaves in Egypt and in
Babylon it was God who claimed them as His own

v REDEMPTION WITHOUT PAYMENT 243
and redeemed them with His strong right hand.
When through folly and sin they lost their country,
it was God who redeemed their land from the
stranger. Hebrew poetry is full of this great
thought ; and faith in God as the " Redeemer of
Israel" was the inspiration of Messianic prophecy
before Christ, as it is the hope of religious Jews
throughout the world to-day.
The Old Testament will be searched in vain for
any suggestion of a ransom or redemption price
received by God, or of a price paid by Him to
others. The most signal act of redemption, and the
one which underlies the terms and spirit of Hebrew
law and prophecy was the deliverance of Israel
from Egypt. Here we see that the work was God's
spontaneous act. He offered Pharaoh no price for
His own people Israel, but demanded their release,
and when this claim was resisted He smote the
Egyptians until they were ready to entreat their
bondmen to depart.1
Other aspects under which redemption appears
in the Old Testament are equally clear in their
exclusion of the idea of payment for release. Thus
we read " He shall redeem their soul from oppres
sion and violence " (Psal. lxxii. 14). " I will ransom
them from the power of the grave ; I will redeem
them from the grave " (Hosea xiii. 14). " I know
that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand
up at the last upon the earth" (Job xix. 25). "As
1 Cf. Exod. vi. 6, xv. 13 ; Isa. xliii. I ; Psal. lxxvii. 15, cvii. 2 ;
Isa. lxiii., &c. R 2

244 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
the Lord liveth who hath redeemed my soul out of
adversity " (I. Kings i. 29). " Rise up for our help
and redeem us for thy lovingkindness' sake " (Psal.
xliv. 26). " Redeem Israel O God out of all his
troubles" (Psal. xxv. 22). In none of these passages
can the idea of mercantile exchange be discovered.
Money or its equivalent was sometimes the price at
which property or liberty was recovered, as between
man and man ; but whenever the work of redemp
tion is God's it is effected by some act of power or

It would be very strange if we were to find any
less benignant and gracious view of God in the New
Testament than is thus presented in the Old, but
we may safely allow the teaching of the older
writings to assist the interpretation of the new.
The most fundamental fact to be registered is that
the New Testament writers freely speak of man's
redemption as procured or effected at a great cost.
No interpretation of their teachings which ignores
or makes light of this truth can be worthy of
acceptance or even of serious refutation. Further
more, the death of Christ is set before us as in a pre
eminent sense the ransom (\vrpov) which was laid
down on our behalf. We are redeemed " by the precious
blood of Christ," writes Peter. " Thou hast redeemed
us unto God by Thy blood," cry the white-robed
multitude in John's vision of Heaven.
But while this is to be kept in the forefront of all
our thinking and teaching, we cannot too strongly

REDEMPTION WITHOUT PAYMENT 245

reprobate the assumption which underlies so many
ancient and modern theories of redemption, viz.,
that buying things or persons at a great cost neces
sarily implies a consideration offered by one party
and accepted by another. Until this assumption is
effectually eradicated from Christian thought, some
theory, or some vague admission of a price paid by
Christ and accepted by God will persist to the great
detriment of faith.
The possibility of buying things without money
and without any analogous transfer of a valuable
consideration from one party to another has already
been seen in the language of the Old Testament,
and is quite as clearly taught in the New Testament.
This possibility is exhibited in passages in which
Christians are admonished to redeem things which
neither God nor man can sell or even give, but
must be acquired by the buyer's personal efforts, e.g.,
" Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as un
wise, but as wise redeeming tjhe time (or ' buying
up ' the opportunity) because the days are evil "
(Eph. v. 16). " Walk in wisdom toward them that
are without redeeming the time" (Col. iv. 5). In
these admonitions a distinctly mercantile verb is
used. The world is a market-place in which Chris
tians are to do business by making the most of every
opportunity for service. Opportunity is providen
tially given, but we can only make it our own by
seizing each occasion for service as it comes. There
is no vendor, but opportunities will be lost and
seasons pass unused, unless we are prepared to

246 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
employ them profitably at the price of diligence,
promptitude and self-denial.
The idea of costly purchase in the absence of
any semblance of barter or exchange shines out in
passages where the same verb is used to denote
the work of Christ. Thus Paul writes, " Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law " (Gal. iii. 13).
" We were held in bondage under the rudiments of
the world .... but God sent forth His Son, born
of a woman, born under the law, that He might
redeem them that were under the law, that we might
receive Sonship" (Gal. iv. 5). In neither of these
sentences can a seller be discovered, or any transfer
of a price, or an exchange of commodities be
imagined. Christ works and suffers to effect a
benignant purpose. He does not obtain our deliver
ance from doom or bondage by means which cost
Him nothing. The Father freely devotes His Son
to a great sacrificial ministry ; but this sending of
Christ is God's " unspeakable gift " and not a pay
ment received.
The same verb occurs thrice in the Apocalypse.
Of the " hundred and forty and four thousand," it
is said, " they had been purchased out of the earth,"
and " were purchased from among men to be the
firstfruits unto God and unto the Lamb " (Rev. xiv.
3, 4). Here, again, there is no sign of a vendor.
These saved ones have not been bought from Satan,
and certainly not from God. On the contrary they
have been purchased for the joint possession of
" God and the Lamb." Similarly, but if possible

REDEMPTION WITHOUT PAYMENT 247

more vividly, we are told that the four-and-twenty
elders sing a new song of praise to the Lamb, in
which they cry " Thou wast slain, and didst pur
chase unto God (rat ©ec5) with Thy blood, men of
every tribe, and tongue and people and nation, and
madest them to be unto God, a kingdom and
priests " (Rev. v. 9). It would be difficult to frame
an utterance which in letter and spirit should more
forcibly contradict the idea that the blood of Christ
was presented to God as the price of man's salva
tion. That Christ offered Himself to God is true ;
but He offered Himself as the self-sacrificing
servant of God's redemptive purpose, and at the cost
of His blood redeemed a people from iniquity. Had
the opposite idea been in their minds the elders
would have been compelled to say, " Thou hast
redeemed men from God with Thy blood."
Elsewhere a kindred, though less markedly com
mercial term is used, but to the same effect. In
Luke xxiv. 21 the disciples say that they had
expected Christ to redeem Israel. But evidently
they thought He would do this by some mighty act
of emancipation, whereby the domination of Rome
would have been broken like that of Egypt in the
olden time, and certainly not by paying Caesar for
the liberation of the chosen people. In Titus ii. 14
the thought of a consideration offered to God is
excluded by the words " who gave Himself for us
that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and
purify unto Himself a peculiar people for His own
possession, zealous of good works." The entire

248 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

passage is notable for the way in which God and
Christ are unified as the active Redeemer. There
is no hint of a transaction between them, as two
parties to a sale, but it is "our great God and
Saviour Jesus Christ " who gave Himself for us, and
undertook the costly business of purging us from all
iniquity. The great passage in I. Pet. i. 18, is an exact
counterpart of that in Titus. " Ye were redeemed,
not with corruptible things, with silver or gold,/rcwz
your vain manner of life, handed down from your
fathers, but with precious blood." Here, as else
where, the terms savour of the market-place, but the
great object is to exclude every thought of barter
analogous to that for which silver and gold can
stand as emblems. The language is laden with an
ethical meaning. Redemption from " iniquity," and
from an empty, fruitless manner of life; has no con
sonance with the idea of a price handed over from
one to another. Peter teaches us that Christ died
to redeem us not from God, or from "Justice," but
from iniquity and godlessness, from the sin and folly
which enslaved our souls. He shed His blood to
purify our hearts and consciences, to make us
" believers in God," to transform us from rebels into
holy and obedient children ; and Peter weaves these
ideas into an exquisitely beautiful and cogent appeal
to live as becomes those for whom so great a sacri
fice has been made. There is no vestige of any
stall or table of exchange in the Temple of God.
Man's deliverance from the bonds of sin is the

v HOW GOD REDEEMS 249
spiritual analogue of the redemption of Israel from
Egypt, but with this amazing difference : in claim
ing and taking back His ancient people, the cost in
agony and death was laid on their oppressors ; God
heard the cry of His people, and brought them forth
out of Egypt "with a mighty hand, and with an
outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and
with signs, and with wonders " (Deut. xxvi. 8) ;
but in effecting our 'spiritual salvation the agony
and bloodshed were endured by the Redeemer
Himself, because only so could He slay our sins.
In view of this great grace, what better can we say
than Micah said, when, in imagery borrowed from
the tragedy of the Red Sea, he foreshadowed a
spiritual exodus. " Who is a God like unto Thee,
that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the trans
gression of the remnant of His heritage? He
retaineth not His anger forever, because He
delighteth in mercy. He will turn again and have
compassion upon us ; He will tread down our
iniquities under foot : and Thou wilt cast all their
sins into the depths of the sea " (Micah vii. 1 8-20).1
The foregoing discussion, though not minutely
exhaustive, sufficiently proves that the Biblical idea
of Propitiation is not that of a consideration offered
to God. We have found nothing to clash with the
thought that Christ is God's self-expression to man,
and as truly His agent in redemption as He was in
the work of Creation. We have found abundant
1 See Appendix, Note 29.

250 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect. v

evidence that the task of saving the world is one
which God spontaneously undertook, but one which
even the Almighty found difficult and costly,
because it could not be effected by mere power or
wisdom or absolute authority, but only by some
means which secured the righteous conditions of
forgiveness. A mere message proclaiming a Divine
amnesty to the world would have been utterly
inadequate for the achievement of God's redemptive
purpose, but Christ fulfils this purpose by demonstrat
ing the righteousness of the mercy which God had
exercised in previous ages and now offers to the
world through Him. In and through Jesus Christ the
righteous God reveals His love to sinners without
relaxing their sense of moral obligation, and recon
ciles them to Himself not only as a kind parent, but
as the blessed and only Potentate. Through Christ,
the Father enthrones Himself in the hearts of all
believers, wins homage for His character and God
head, constrains a glad obedience to His will, and
thus causes the righteousness of the law to be
fulfilled. We have not examined all the elements of spiritual
power which are resident in Christ, but we have
seen enough to warrant us in saying that allthe
teachings of Scripture are in strict accordance with
the principle that the nature of God impels Him to
use all possible means, however costly to Himself,
to convince men of His unalterable love, and to
draw them by loving kindness to Himself.

LECTURE VI
Salvation by Love through Faith
We have now to resume our inquiry respecting
the measures which God can employ for the exter
mination of sin and the salvation of sinners. We
have seen that these two objects, though separable in
thought, are unified in fact, because the only satis
factory extermination of sin is that which destroys
it in man's heart and reconciles him to a voluntary
obedience to God's will. We have seen also that
love is the only conceivable fulfilment of the Divine
law, and since God alone can inspire this, we have
concluded that for the satisfaction of His nature
and the accomplishment of His designs, He will
commend and impart His love to men at any cost
to Himself. The question thus set before us is very
simple, yet vast beyond " the measure of man's
mind " : — By what means could God reproduce His
love in our hearts ?
If the recitation of a few New Testament oracles
would suffice, our task might be accomplished in a
moment. What could be stronger or more divinely

252 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
beautiful and luminous than these three gems in
which the depths of light seem infinite ?
" God thus (ovtok;) loved the world, that He
gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
on Him might not perish, but have eternal life "
(John iii. 16).
" And this is life eternal, that they should know
Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom
Thou has sent " (John xvii. 3).
" But God commendeth His own love toward us,
in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us"
(Rom. v. 8).
To attempt, by exposition, to make these words
clearer seems like holding up a taper to display the
sun, yet they have been in the world for nearly two
thousand years, and only a small minority of man
kind have seen their beauty and rejoiced in their
light. It is true that during the last century the
assurance of God's love has gladdened an ever
growing multitude, and has inspired a spiritual
crusade, not to recover the grave of Christ, but to
call dead nations into life, to make all lands
holy, and to chase away the ancient gloom of
heathendom. But still, in this twentieth century,
the veil of traditional opinion shuts out the light of
the ' knowledge of God's glory not only from the
masses outside, but from millions inside the pale of
nominally Christian lands.
This fact inevitably starts some painful trains of
thought, and forbids us to let our discussion of
God's measures become a mere academic exercise,

APPARENT TARDINESS OF GOD

in which the stern realities of the world are ignored.
It is easy to talk in abstract terms about the
necessities of God's nature, and to weave a
speculative scheme of measures for the impartation
of His love to the world ; but while we prepare to
answer our theological problem, grim questions of a
sinister significance are thrust before our eyes by
the past history and present condition of the human
race. We ask ourselves, and Agnostics ask of us,
Is it credible that a living God is really behind the
gospel, and that He has actually been using all the
resources of His wisdom and power through Christ,
and through the Church, to reveal His love for
every creature? How can we credit the report of
such activities, while we know that the Gospel has
never reached the ears of an immense majority of
mankind, and that to-day the love of God for
sinners is roundly denied or implicitly disallowed
by multitudes of professed Christians? But this
is not the full extent of our difficulty. When
the serpent of suspicion has insinuated one ques
tion, another grows out of it, or rather we find that
it is only a part of one much vaster and more
searching than itself. If it be true that God has an
infinite supply of love in the eternal fountain of
His being, and that from its very nature this love is
ever yearning to outpour itself upon His creatures,
and, further, if it be true that Christ came into the
world to reveal, work out, and commend this love in
deeds, why was God so tardy in sending this
blessing to mankind? We look back on mil-

254 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
lenniums of melancholy history, and inquire, To
what purpose was this long delay ? Going back to
the dim twilight age in which man's moral
experience began, we are also constrained to
inquire : If it be true that God's love is so rich and
free, so plenteous and so potent for salvation, why
was it not imparted to our race in the days of
innocent infancy? If it can save, why was it not
caused to work as a preventive grace ? If it can
uplift the fallen, why did it not keep us from falling,
and preserve us faultless in perpetual joy before the
presence of the Lord ? How can we regard with
hope the future remedy of sin, in view of that
appalling past which smites our spirits with dismay?
The facts which underlie these questions are huge
and terrible, and no closing of eyes will alter them.
The love of God did not prevent a beginning of sin in
the world. It did not prevent its spread and
persistence until human crime culminated in the
crucifixion of Christ, nor does it now secure the
rapid reconciliation of the world. Have we any
thoughts fitted to throw light upon these facts ? Is
it possible that even in the facts themselves there is
some light to assist the inquiry in which we are
engaged ?
Many Christian thinkers have found that a frank
and fearless contemplation of difficulty is a pass
port into the kingdom of light, and it will be found
so in the present instance. The questions we have
raised are not insurmountable impediments, barring
our advance along the road marked out, but clues

vi LOVE DELAYS NO SACRIFICE 255
for the guidance of our quest, and implicit confirma
tions of the truths already reached.
These questions become our guides by presenting
two alternatives for choice and excluding every other.
On the one hand they set before us the sceptical
hypothesis that the conception of a loving Father in
Heaven is an intellectual mirage mocking our souls
in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. On
the other hand, they offer to our hearts the reason
able hypothesis that God is Love, but that there is
an inherent difficulty in the task of revealing and
communicating His love — a difficulty which ren
dered an earlier demonstration of it in Christ
impossible and one which accounts for the slowness
of the world to appreciate the gospel.
I cannot conceive any third hypothesis. If it be
true that God's nature impels Him to impart His
love to men at any cost to Himself, this impulse
admits of no delay, and it must have been just as
strong in the days of the Patriarchs, and in the day
of Moses, as in the hour of the Saviour's advent.
The grace which appeared to all men in Christ could
be no new thing, and is credible only as an eternal
reality made manifest in time. The actual time of
revelation must also have been the earliest possible
time, for only so could it be the " due season " as
measured by God's infinite solicitude and by man's
dire need. To affirm avoidable delay is to deny
the love which Christ proclaimed, and the appear
ance of delay would be fatal to our faith in the
gospel unless we had reason to believe that ages of

256 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
preparatory education were indispensably necessary
for mankind.
We are fully prepared to accept this hypothesis
as reasonable, by our discussion of the idea of
Love. We have seen, and must now emphasise the
fact, that the true nature of love is an integral part
of the Christian revelation, and is still imperfectly
apprehended by large portions of the Christian
Church. We have also seen how many false con
ceptions of it are current, and are fostered by a
traditional misuse of words. These inveterate
mistakes, which persist in defiance of the teachings
of Christ and the power of His death, demonstrate
that there are inherent difficulties in the revelation
of what love is, and much more in the commen
dation of God's love in all its inexorableness to
ignorant, prejudiced, and sinful men. As the out
come of these considerations, we are prepared to
entertain the proposition that God's self-revelation
was not willingly postponed, but was necessarily a
slow and gradual process, which culminated in the
gift of His Son.
A strong sidelight is thrown on this thought by
a truth which saints and cynics are equally ready to
admit, viz., that, as a rule, men do not covet what
are intrinsically the best things, but things which
make for immediate ease and pleasure. For count
less generations men have sought the summum
bonum in illusory and unsatisfying objects, and still
continue to do so in spite of warnings from those
who, after eating delectable fruit, have found their

vi GIVING CONDITIONED BY RECEIVING 257
mouths filled with ashes. However we may explain
this infatuation, the facts are huge and glaring, and
they illustrate the difficulty of imparting the best
gifts, and pre-eminently the highest of all blessings,
— the love of God. The history of philanthropy is
full of pathetic evidence that, apart from their reflex
influence, the labours of love are often lost, and that
the holier and more perfect the blessing offered,
the fewer are the people who welcome and appro
priate the boon. Common gifts such as money,
food, clothing and amusement are distributed with
out excessive difficulty. Sometimes even these are
spurned, and, frequently, when accepted, are taken
without gratitude, and are not regarded as tokens
of affection. Not seldom the munificent are viewed
with feelings in which pride, envy, and wounded
vanity are intermixed, and the very power to give
when seen in others, is often resented by the needy
as an evidence of injustice in the ordering of the
world. When benevolence and wealth are united in an
effort to impart something more valuable than
material gifts, the difficulties of giving increase in
proportion to the amount of intelligence, virtue and
self-discipline which may be involved in the act of
receiving. It is harder to give knowledge than gold,
or things that gold can buy, because the best of
teachers can only succeed by inducing industry, and
even then they can only impart what the scholar has
mental ability to appropriate by hard work. Again,
it is harder to give wisdom than to give knowledge, S

258 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
and the process must inevitably be slow. Even the
child Jesus advanced in wisdom by a growth which
was continued through many years, and. growth can
not be hastened nor can it be extended beyond the
measure of natural capacity. It may be aided by
skilled nurture, and guarded against adverse in
fluence, but growth in wisdom can no more be forced
than bodily stature can be suddenly increased. But
harder than the gift of wisdom is the gift of any
moral and spiritual blessing. Trying to give, not
mere bounty, but pure blessing, as devised by a
loving concern for the virtue and happiness of others,
the most liberal and self-sacrificing benefactors often
find their overtures repulsed, because human nature
craves to be helped and comforted in ways which
enlightened love must decline. Folly has no relish
for instruction or culture or moral discipline, and
will reject the finest spiritual bread which heaven
sends down, as if it were a stone or a scorpion. Christ
found men eager to be healed in body. The lame,
the blind and the leprous needed no persuasion to
accept relief, and thousands followed for the sake
of loaves and fishes, who had no appetite for the
words of eternal life. They were eager to make
Jesus a king, that He might deliver them from
the Roman yoke and restore their national glories,
but as His plans of love developed, and they found
Him intent on delivering them, not from Caesar, but
from the bonds of their own iniquities, they turned in
rage to rend Him as a troubler of Israel, and re
quited all His goodness with a cross. It is true,

vi GIVING CONDITIONED BY RECEIVING 259
therefore, that love is the only power by which love
can be engendered, but it is also true that the
higher, holier, purer and wiser it becomes, the more
difficult it is to give, because it surpasses under
standing, and fails to satisfy the selfish and de
praved desires of those to whom it is presented.
Here, then, is at least a rational explanation of the
phenomena which provoked our questions. God's
love may be existent and active, but man is not saved
by it until he has discerned, appreciated and received
it, and has had it reproduced in himself, or in
Pauline phrase, when the love of God is shed abroad
in his heart.
These are not doubtful imaginations. They are
confirmed by history, observation and experience,
and they warrant us in making three definite affirma
tions, viz. : 1. That although love from its essential
nature glows with fervent will to impart itself in
blessing, yet it is not an easy or simple thing to
give. 2. That the more perfect the love the more
difficult its impartation becomes, because conditioned
by the capacity of its objects to discern and appre
ciate its nature. 3. That its reproductive power is
necessarily conditioned, not only by its own purity
and intensity, but by its actual appropriation by
those to whom it is proffered. The inference to
be drawn from these propositions, therefore, is that,
in order to become reproductive, the love of God
must be displayed before men in a compre
hensible form, it must not only become visible,
S 2

260 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
but must secure attention to itself, belief in itself,
and a lively appreciation of its own preciousness.
While unknown, unfelt, ignored, forgotten, denied,
or even doubted, it has no regenerative power.
We are now in a position to take a most important
forward step, or rather to see that such a step has been
taken. Our conclusion that the salvation of sinners
can be effected only by God's reproduction of His
own love in human hearts, coupled with the further
fact, that it can reproduce itself only when known,
believed in and appreciated by men, is equivalent to
a doctrine of salvation through faith. John teaches
the same truth by declaring that we love God
because He first loved us. Peter puts it quite as
clearly by declaring that through Christ we be
come " believers in God." Paul sums it up in a
sentence, in which the word grace stands inclu
sively for love and all its outworking in Christ :
" We are saved by grace, through faith, unto good
works." Hence the problem of begetting love
resolves itself into the problem of inducing faith,
and on this we must now concentrate attention.
Hereafter we shall need to consider more fully the
place and value of faith in relation to justification,
but for the present we must confine our attention to
it as an indispensable factor in the problem of bring
ing men into a voluntary obedience to the will of
God. Whatever there may be in faith which renders
it inherently well-pleasing to God, its primary value
lies in the fact that it is the only conceivable door

vi THE STORY OF EDEN 261
by which the King of Glory can enter into human
hearts. For reasons which will presently appear, I would
here call attention to the striking manner in which
these principles are confirmed and illustrated in the
Biblical account of the manner in which sin entered
into the world. The story of Eden is dismissed
by many critics as irreconcilable with scientific
theories of man's ascent from lower forms of life.
It is also variously interpreted by those who highly
esteem its religious value ; but into such questions I
have no need to diverge. As pointed out in another
connection, the religious significance of the story
does not depend upon any particular view of man's
origin, because it represents a process which must
have been experienced by the human race to bring it
into the position it occupies to-day. Whether man
reached the height from which a moral fall was pos
sible by a momentary act of creation which endowed
him with adequate faculties and knowledge, or whether
he reached it as the issue of immeasurable ages of
evolution, the time arrived when he became capable
of religious thought and feelings, and conceived the
idea of One above to whom he owed allegiance. We
make no illegitimate or disputable assumption in
this statement, for the phenomena of moral and
religious thought are facts to-day, and there was a
time when they were non-existent on this earth. No
theory of man's origin can get rid of the fact that
his present religious faculty — the power to conceive

262 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
God, and to be conscious of moral obligation — must
have had a commencement, and for religious pur
poses no more precise knowledge of primeval
manhood is required. When an Alpine climber
slips down into a deep crevasse, it is none the less
a fall because it has taken him many hours to reach
the altitude from which it became possible. Being
on the ledge of ice above a yawning chasm, the man's
fall is equally possible and equally real, whether the
situation has been slowly reached by countless foot
steps from the valley below, or by one step from a
balloon descending from the clouds. So, as surely as
religion had a beginning, it is certain that conscious
disobedience must have had a beginning also, and
whatever its antecedents, it was of necessity a fall.
The thing we call " sin " exists to-day and has
existed for incalculable ages, but it could only come
into existence after the development of some elemen
tary kind of religious life.
In the light of these thoughts we may dispense
with any critical dispute about the Biblical story of
Paradise. Whether read as literal history, or as we
read the parable of the prodigal son, it portrays the
only conceivable process by which a human mind
could inaugurate the experiment of disobedience to
a wise and good God when some simple belief in
such a being had been attained.
What, then, is the essential content of the story ?
It is the account of a transgression of an admitted
Divine command, brought about by the pondering,
and at last the admission of a false thought of God.

vi LOVE LOST THROUGH DOUBT 263
The man is portrayed as suffering no hardship, but
placed in the midst of beauty and plenty, peace and
comfort. He was conscious of only one prohibition,
but he gave heed to a suspicious thought which
gradually acquired strength in his mind. Finally,
he distrusted God's motive in forbidding some
desired object. He began to think that he could
improve his lot and raise himself to independence.
Finally, in this spirit of distrust and self-will he did
the thing of which he had previously said, " I ought
not to do it." In that same hour a gulf of separa
tion opened between him and God. In Scriptural
phrase, man died to God. He became, as Paul
describes it, alienated from the life of God through
the ignorance which darkened his life when the lie
invaded and captured his mind. Whatever else the
word death may mean it means this, and this is its
central religious meaning. Of this, which is death
indeed, physical death is sadly sacramental. The
cardinal religious truth, therefore, which is embodied
in the story of Eden, is that through unbelief man
died to God, and became dead in his trespasses and
sin. He lost the power to love God through doubt
ing Him, and he doubted because deceived by a
falsehood which assumed a plausible garb so that
by a lie he was slain.
Here, then, we behold man's ruin attributed in the
Scriptures to a process which is the exact opposite
of that which we have affirmed to be necessary for
his salvation. Hence, on rational and Scriptural
grounds we verify our principles by reaching them

264 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
from two independent starting-points. We verify
the road from point to point by traversing it first
one way and then the other, and finding it the
same. Salvation for men who have become
separated from God through the belief of a lie
which estranges, embitters, and induces disobedi
ence, is utterly and eternally impossible, unless
by some means the lie can be expelled from their
minds, and its place be reoccupied by the glorious
truth, that God is good, and His will holy, wise, and
acceptable. Only by some effectual revelation of
this truth, therefore, can suspicion, insubordination
and hostility be quenched, love be awakened, and
obedience inspired. If men are to be born again
into a life of spiritual sonship, they must, as Peter
writes, be " begotten again, not of corruptible seed,
but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which
liveth and abideth forever .... and this is the
word of good tidings which was preached " by Him
who said, " I am the way and the truth and the life."
It was not enough that God eternally " is love."
There was a necessity for Him to show that love, and
to so show it as to convince the minds and recapture
the hearts of those who have denied or doubted its
existence. In perfect harmony with the genesis of
sin and the necessities of salvation, we are told in
words which expound the whole mystery of the
gospel : " God so (in this manner) loved the world
that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever
believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal
life."

HOW FAITH IS GIVEN

The Provocation of Faith
If faith were a substantive article which could be
imparted by a direct act or gift, there would be no
difficulty to discuss. God would then only need to
bestow this gift by a sovereign volition, and forth
with men would become trustful, all misunderstand
ings, suspicions, and aversion would cease, and
through restored fellowship with God mankind
would be gradually conformed to His design. Had
such a course of procedure been psychologically or
ethically possible, it would have obviated any
necessity for those slow processes of Divine revela
tion which have occasioned so much perplexity, and
suggest so many painful misgivings.
I have no disinclination to speak of faith as the
gift of God, for, whatever may be the true exegesis
of Eph. ii. 8, there is no rational theory of the origin
of faith which does not trace its actual authorship to
God. This by no means implies the intolerable
doctrine that God bestows faith in a miraculous or
magical fashion, i.e., without the use of appropriate
means. There is nothing in Scripture to suggest,
but much to refute, the hypothesis that faith either
is or can be given, apart from the instrumentality of
truth objectively presented to the mind. From its
very nature as a form of mental activity, faith must
be drawn out by some person who is seen to be
trustworthy and cannot be put into the mind.
There is nothing forced or even unusual in speak
ing of faith when thus produced as the gift of God,

266 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
for we have similar expressions in common collo
quial use. It is said of a great general that he gave
confidence to an army by his reputation and inspir
ing presence. A strong, calm surgeon gives faith
to a trembling patient, and enables him to quietly
lie down and commit his life to the operator's hands.
The captain of a ship in deadly peril gives faith to
his crew and passengers, as he stands issuing orders
with unfaltering clearness and decision. So Christ
gave faith to His disciples in the storm which
threatened to overwhelm their boat. So God must
give faith to men if ever they are to put their trust
in Him as a faithful Creator and the righteous
Father of their spirits ; and in order to do this, He
must needs overcome all existing obstacles in the
thoughts, feelings and habits of those He would
convince, and must effectually contradict the
sinister suggestions which abound in this disordered
world. The most obvious hindrances to faith are those
noticed in the discussions of sin and its conse
quences, but these are not the only, nor are they the
primary, difficulties in the problem. If it were true
that God could easily manifest Himself to innocent
beings, whose environment presented no confusing
and contradictory phenomena, there would be no
answer to the question, " Why did not God so reveal
His nature to the human race in its infancy, and
before the experiment of disobedience had been
tried, thus averting alienation ? " Unless it can be
ascertained that prior to any outbreak of insurrec-

vi LOVE DID NOT PREVENT SIN 267
tion there was some initial difficulty in producing
faith in the love of God, I know not how to re
concile man's actual history with the existence of
such a being as the Gospel proclaims.
To say that love contains in itself the power to
cure man's moral disease, and yet to suggest that
God, being Love, needlessly postponed His self-reve
lation for many thousands of years, during which
the world was perishing through His inaction, is to
propound an incredible doctrine. If it be a necessity
of God's nature to adopt all possible measures, con
gruous with a righteous use of omnipotence, to ex
terminate sin and save sinners, this necessity must
have been as real and as impulsive throughout the
ages before Christ as it is in the present era. It must
also be admitted that the same nature which abhors
existing sin and desires its extinction must have
desired its prevention, and must have actually pre
vented it, if prevention were possible in a moral world,
i.e., in a world containing beings endowed with the
faculty of choice between possible alternatives. Even
man's " free will " would fail to relieve the Creator
of responsibility for sin, if a fuller manifestation of
His character would have sufficed, without coercive
pressure, to deter His creatures from making an evil
choice ! We can only believe in the love of God on
the hypothesis that He can say to the human race
as a whole, what Isaiah uttered in His name to Israel,
"Judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.
What could have been done more to my vineyard
that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I

268 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought
it forth wild grapes ? " (Isa. v. 3, 4).
These admissions are of the most solemn signifi
cance, and they throw upon all who make them a
heavy weight of responsibility ; but the issue of their
study will, I believe, enhance our conception of the
Divine wisdom and goodness. It will also, I trust,
render us a more valuable service by showing that
the death of Christ was not an isolated incident
which might equally well have happened at any
previous time, but was the crown of the Creator's
work for the production of a royal race to inhabit
eternity with Himself. Should this be the outcome
of our thoughts, it will add to the joyous confidence
with which we can extol the love of God, because
in " the fulness of time " He sent His Son into
the world, and " in due season Christ died for the
ungodly." I have elsewhere discussed1 the distinction between
righteousness and innocence. Righteousness is the
actual doing of God's will, or the moral state of a
man who is habitually conformed to the Divine
standard of duty. Innocence is a mere absence of
unrighteousness. A similar distinction must now be
drawn between positive faith and the mere absence
of doubt.
To apprehend the significance of this distinction
let us imagine a state similar to that suggested by
the story of Eden, but omitting for the present the
1 The Mystery of God, chap. v.

vi FAITH THE CONQUEST OF DOUBT 269
intrusion of a personal tempter or the imposition
of a restrictive command. Our ideal state is there
fore to be conceived as one from which all possible
causes, occasions or suggestions of suspicion have
been excluded, wherein no desire has been left un-
gratified, and no gratification of desire is attended
with satiety, disappointment or pain. I do not say
that there ever was, or ever could have been, such a
state of things on earth, or that it would have been
to man's advantage if God could have created it.
It is proposed only as an imaginary paradise, whose
inhabitants are exempt from all those influences
which are so often bewailed as provocative of un
belief. Given the existence of such an Elysian state
there would by hypothesis be no dividing of persons
by doubt, but, with this absence of doubt, it is cer
tain that there could be no binding of persons
together by faith. It is also worthy of remark that
in such a state there could be none of the higher
activities of love, whether between man and man, or
between God and man. Indeed, the inexperienced
tenant of such a place would have no power to con
ceive what love is as we understand it now ; and in
the absence of any occasion for the exercise of faith
and for the nobler deeds of love, there would of neces
sity be no conception of the highest virtues, such as
heroism, fidelity, self-denial, fortitude, patience and
sacrifice ; and with the elimination of these glorious
moral triumphs, God Himself would have found no
language, whether of words or deeds, in which to
commend His own love to men. God might have

270 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
been the same as now, but no eye of man could have
seen, nor ear heard, neither could it have entered
into the heart of man to conceive what He has
now revealed to this sad and stricken world by a
suffering Christ. If the cross had been reared in
this Elysium, and a Son of Man had been nailed
upon it by some alien hands, that wondrous sight,
which is filling earth and heaven with songs of
praise, would simply have filled the light-souled,
guileless children of Paradise with a senseless
amazement and horror, as a hideous sight devoid
of meaning. Such inexperienced beings would have
been unable to interpret the outward signs of
agony, because themselves unacquainted with grief
or shame or pain, and would have had no speech
nor language to describe, much less to explain, what
they beheld.
Let us now revert more nearly to the Biblical
story. Let us suppose that by some means tempta
tion has been introduced into man's placid abode.
The mind of the creature has been directed towards
some hitherto undesired object which appears to be
good but is discovered to be a thing forbidden.
Immediately, the difference between real faith in
God and a mere absence of doubt must transpire.
A tried being, who had strenuously attained to a
strong, intelligent trust in God's wisdom and good
ness, would be able, in spite of all appearances, to
say " God is love," and with this shield of faith he
might quench every fiery dart of sinister suggestion.
But a mind which had never had reason to examine

VI FAITH IMPLIES TRIAL 271
deceptive appearances, or to resist an inclination,
and had simply drifted through days of calm
contentment, would forthwith begin to debate the
reasonableness of any unwelcome prohibition ; and
thus the hitherto unquestioning soul would become
conscious of uncertainty and would waver between
possible alternatives. This uncertainty in an untried
soul would contain at least the latent possibility of
unbelief, and whatever the actual issue, faith, which
is essentially a triumph over the temptation to dis
trust, would for the first time become possible. It
thus appears that just as some trial, which
involves the possibility of disobedience, is essential
to the development of actual righteousness, so some
trial, which involves the possibility of doubt,
disbelief, and personal distrust, is an inexorable
condition and pre-requisite of faith.
I have put the case in this form because it
represents the most favourable of all conceivable
conditions for the production of the most elemental
kind of faith, and because it shows that the Biblical
story indicates the irreducible minimum of peril
incidental to the production of faith. Had that
first trial of infantile trust and obedience been
successfully endured, the same peril must have been
encountered again and again as the condition of
further progress. As in our intellectual training
the achievement of one task must be followed by
the imposition of another of increased difficulty —
and without this mental growth is arrested — so in
the course of mural and religious education there

272 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
must be an ever-advancing demand for effort, and
every victory must lead the conqueror to a new
battle. The more we reflect upon the laws of
growth and the essential nature of moral victory,
the more evident it will become that even if the
course of man's history had been one unchecked
advance — i.e., if every successive trial had been
triumphantly endured — the necessity for increasing
the strain upon his powers of faith and love and
fortitude would have involved the call for self-denial,
the endurance of suffering, and the subjection of his
life to perplexing experiences. It must have
involved hours of darkness as well as days of light ;
and times of apparent neglect and injustice as well
as times of joy in God's brightly manifested favour.
The race, even if sinless, could only have been
educated into invincible faith in God's unalterable
love by a similar course of discipline to that by
which the sinless Christ learned obedience, and was
made " perfect through sufferings."
Granting the soundness of these thoughts, we are
brought to a remarkable conclusion, viz., that it is
not only untrue that faith could be produced more
easily in a paradisaical world than it is in our
present world, which abounds in perplexing condi
tions, but that it would be absolutely impossible for
faith, as distinguishable from a mere absence of
doubt, to be originated and developed in such an
environment. We may now leave this hypothetical discussion of

vi APPARENT DELA Y EXPLAINED 273
the problem of inducing faith in the absence of
temptation. It has not been a needless excursion
into an imaginary world, because it answers many
suspicions and reproves a common form of discon
tent. It sets before us the inherent difficulty of the
work which God's nature impels Him to undertake.
It proves also that the hindrances which now oppose
His success may be transmuted into opportunities
of loving action, and that the very consequences of
sin itself, which constitute the extremity of man's
misery and need, supply a field for the exercise of
God's most glorious attributes, and render possible
a revelation of those unsearchable riches of grace
which must otherwise have remained eternally un
known. These thoughts do not explicitly tell us how God
can demonstrate His love to us in our present state,
but they enable us to direct our attention to this
problem without a crippling suspicion that we are
groping about in a darkness which might have been
prevented by a timelier intervention. They forbid
us to suppose that any avoidable obstacles have
been allowed to gather, or that our path as moral
agents is beset with perils which might have been
averted. They silence the taunt which many have
uttered that, if God be really saving men through
Christ, He is only retrieving the calamitous effects
of His own unwisdom or misgovernment in the past.
They assure us that God did not willingly make us
subject to vanity : that the groanings of creation
are not the outcry of a world which God has
T

274 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
forsaken, or is cruelly tormenting, but are the cry of
a world in travail to bring forth spiritual sons. They
declare that all those things which seem to be
against us, and needlessly complicating and retard
ing the process of deliverance from evil, are the
essential conditions, and in some degree the actual
instruments of the Redeemer's work in bringing
many sons to glory.
It would be superfluous to expand an apologetic
argument to vindicate in detail the ways of God
with men between the entrance of sin and the advent
of Christ. The discussion of God's righteousness
in permitting vast ages to pass over the race before
introducing an effectual remedy for sin needs to be
pursued only so far as is necessary to the elucidation
of the principles of Atonement by exhibiting the
cross of Christ, as the consummation of a process
which was never intermitted until the fulness of time
had come. As a commendation of God's love to a
sinful world the death of Christ is incredible if pre
sented as a tardy commencement of saving activity.
Hence it was indispensable to recognise that the
appearing of the grace of God in Christ was delayed
only by man's inability to see and apprehend the
significance of so great a revelation. We have now
seen that man's moral capacity to appropriate this
remedy could only be attained through a pro
longed and painful experience, which included
a ripening of sin into distinct and reflective con
sciousness, as Paul explained when exhibiting the

vi THE CROSS INTERPRETS HISTORY 275
true relation of his gospel to the legal discipline of
the Hebrews. In accordance with Paul's theology
the death of Christ cannot be divided from the
moral and religious education of the race in pre
vious ages. No part of man's experience, can be cut
off as needless, nor was one day lost by the Divine
Worker. " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,"
said Christ, thus proclaiming a continuity of action
which ever tended towards the one great object for
which He Himself lived and died and rose again.
Thus the word Atonement, while specially and pre
eminently applicable to the death of Christ, is a word
which interprets the entire government of God, and
sheds light upon His manifold methods of work to
bind His creatures to Himself, as to a righteous and
therefore loving Father.
Is it needful to urge that there is nothing in these
thoughts to detract from the supreme glory of the
cross? They do but apply the truth there de
monstrated to the solution of those dark problems
of history which admit of no other explanation, and
in doing this they disclose the harmony of all God's
ways ; they prepare us to believe that the cross is
the supreme outworking of that everlasting loving-
kindness by which God is drawing mankind to Him
self, and thus they naturally bring us to consider the
significance of the death of Christ as a weapon
wielded by Him, who is Love, to slay our enmity by
inspiring faith in Himself,

T 2

LECTURE VII
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRIST'S DEATH
In singling out the death of Christ for special
attention we not only comply with the demands of
an enduring controversy but are following the indis
putable example of the New Testament writers ;
and, above all, we are in harmony with Christ's own
witness to Himself. In some of His most solemn
utterances our Lord referred to His impending death
as the supreme hour for which He had come into the
world, and in the commemorative feast instituted on
the night of His betrayal He expressly provided for
the remembrance of His broken body and shed blood.
We have no portrait, nor even a description of His
personal appearance in the days of health and manly
glory, but in the torn bread and crimson wine we
have realistic symbols of His sacrificial death. Those
who fail to appreciate these facts betray a lack of
literary discernment, for all the interest of the gospels
and epistles centres in the cross ; and they assuredly
place themselves outside the great company of be
lievers in all generations, for the witness of Christian

lect. vn DEATH INCLUDED IN LIFE 277
experience, as expressed in art and literature, and,
above all, in the utterances of dying men, has always
been to the effect that faith, hope, and love were
born in the travail of Christ's soul and are best
nourished by His sacrifice. The testimony of that
Catholic Church, which comprehends all faithful
followers of Christ, may be summed up in words,
which, speaking of the cross, declare —
" Where our earliest hopes began,
There our last aspirings end."
But while heart and intellect unite in giving the
central place in Christian thought to the death of
Christ, we can in no wise draw a line around it as a
self-contained event or one which is complete in
itself It has already been seen that it stands vitally
related to the work of God in the world from the
infancy of mankind, and this necessarily includes all
that He did in and through His Son as recorded in
the gospels. But this wide statement needs to be
emphasised and made more definite. The death of
Christ is inexplicable apart from the life which pre
ceded and followed it. The blood of the cross speaks
in a language which men of all nations and tongues
can understand when set forth as a part of the " old,
old story," but it would be dumb, or would speak evil
tidings, if we knew nothing of the sufferer's previous
career ; and it would speak worse things than that
of Abel, if, knowing the career it seemed to terminate,
we knew nothing of the after life to which Jesus
arose from the grave. No human life has been fully

278 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OP AfoNEMEN'T Lfitff.
lived until death has been accomplished, and, unless
immortality be only a dream, no death has been com
pleted until life has been resumed. Crucifixion was a
daily incident in the Roman Empire, and two men were
crucified in close company with Jesus ; but no cross
has any message for mankind, or any Divine signi
ficance, except the one on which the sinless Son of
Man, who had proved Himself the Friend of Sinners
and the Lord of life and death, consented to expire.
Nor is this all, for the story of Christ's death would
be more condemnatory to human nature, more daunt
ing to the courage of well-meaning men, more pessi
mistic and misanthropical in its tendency, and more
destructive of all faith in the righteousness of God
than any other incident recorded in the annals of the
world had it lacked a sequel in the tidings that He
who died for our sins rose again for our justification,
is alive for evermore, and is exalted as a Prince and
a Saviour at the right hand of God.
Guided by these considerations we must now
endeavour to interpret the significance of Christ's
life and death, and more specifically we have to
inquire whether the death of Christ was in itself
an indispensable part of God's self-revelation, and
therefore, in Dale's words, "necessary for human
redemption," although not required to placate God's
feelings or to satisfy His justice as an endurance of
the penalty of human sin.
All believers in Christ as the Son of God will
unite in affirming that the Incarnation was designed,

vii CHRIST REVEALS MEN'S THOUGHTS 279
and actually served, to bring God into visible and
intelligible intercourse with men. It is an article of
Christian faith that Christ was not a mere messenger
to tell men about God, but was more than an angel,
more than an apostle sent from Heaven, more than
a prophet proclaiming what He had heard and seen.
We believe that the Word which was with God in
the beginning, and was God's self-expression to the
universe, became flesh and dwelt among men, so
that in Him God was made manifest. The works
that He did were the works of the Father who
dwelt in Him.
From this doctrine it inevitably follows that the
character of Christ was a true representation of
God's character, and hence it becomes clear that
His personality was a touchstone for the testing of
man's disposition towards Divine goodness. This
personality operated precisely as Simeon foresaw and
predicted to Mary, while holding the infant Jesus in
his arms in the temple — " Behold this child is set
for the falling and rising up of many in Israel, and
for a sign which is spoken against ; yea, and a sword
shall pierce through thine own soul also, that
thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed "
(Luke ii. 34, 35). While still ignorant of Christ's
unique nature and mission, men were unconsciously,
but none the less really, brought into direct relations
with the moral qualities which are most distinctive
of the Divine character. This social contact, with
the action and reaction of personal influence which
it involved, was the indispensable prerequisite of

280 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
any effective revelation. Viewing it historically, we
now perceive its true significance as an exhibition of
the moral relations between the Sinless One and
sinners. Few things are more significant in the gospels
than the extraordinary way in which men and
women were caused to uncloak themselves on
coming into touch with Christ, and became better
or worse as the issue of such intercourse. Those
who were most potently influenced for good
developed a new type of goodness, and became the
nucleus of a new society which is slowly but surely
filling the world with a new manhood, of which the
most distinctive feature is a desire to deliver all men
everywhere from evil. On the other hand, those
who resisted Christ's influence became visibly worse,
and by degrees approached that climax of wicked
ness which He described as the sin against the
Holy Spirit — a climax which can be reached only
along the line of direct antagonism to goodness,
when seen in its most perfect form.
Resting on this basal fact of social relationship as
the condition of a mutual revelation of hearts,
Divine and human, we may note the adaptation of
Christ's chosen career to the furtherance of His
great design as the Author of Faith, Hope and
Love, and therefore the Destroyer of Sin and the
Saviour of men.
I. By coming in a lowly social rank, and without
exceptional stature, magnificence, wealth, official
dignities, or supernatural attendants, Christ left men

vii CHRIST S HUMILIATION HIS POWER 281
the largest possible liberty to reveal their hearts, to
develop their characters, and to work out their
thoughts and passions in the most unrestrained and
therefore truthful fashion. Had the Son of God
come upon the scene with pomp and parade, waited
upon by " liveried angels," and followed by legions
of superhuman warriors ; or had He come alone,
but arrayed with supernatural majesty of person,
men would have been overwhelmed with awe,
stricken into servility by fear, or dazzled into an
admiring wonder in which there might have been no
element of moral sympathy. So coming, He would
have appealed to the basest feelings of self-interest,
and would have been sought after by the crafty and
servile for the sake of His patronage and wealth.
From such a resplendent being the humble and
unambitious would have been repelled ; while place-
hunters, sycophants and toadies would have flocked
from the ends of the earth to court His favour.
But the Son of Man, who had not where to lay His
head, had no attractions for the selfish, and could
gather round Himself a band of leal friends, who,
without corrupt inducements, and without a
cancerous self-suspicion, soon learned to love Him
for His own sake. At the same time He left the
proud, the careless and the ill-disposed at liberty to
display their true character, and to work out their
own ill-will. Enmity and friendship, moral
sympathy and immoral antipathy were thus allowed
the fullest opportunity and the utmost freedom to
expend themselves on Christ.

282 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
2. By the acceptance of a poor and lowly condi
tion Christ was enabled to give an assurance of His
sympathy with us in the harder experiences of life.
Had He been exempted from these, we might, and
indeed must, have felt that He was a stranger who
had no part or lot with the poor and needy, or with
those whose position is precariously balanced
between sufficiency and penury. But by a voluntary
acceptance and cheerful endurance of privations,
He bore witness that God is not unjust or less than
good in permitting us to suffer. If He to whom
the earth with all its fulness belonged chose for our
sakes to become poor, we can believe that our own
subjection to similar distresses is compatible with
the Heavenly Father's love. No manifestly rich
and blissful being, no tenant of king's houses, no
self-indulgent teacher, faring sumptuously every
day, could have said, " Blessed are ye poor," and
preached a doctrine of contentment. Those life
long trials which were specially concentrated in the
wilderness temptations, harmonise our lot with the
love of a God who, without difficulty, could
transform our physical environment into an earthly
paradise but has not done so. The Son of Man
who once hungered and thirsted, yet refused to
relieve His own distress a single hour before the
Father gave His sanction, is a perpetual contra
diction of a poisonous lie which is supported by
strong circumstantial evidence, viz., that the Maker
and Master of the world is too niggardly or too
coldhearted to satisfy the wants of His creatures.

VH CHRIST'S HUMILIATION HIS POWER 2S3
 * 
But beyond this reproof of man's not unnatural
suspicions Christ placed Himself upon a coign of
vantage for making an appeal to mankind for some
thing immeasurably higher and more difficult than
resignation, viz., the exercise of self-denial within
the sphere of possible self-pleasing. Only one who
freely took upon Himself a life of humiliation and
sorrow could say, " If any man would come after me
let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily
and follow me. For whosoever would save his life
shall lose it : but whosoever shall lose his life for
my sake, the same shall find it" (Luke ix. 23).
3. By His victorious endurance of all kinds of
temptations which are common to man, He magni
fied the ideas of Law, Duty and Devotion. He
also revealed the beauty of holiness, the wisdom of
being accounted a fool for righteousness' sake, the
happiness of renouncing comfort, security and social
status for the sake of loyalty to God and for the
furtherance of His kingdom. He supplied a new
ideal of heroic virtue, and has embodied in his real
life a higher law than ever was, or ever could be,
written in commandments. In this way He humbles
us to feel our inferiority and our unworthiness of
fellowship with Him, yet He lights up the Valley
of Humiliation with the sunshine of His sympathy,
and commends Himself to the lowliest and weakest
as a compassionate High- priest, a discerning Friend,
and an effectual helper in the toils and struggles of
aspiring life.
4. By enduring the assaults of human malice and

284 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
 e 
insolence without using force for their repression,
or shielding His person by supernatural signs of
majesty ; by enduring also the lesser slights and
wrongs which proceed from cold indifference, from
suspicion and distrust ; by hearing without im
patience the exasperating misunderstandings and
heartbreaking disloyalties of fickle, undiscerning,
and sometimes treacherous friends, Christ attracted
towards Himself all the currents of human passion,
and developed into activity all the qualities which
God must deal with as Father, Saviour, and Judge.
By His own treatment of diversified types and shades
of character, He exhibits for the perpetual instruc
tion of mankind God's attitude towards each, and
reveals the principles by which all sorts and con
ditions of men will be judged. By all His works
and ways and sufferings as a living Son of Man
Christ declares that Name which is God's glory.
He thus makes known " the beauty of God " in His
kindness towards all men, in His slowness to anger
and readiness to forgive, in combination with a
truceless hatred of iniquity, and a changeless pur
pose to by no means clear those guilty ones, who
harden their hearts against reproof, and will not turn
from their evil ways that they may live.
But, as already seen, the life of Christ cannot be
told, nor its power measured, nor would it have been
fully lived, apart from the supreme act of self-sur
render to the Father's will and to man's hatred, which
issued in obedience unto death. In the Cross all the

vii CHRIST'S DEATH A SPECTACLE 285
forces which were previously at work culminated,
and all the truths and personal qualities revealed in
previous incidents were focalised.
Whatever else the death of Christ may have been,
and whatever purposes of God it subserved, it was
most certainly a revelation, and the most intense,
vivid, and sublime revelation of God in His relations
with a sinful world. May we not even venture to
suppose that it was the most resplendent revelation
which even a Divine imagination could conceive?
In saying this we do not necessarily demand an
admission that the word revelation gives an all-
inclusive and exhaustive account of the cross, but
we do affirm that this represents an invaluable
element of its power, and not a mere by-product or
incidental effect.
That the death of Christ was directly and specifi
cally designed to be a revelation may be confidently
inferred from the fact that it was allowed to be a
public spectacle, and has been depicted for the con
templation of mankind in histories of matchless
simplicity and power. Had an endurance of death,
apart from its effect upon the minds of beholders,
been sufficient for the purpose of making an atone
ment for sin, the death of Christ might have taken
place in the seclusion of some quiet chamber, and
in the presence of friends, or on some lonely moun
tain top, where, like Moses, the Son of Man might
have passed away without a human witness of His
anguish. Indeed, such a sacrifice might have been
accomplished in some other world, upon an altar

286 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
surrounded with amazed but adoring angels, instead
of a deriding mob of human foes. It is incredible
that the Father would lay upon His Son one need
less pang, or subject Him to superfluous ignominy.
Therefore, seeing that Christ was delivered into the
hands of sinners, and by them was put to death as
a malefactor ; that He was not only obedient unto
death, but to the vilest of all deaths — that of the
cross ; seeing also that His death was accompanied
with extraordinary phenomena, these facts, when
viewed together, must be accepted by believers in
Christ as unanswerable evidence that it was God's
design to render the crucifixion a spectacle to the
world, and through what, with all reverence, may
be called its dramatic power, to work upon the
hearts and consciences of men. This view accords
with all New Testament references to Christ's death,
and with the actual effect produced by the recital
of its tragic story on men of all ages and lands
and every grade of culture. That it has proved to
be a revelation of God and a powerful attraction
Godward, is evidence that God ordained it for this
combined purpose.
Looking back to that hour of darkness in which
the greatest tragedy of time was consummated, we
must humbly confess our inability to penetrate the
secret of our Lord's consciousness : yet we are under
the most sacred obligation to drink in all that mind
and heart can read in the uplifted sign. No one
who has watched the passing of a beloved com
panion will talk glibly of what death is, or pretend

vii THE DEATH OF CHRIST UNIQUE 287
to interpret the experience of dying; much less,
therefore, can we hope to explain what death was to
the Son of Man. As our brother He tasted death
for every man, and therefore He would evade
nothing which is painful in the common experience
of mortality ; but while this is a great and priceless
truth, it is by no means the whole truth. We must
not forget that our Lord, though truly man, was
also something more, and this higher element in
His nature necessarily involved something special
in the process of dissolution. There is no pre
sumption in saying that inasmuch as He was
more than man, there must have been something
deeper in His sufferings than our nature can
experience. The fact that He was not only a son
of man, but also in a unique sense the Son of God,
must have made death more abhorrent, and endowed
Him with a capacity for anguish which no human
sympathy can measure.
Death appears to be terrible in proportion to the
fulness of life and the wealth of the affections, and
on this account there must have been in the sorrow
of Christ some elements which no lesser mind can
understand. But although we can never hope to
know, much less to put in words the grief He
felt, the things which are revealed belong unto us,
and by diligent attention to all that has been
recorded we may progressively apprehend the sig
nificance of that which is publicly presented to the
gaze of the world.
It has often been urged by unsympathetic

288 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
detractors that Jesus exhibited less fortitude than
has been displayed by many martyrs, although
His physical sufferings were less protracted and less
severe than some which have been triumphantly
endured. The only possible ground for such an
allegation lies in the fact that Jesus shrank from
death with a dread which He took no pains to
conceal. That there was such a dread is undeni
able, but when it is observed that this dread was
conjoined with a resolute determination to suffer,
it points not to any lack of fortitude, but to some
mysterious elements of mental anguish from which
love shrank, though courage never quailed. We
read that " knowing all things that were to come
upon Him " He went up to Jerusalem. Knowing
well that Judas would lead his band to Gethsemane,
He went there instead of avoiding peril. He had
power to escape at the last moment, and was able to
summon angels to His succour, or to speak a sentence
of death upon His captors, yet He forbade His ser
vants to fight ; and after offending valiant Peter by
rebuking his zeal, and by healing the wound he had
inflicted, calmly surrendered to His enemies. Though
worthy to act as Judge He permitted Pilate'to con
demn Him ; went to the cross and stayed there, re
fusing to deliver Himself, though able to come down
at any moment. Not the nails, but His own will to
do the Father's will affixed and held Him to the
cross. During the hours of resolute self-sacrifice
the signs of absolute self-possession were manifest.
With mind : unshaken by the cruelty and faithless-

vii THE ANGUISH OF GETHSEMANE 289
ness of men, He calmly talked with John, and
with the contrite thief, and prayed for the forgive
ness of His slaughterers. Unless blinded by preju
dice we cannot fail to see in these facts a proof that
what Jesus feared in the garden of Gethsemane
was not bodily pain, and that the physical agony
of crucifixion was so minor a part of His distress
that it. was almost swallowed up in the great sea of
sorrow which surged within His soul.
The tongues of men and angels are too weak to
describe those sorrows of death which compassed
Him, but we are not left without some clue to their
nature. Men of many creeds have perceived that
in that hour, He who had enjoyed the consciousness
of the Father's indwelling, as none other ever knew,
or can know it, tasted, as none other can taste, the
anguish of being alone. The supreme joy of love is
fellowship, and its supreme agony is separation. This
Jesus endured. As the predestined hour drew near
the circle of His friends contracted until no man was
left. On His way to Gethsemane He foresaw the
desertion of His disciples and said : " Behold the
hour cometh, yea is come, that ye shall be scattered,
every man to his own, and shall leave me alone ;
and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with
me." His yearning for their poor purblind sympathy
appears in His request to a chosen three to tarry
awhile and watch with Him in the garden, and in
those pathetic words which chided them for falling
asleep. He was encountering deadly forces of
temptation, and was pressing forward to meet the
U

290 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
most awful of all conceivable assaults on filial faith
and love, and He clung to those weak friends as if
even their presence were a shield.
All these are signs to tell us that what Jesus
dreaded as " the hour and power of darkness " was
the loneliness which drew from His lips the great
cry, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me ? " We cannot enter into this darkness to ir
radiate it with our explanations. But God has
caused some light to shine out of it for our illumin
ation, and every ray is charged with healing virtue.
Is there not a gleam of light in the fact that Jesus
cried out the words of a familiar psalm, and that He
did so " with a loud voice " ? We cannot impute to
Him a cry of weakness or a mere venting of agony
which might have been suppressed. Such a cry
reminds us that once before, at the grave of Lazarus,
Jesus prayed aloud, and as He Himself explained,
He did this for the sake of them that stood by, and
that they might believe. Guided by these words,
may we not conclude that when the dying Son
cried aloud upon the cross, He did this also for the
sake of them that stood by, did so because He
desired to be heard by the multitude ? Reverence
for Christ compels us to believe that if the utterance
had been intended only for His Father's ear, He
would have spoken to His Father in secret.
Drawing out this inference a little further, may
we not safely add that Jesus, who was dying to
glorify God, and to beget faith in man by commend
ing the Father's love, would utter no words on the

vii THE LOUD CRY AND ITS LESSON 291
cross which could weaken faith in others by betray
ing any quiverings of distrust or complaint in His
own mind ? When once this thought has arisen,
we may follow its leading, and say with boldness,
that whatever Jesus said upon the cross must have
been intended to positively promote faith and to
enlighten His first hearers, and through them to
instruct the millions of mankind destined to gather
round that cross in future ages.
What, then, is the testimony of this strange cry ?
The first and most obvious reply to this question is
that it could not fail to turn the thoughts of the
people to what they all regarded as a Messianic
psalm,; not merely to the words actually repeated,
but to the psalm as a whole. This is made the
more certain by the fact that the words He adopted
were those used by a reader in the synagogue when
announcing the 22nd psalm. Assuredly it was not
a mere coincidence, nor was it because lacking words
of His own that He quoted the old Messianic poem.
By uttering the first sentence of that psalm, He
laid a constraint upon the people standing by, and
upon all future generations, to j-ead it afresh, to
ponder it, and to learn the great lesson it provides.
What, then, is the lesson of the psalm? What
would it say to those who despised and rejected
the man of sorrows, and esteemed " Him stricken,
smitten of God and afflicted " ? Would it not bid
them remember that, although God's servant might
be hated and persecuted ; though He might seem to
be and might even feel Himself to be abandoned to
U 2

292 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
His enemies, and forsaken even by the God He
was serving, this would be no proof of Divine dis
pleasure or neglect ? Would not vaunting hatred
be awed, and trembling faith be encouraged, by
a recollection of the later words of that same
psalm ?
" Ye that fear the Lord praise Him ;
All ye the seed of Jacob, glorify Him ;
And stand in awe of Him, all ye the seed of Israel.
For He hath not despised, nor abhorred the affliction of the
afflicted ;
Neither hath He hid His face from him ;
But when He cried unto Him, He heard." (Psal. xxii. 23, 24.)
Such thoughts as these must have coursed through
the minds of many in the crowd at Calvary, and it is
incredible that Jesus did not mean to start them into
activity by His cry.
For ourselves, the clear teaching of the psalm in
so far as it could be appropriated by Christ is that
throughout the crucifixion Jesus was the object of
His Father's love, and that throughout that hour
of darkness He also knew Himself to be God's
well-beloved Son, and not only the object, but the
agent of His love for men. The psalm culminates
in an exultant prediction of a great festal banquet
to be spread by the recovered sufferer for the joy
of all nations, and a world-wide turning to the Lord
which should follow the deliverance of His afflicted
servant. For the joy of bringing this to pass Jesus
endured the cross and despised the shame, and
willingly united with His Father in the great sacri-

vii DEATH IS SEPARATION 293
fice of being parted for a season in some mysterious
way. But how can these things be ? How could there
be a severance while love remained unbroken, and
while faith lived in the Son and faithfulness remained
in the Father, with whom there is no variableness,
neither a shadow cast by turning ?
Some tell us that the feeling of being forsaken
was but the faintness of creaturely weakness ; some
say that Jesus was mistaken ; others say that Jesus
endured a storm of Divine wrath as the penalty
of our transgressions. But these theories are con
tradicted by the signs. The declared facts are very
simple. The Son of Man was dying, and death is
separation. Our clearest conception of ordinary
death is that the human spirit leaves its organ of
communion with earthly friends, and, passing out of
the body, enters the unseen. Faith believes that,
although the departing spirit is unclothed and leaves
its vestment of flesh, it does not become a naked
spirit, bereft of fellowship with the universe, but is
clothed upon with a body of finer mould and purer
substance. But the one thing we witness on this side
of the grave is separation, the rending of social
ties, the dividing of manhood into its elements, the
going out of the spiritual ego into the unknown.
But the death of Jesus Christ could not be so simple
a separation as this. Our faith is that in Him the
Father tabernacled in a manner quite unique. He
was the only-begotten of the Father, and God was
in Him doing works, speaking words, and uphold-

294 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
ing the human spirit in its superhuman tasks. Ac
cording to this view of our Lord's person, the death
of Christ seems to have necessarily involved a tem
porary severance of the Divine and human. We
need no speculative theory, but, taking our Lord's
words as absolutely true, they not obscurely suggest
that there was a passing away of the Father from
His abode in the Son of Man prior to the passing
of the human spirit from the flesh which left an
inanimate body on the cross.
Such a separation as this would well account
for the mysterious dread which Jesus manifested.
Herein lay the supreme test of faith and love and
obedience. Herein lay the conquest of the old
Serpent by the woman's seed. Around were all the
forces of evil. Seen and unseen mockers derided
Him. Friends were utter strangers to His strife.
The Father though present to His faith was not
within Him as before. Alone in the blackness and
darkness with a heart surcharged with love, and
resolute to accomplish its victory, what wonder that
as the ocean of sin broke upon His pitying soul,
as He felt its blows upon Himself, and knew what
it meant for man and for God — what wonder that
the heart of flesh failed to bear such pressure, was
literally broken, and so let the spirit pass.
On such a theme hinted thoughts are better than
attempts at elaborate completeness, and before
leaving it I will only add that no theory of Death
as a process of dissolution can either prove or dis
prove any theory of Atonement. The view I have

vii A DUAL SACRIFICE 295
given is not fatal to the Penal theory, nor is it
essential to my own. I have given it as a simple
reading of the signs set before us, and as in my
judgment the only view of Christ's death which
accords with the glorious teaching of Psal. xxii. and
at the same time interprets the cry as a true utter
ance of our Lord's experience.
What has been said may help us to unite the two
sides of the great sacrifice at Calvary. It was
God's sacrifice of His Son. It was, allowing for
inevitable differences, an act prefigured by the offer
ing of Isaac on Mount Moriah. The knife which
slew the Lamb of God was wielded by wicked
hands, but it pleased the Lord to bruise His Son
and to put Him to grief for our sakes. It pleased
the Father to do this, but therein it also pleased
Him to grieve Himself. It pleased Him to give
His Son up to fight the good fight of faith against
the mustered forces of temptation to doubt and
disobedience, because until these forces had been
met and overcome it was impossible for man to
be reunited to Himself. There was no severance
of heart or moral accord. There was no anger, or
abhorrence in God, no hiding of His face in dis
pleasure, but the Father allowed the Son to be
surrounded with darkness, and to live by faith only
even unto death. On the other side the sacrifice
was the Son's. He gave Himself up freely to be
tried with an infinite test, to have His love and
trust and obedience strained to the uttermost, that

296 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
so He might slay the lie which bred man's enmity,
and vanquish the accuser of God in the most
decisive way.1 " O wisest love ! that flesh and blood,
Which did in Adam fail,
Should strive afresh against the foe,
Should strive and should prevail."
Leaving this general view of the death of Christ
we have now to inquire into the specific reasons
which warrant us in affirming its necessity as a
means of human redemption. To some extent these
reasons have been anticipated while considering our
Lord's manner of life and its adaptation to the end
He had in view. In spirit, if not formally, all that
has been said in regard to the life applies with
increased force to the laying of it down ; but the
death was requisite for some purposes which no
life untouched by mortality could effect.
I. The first and most obvious thought which arises
is that if Christ had declined to share our lot as
mortal, He would have escaped the one thing
which men most dread, and would thus have
limited the range of manifested sympathy, weak
ened His appeal to our hearts and limited the
scope of His revelation. We are touched by His
endurance of hunger, thirst and weariness, by
His subjection to shameful humiliations, venomous
slander, treachery, denial, mockery, and insolence ;
but all these sufferings would have failed to inspire
complete confidence in His perfect sympathy as the
1 See Appendix, Note 30.

vii THE DEATH NECESSARY 297
Son of Man. Had Christ not died, dying men would
have felt that they were passing through a valley
over which He had soared with supernatural wings,
and all our lifetime we should have lacked the con
solation and courage which flow from Him, who,
through death, hath delivered them ; " who, through
fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to
bondage." God has been pleased in His wisdom to
leave His purest and most loving children to pass
through the grave. Had Christ not died they would
have been almost compelled to think that their own
death was a mark of Divine displeasure, and incom
patible with His assurances of love. But now we
can esteem the suffering of death a part of the" all
righteousness " Christ came to fulfil. At His cross
multitudes have gathered faith to die, and as dying
men to say, Father, " into Thy hand I commend my
spirit : Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, Thou God
of truth."
2. Had Christ not died He would have escaped
the extreme force of temptation. Obedience un
tested by death has not been so tested as to prove
absolute invulnerability. The progressive trial of
Job passed from property to family, and from family
to flesh, but the Satanic assault was rigorously
limited by the prohibition, "Touch not his life."
Had a similar restraint been placed upon the adver
saries of Christ, it would have left room for men to
question whether He would have carried His obedi
ence to the length of dying. This question would
certainly have been asked, cynically by enemies,

298 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
wistfully by friends, and suspiciously, or in specious
self-defence, by those who were called upon to choose
between iniquity and death.
It is true that to some men there come times when
death is longed for as an escape from prolonged
torments, and preference for death has not seldom
been proved by the act of suicide. But this in no
way contradicts the common feeling of mankind that
death is the king of terrors. It is the fact that death
waits behind all sufferings which lends them their
keenest pangs. The Book of Job finely illustrates
this truth. The sufferer's anguish was aggravated
and his anger excited by a sense of disproportion
between the weight of his affliction and the brevity
of his days. Because he had to die before very long
he preferred to die at once rather than drag out a
miserable existence, only to reach at last the same
gloomy gate of exit. Similarly we are allowed to see
that as the appointed hour drew near our Lord awaited
the final change of dissolution as a desired termination
of His agony. This feeling found expression in the
words, " I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how
am I straitened until it be accomplished." Our
Lord knew that He must be baptised into our death.
It was inevitable, because the Father had willed it,
and Pie had willed to do the Father's will. Hence,
His soul longed for death, not as something easier
than life, but because it was the consummation of
His sacrifice and the prelude to His joy as our
Saviour. It was because the baptism was so terrible
that He desired to undergo it forthwith, and so let

VII DEATH THE CLIMAX OF TEMPTATION 299
it fall back into the past of things accomplished, in
stead of looming in the future as an ordeal still to be
endured. In order to appreciate our Lord's language we
must include within the suffering of death, not merely
the instant in which life ceases and sensation sinks to
rest, but the whole course of anguish through which
the Son of Man approached the cross as one about
to die. Had He not known " all things that were
to come upon Him," that last journey to Jerusalem
would have been easier, and the agony of the dark
betrayal night would have been mitigated. It was
the shadow of impending death which gave a tragic
pathos to the last supper. It is the thought of a
living man already dying in anticipation, which has
thrilled the hearts of millions in the words, " This is
my body broken for you." " This cup is the new
covenant in my blood." It was the approach of
that predestined hour for which He had come into
the world which wrung the blood-stained sweat from
His brow. Indeed, the entire life of Jesus was one
long journey up the " Street of Grief" to Golgotha
— one long ascent of the altar stairs with death as
the consummation to be reached.
From the days of Irenaeus until now some voices
have said that Jesus was not " in all points tempted
like as we are," x because He did not taste the specific
trials which arise out of various forms of individual
experience, and out of particular social relations, e.g.,
those temptations which come to husbands, wives
1 See Appendix, Note 31.

300 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
and parents, and pre-eminently those which are met
with in advancing age. Christ did not live to ex
perience those pathetic feelings of conscious decline
in bodily and mental power, and that slow descent
towards helplessness and decay which put so pro
longed, so severe, and so subtle a strain on the
human spirit. Practically this limitation of Christ's
relationships, and the comparative brevity of His
life, do not lessen our sense of kinship, or our con
fidence in His sympathy. But this is chiefly
because He went through the all-inclusive experi
ence of death. If Christ had evaded this part of
our trial, the sense of His real kinsmanship would
have been utterly lost, and men would have said,
He knows but little of our temptations, for in failing
to taste our death He has failed to taste the bitter
ness of human life. We should then have had from
Him no example of the last stage of faithfulness,
which is " unto death." He would have left us at
least some apparent excuse for flinching at the last
extremity from a trial which was not imposed upon
the Son of God, presumably because too severe. In
this way an undying Saviour would have failed to
inspire martyrdom for the sake of Truth and Right,
and for the sake of loyalty to God. Worse than this,
because affecting vaster numbers, and depriving the
world of its redemptive ministries, it would have
failed to enlist that heroic army of men who have
" hazarded their lives " for the gospel, and in myriads
of cases have laid down their lives on the altar of
man's service. His power to save ordinary men from

vii TRANSLATION NO PLEDGE OF IMMORTALITY 301
unbelief and murmuring would also have been cur
tailed, because He would have failed to teach the
hard lesson of trust in the day of sickness, accident
and peril. His miracles of healing manifest His kind
ness, and are sacramental signs of Divine compas
sion, but they have no adequate message for those
to whom no healer comes, who hear no storm-com
manding voice amid tempestuous winds and waves,
and receive no bread in days of famine. The faith
which can only trust for healing is an easily-broken
reed, and in every case must ultimately fail in a
world where death lurks behind each transient
recovery of health. Those who cannot say, " Though
He slay me yet will I trust Him " are full of latent
unbelief and in ceaseless danger of rebellion ; and
men would have been better aided under this appal
ling temptation by a courageous mortal sufferer like
Job, than by a deathless messenger from Heaven.
3. Had Christ not died He would have been
unable to reveal Resurrection in such a manner as
would assure His followers of fellowship in His
risen life. An ascended Christ who passed to the
Throne by some process of translation would have
been no pledge of revival to a race still doomed to
die. He would not have been our forerunner, passing
through the veil as a leader and guide. It is impos
sible to overestimate the value of the Resurrection,
or to define the manifold ways in which it operates
to reconcile man to his lot, and therein to the Poten
tate who subjects us to vanity as mortal. Our
thoughts of the Unseen are gladdened by the belief

302 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
that its Lord " was dead and is alive again," and holds
in His hands the keys of death and of Hades. If all
the words which thus set Christ before us were blotted
out from the New Testament it would be like the
quenching of many stars. I do not dwell upon those
texts which speak of Christ as raised again for our
justification, though from them a powerful argument
might be framed, but restricting ourselves to those
which involve no discussion, it is clear that faith,
hope and love would have lacked most precious
aliment had Christ ascended without first descend
ing into the grave. Had Christ not died Peter could
not have written those thrilling words which speak
to us as begotten " to a living hope by the resurrec
tion of Jesus Christ from the dead." Nor could Paul
have silenced doubt by reasoning from the love
which died to the love which lives to save those
for whom the death was borne. Truly the Resur
rection is a necessary and integral part of the
gospel, and only because He died and rose again
can we hear Jesus say, " I am the resurrection and
the life." '' Because I live ye shall live also," and
only thus can we gather faith to say, when standing
by an open sepulchre, " O grave where is thy victory ?
O death where is thy sting? .... Thanks be unto
God, which giveth us the victory, through our Lord
Jesus Christ."
4. Had Christ not died He would have evaded the
last injury which human hatred could inflict, and
by thus enfeebling the demonstration of man's
enmity to holiness, He would have failed to present

vn THE CROSS CONVINCES OF SIN 303
in His own person an everlasting evidence and objec
tive sign of the awful deadliness of sin. The cross
of Christ is the climax of human wickedness. This
does not mean that Christ's murderers were worse
than all other men, but that on them came the terrible
responsibility of meeting the Divine Personality more
visibly than has been possible to others. In that
central field of history good and evil came into
collision, and each rendered the manifestation of the
other possible in a culminating form. In the murder
of Christ man committed Deicide, as far as such a
crime can be committed, and the men who perpe
trated this crime were true representatives of the
race, i.e., they were not inhuman monstrosities, but
ordinary men living in an extraordinary age and act
ing in the sight and audience of the world for ever.
We should account it a gross injustice if the actions
of the Jews were personally imputed to us, but we
cannot deny that those actions sprang from common
human faults in which all are partakers ; and thus the
awful manner in which these faults may be developed
is brought home to us, and we are humbled to confess
the deadliness of the virus in our nature.
But while the cross convicts the race of crime in
its worst form, it has also a unique power to convince
men of sin in its more subtle workings and in its
most secret germs and rudimentary shapes. No line
is truer to Christian experience than that which says,
" Gazing thus our sins we see." The law made sin
exceeding sinful, but the cross teaches us to be
ashamed of lives which no written law could condemn.

304 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
The splendour of its sacrifice reveals the utter worth-
lessness of an unloving life, the shamefulness of living
to oneself. From that cross Christ calls men to take
up their own cross daily, to deny themselves and
follow Him, bearing His yoke and carrying His
burden of acknowledged duty. Hence comes its
power to convince of sin, not only malefactors but
outwardly righteous persons, and to bring home to
our consciences the significance of inward faults, and
the antagonism to God which lurks in what Paul
calls the " carnal mind." The cross may not compel
us to charge ourselves with murder, or with any of
the seven deadly sins, but it penetrates to the hidden
source of sin, and teaches us to smite our breasts as
morally akin to those who nailed Him on the tree,
because like them we have been ungrateful for kind
ness, impatient of reproof, and weary of the call to
repent and turn to God. Like the men we condemn
we have not always liked to retain God in our
thoughts. We have sometimes put Christ away from
our minds as one who troubled us. We have flinched
from the call to abandon pleasure for duty, and
careers of ease or ambition for the path of service.
We have been reluctant to forego, or even to endanger
our position or prospects in the world for the sake of
keeping close to Christ. Multitudes gaze casually on
the cross without being searched thus thoroughly by
its light, but none the less it is true that the death of
Christ, as an injury inflicted by those who could not
bear His reproving light, has ever been, and must for
ever remain the most potent means of convicting

vii CONVICTION MUST PRECEDE FORGIVENESS 305
men of sin against the Holiness of God. Job stub
bornly and conscientiously defended himself against
all the charges of friends, but knew himself to be a
guilty creature when at last his eyes were opened to
see God. So millions, gazing on the cross of Christ,
have learned to say with the patriarch, '' I have heard
of Thee with the hearing of the ear, but now mine
eye seeth Thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent
in dust and ashes." Had Christ not died this in
dispensable and supreme demonstration of the
world's sin would have been lost to the Divine
Government, and thus a primary condition of faith
in the love of God would have been unsupplied ; and,
as an inevitable consequence of this defect, man's:
reconciliation to God's Person and Will would not
have been accomplished. God cannot receive sinful
creatures into peace with Himself until their guilti
ness is acknowledged and His goodness is seen to be
untarnished. Conviction of sin must precede con
fession, and confession must precede forgiveness. He
who denies his own sin must deny the love of God ;
and thus God best reveals Himself in all the pleni
tude of grace when man is bowed down by the death
of Christ to acknowledge the enormity of sin.1
5. Had Christ not died He would have given no
adequate demonstration of the power of God to for
give man's sins to the uttermost.
This proposition is a necessary corollary from the
last, but is so vital a truth that it demands inde
pendent treatment. We have previously seen that
* 1 See Appendix, Note 32. X

306 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
an assurance of forgiveness, although not in itself an
adequate remedy for sin, must necessarily be included
in any remedial scheme (cf. page 163), and have only
to add here some evidence that the death of Christ
was indispensable as a seal to all other tokens and
promises of mercy, and constitutes an immutable
pledge that the grace of God is sufficient for the
pardon of man's worst iniquities when repented and
confessed. The Old Testament contains many signs and pro
mises of mercy, and without Christ sinners learned
to rejoice in the name of the Lord. The gospels also
contain signs which surpass the force and beauty of
all previous declarations ; but however precious as
aids to faith and illustrations of God's ways, these
are weak and dim in comparison with the witness of
the cross.
No one can overestimate the beauty and worth of
such a narrative as that which records the pardon of
a fallen woman who bathed Christ's feet with peni
tential tears. But the story of the Magdalene pales
when compared with the prayer of Christ for His
murderers — a prayer which found its fitting sequel in
the forgiveness which was preached in the name of
Jesus a few days later to those who had clamoured for
His death. To appreciate the difference between the
glory of the one and the excelling glory of the other,
several points must be considered. We must re
member that although the woman had sinned
grievously she had not obviously or consciously
sinned against Christ. There is nothing, therefore,

vii DEATH SEALS THE NEW COVENANT 307
in the narrative to impress men with the wealth of
Christ's personal forgiveness as the grace and mag
nanimity of one whose own heart and flesh had been
pierced by her offence. The story of her fall from
virtue is veiled, so that we know only the depth to
which she had sunk, and cannot estimate her guilt.
At the outset her fault may have been a too pliant
surrender to the selfish passion of a man she loved.
It may have been a sin of passion, but even then
it had no injurious intention, and sexual lust,
however repulsive to the pure, cannot be ranked
in guiltiness with bloodthirsty hatred. Moreover,
when this woman first appears upon the scene she
is in an attitude which disarms our anger, for
she is profoundly contrite. We are not told how
her penitence was produced, but she was penitent.
Her old life was already dead, and her tears coursed
from a purified fountain of grief. The story has led
many like her to cast themselves for cleansing at
Christ's feet. But it has left thousands hard, bitter
and reckless, because they have felt themselves to
be so much guiltier than she, and consequently have
failed to discern a saving sign in her salvation. But
when Christ arose with the marks of the nails and
the spear in His revived form, and through the
apostles, held out a pierced hand in offered peace
and pardon to the men who crucified Him, He
showed the utmost measure of forgiveness which
God Himself could devise. No sin could be too
flagrant or too directly aimed at His person to be
forgiven if the crucifixion could be forgiven. Such
X 2

308 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
a display of mercy left no room for any man to
say or think, " I am worse than the murderers of
Christ ! There is no hope for me ! " In this way
the blood of Christ becomes the blood of the
new covenant, which unlike the old one includes
the remission of sins. Had Christ not died, this
strong and everlasting, this indispensable sign of
salvation to the chief of sinners, would have been
lacking. 6. If Christ had not died He would not have per
fectly revealed the impotence of sin against God ;
and without this an essential condition of any world
wide publication of a divine amnesty would have
been lacking. The importance of this principle has
seldom been urged, but can scarcely be exaggerated.
It is of course as much the duty of a dwarf to forgive
a giant, as it is the duty of the giant to forgive the
dwarf; but the pureness, freeness and magnanimity
of proffered mercy is in the one case evident, and in
the other is at least open to suspicion. So the offer of
an amnesty by a king who has conspicuously failed to
put down a rebellion is more likely to inspire ridicule
than gratitude, and instead of allaying enmity it will
probably excite contempt. To have any good effect
the one who offers to remit punishment must mani
festly be in a position to inflict it if necessary. He
must speak from an altitude of authority and power,
and not from a tottering throne, or from the dust to
which he has been smitten. It was always possible
for God to demonstrate His power by terrible acts
and thus judgments always have been, and always

vii MAN'S IMPOTENCE AGAINST GOD 309
must be, a part of God's governmental methods.
Alike with nations and individuals a rod of iron may
be needed to prepare the insolent for messages of
peace. But the great problem was to bring home to
man the futility of insurrection by measures which
carried also a reconciling virtue, and instead of crush
ing to the ground, drew the rebel's heart Godwards
in contrition as well as submission. To bestow a
truly beneficial forgiveness on His foes it was neces
sary for Christ to be exalted to the throne of uni
versal dominion as a Prince. But to bring His foes to
cast themselves before His feet, not as cringing
creatures trembling for their lives, but as broken
hearted opponents, disarmed, not only of their
weapons, but of all desire to use them if they could,
it was needful that in the exalted Christ they should
see one against whom they had done their worst — and
had done it all in vain. This combined demonstra
tion of human wickedness and impotence, together
with God's long-suffering and power, is furnished in
the cross. Man there raged against the representa
tive of God, and seemed to have gained a complete
victory ; but in a few hours the stroke which was
meant to destroy and banish the Holy One recoiled
upon the strikers, while. the Lamb of God, Who had
silently submitted to be slaughtered, came again from
the dead, not to smite with an avenging sword, but
to overcome evil with good.
In speaking of man's impotence against God I
have viewed it in relation to His kingly authority*
and to His moral power to forgive, but of these two

310 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
the latter is undoubtedly the more important, though
the demonstration of neither could be spared. It
was needful to have it demonstrated that, in an
ancient phrase, man's puny warfare with God was
only a suicidal rush upon the thick bosses of His
buckler, or, as a Hebrew prophet depicts it, a war of
briers with a flaming fire. But in order to inspire
saving trust and love, in addition to wholesome
respect, it was supremely needful to show that man's
most virulent hatred failed not only as against God's
strength, but as against God's goodness, inasmuch
as it left Him unmoved in the calm peace of His
eternal and invulnerable love. The worst effect of
hatred among men is the excitation of retaliatory
passion. The man who can rule his own spirit under
fierce assaults of enmity is a greater conqueror than
he who taketh a city. Moral greatness lies in abso
lute superiority to the provocations of evil. So the
glory of Christ becomes most transcendent in the
hour of shame and supposed defeat. The cross was
the divine victory over evil, for there the divine
sufferer was lifted up in sublime steadfastness of
spirit, while the storm of Satanic wickedness beat
against His feet, and broke upon Him in impotent
fury, like ocean waves against the rocky headland of
a continent. Thus God expressed Himself in Christ
crucified as One who could not be changed in spirit,
or be turned from His eternal kindness by those ages
of human provocation which reached their climax in
the murder of the well-beloved Son whom He sent
to be the Saviour of the world.

vn DIVINE SORROW 311
7. If Christ had not died He would have failed to
impress upon men's hearts an adequate sense of the
truth that God is grieved by the existence of sin,
and without this a vital element of spiritual power
would have been absent from His revelation of God.
There was a general reluctance in the ancient
church to attribute sorrow to the Father, and this
feeling is still widely prevalent. This is partly due
to a general dread of anthropomorphic language ;
partly to the thought that suffering is incompatible
with the majesty and beatitude of God, and partly
to hereditary prejudices traceable to the Patripassian
controversy. We have no occasion to revive this old
conflict, because the question whether God can suffer
was only incidentally raised in dealing with those
who were charged with metaphysical heresies in
relation to the Trinity. A denial of Sabellianism
leaves the possibility of divine suffering unaffected,
and the most rigorous Athanasian is not only free,
but bound to consider the teachings of Scripture with
an open mind.
In regard to anthropomorphic language we must
beware of urging objections against some samples of
it, which, if valid, would be equally fatal to all, and
therefore, destructive to religion. We are unable to
avoid anthropomorphic language except by keeping
silence about God, and the Bible teems with it from
end to end. It is not a time mark peculiar to the
early stages of Theism, but is as strongly marked in
the latest books of the New Testament as in the
earliest documents we possess. All our ideas of God

312 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
are finite and unworthy efforts to conceive His glory,
and our words must needs be more defective than
our thoughts. But if we scruple to speak of God being
grieved we must go on to deny that He can be angry
or pleased, that He can feel pity or solicitude or love.
Indeed, as the logical issue of our fastidiousness we
shall be committed to a denial of all relations, and
then the only God left to us will be the infinite ice
berg of metaphysics. In speaking of God we may not
forget that all our terms are analogical, and that the
self-consciousness of God must needs be unsearchable
and unutterable ; but unless prepared to dispense
with revelation we must take the revelation which
bids us trust in One who made us in His own like
ness. Given the principle that man as a person
most resembles God, it follows that He can best
reveal His heart in the language which expresses
human affections. This also accords with the
cardinal doctrine of Christianity, viz., that in Christ,
God assumed the human form as the ultimate ex
pression of Himself to man. Thus the Incarnation
is the crown of anthropomorphic language, for in
Christ " the Word became flesh " that in seeing Him
we might see the Father.
Every Christian Theist is committed to the belief
that our deepest, truest, and most authoritative know
ledge of God is that which we obtain through Christ.
Pre-eminently it is in Him that what we freely speak
of as " the heart of God " is revealed. Hence it is
to Christ we must look for answer to the question,
Can God be grieved ? The answer is not indistinct,

vn THE SORROW CHRIST REVEALS 313
and is given in these two truisms of the Christian
faith: (1) That there was real suffering in Christ.
(2) That He who is well spoken of as the Man of
Sorrows was set forth as a manifestation of Him
whom no man hath seen at any time or ever can
see. How false then the spectacle of Christ cruci
fied must be, if there is nothing in God which
corresponds to this most characteristic feature of
Him who is " the effulgence of His glory and the
very image of His substance " ! The question is not,
May we, like the ancient Patripassians, identify the
Father and the Son ? But does the Son truly
represent the Father ? if we are forbidden to find in
Christ's sorrow a sacramental sign of something in
God which is thus expressed to human minds, then
we must discard the idea, that Christ reveals the Love
of God, or His Righteousness, His Holiness, His
hatred of sin. Indeed, once started on this road of
critical negation we must renounce the gospel ; and
denying the very possibility of divine self-revelation,
we must retreat into Agnosticism, and live as best
we can without God.
Declining such desolating scepticism as the anti
thesis of Christian Faith, let us endeavour to learn
what the Son has declared. No efforts would enable
us to achieve a complete analysis of the great sorrow
He reveals, but we shall not seek in vain to read
the mind of Christ, because it has found expression
in His words, His tears, His groanings, and His
blood. a. It is abundantly evident that the Saviour be-

314 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.

moaned the havoc wrought by sin in human nature.
We are told that He was grieved by the hardness of
men's hearts. As He neared the grave of Lazarus
" Jesus wept." Those tears were not shed to make the
people think that He was grieved, while all the while
there were no feelings within corresponding to those
which bring tears to our own eyes. They must have
been the true token of an inward experience, which
our own griefs enable us to partially interpret, and
yet we cannot imagine that while calmly intent on
raising Lazarus, Jesus wept merely as one bereft
of a friend. May we not surely say that Jesus wept
not for Himself, but for those at His side who were
distressed ; and not for them only, but for the whole
mass of misery on earth represented by the scene on
which He looked ? He knew that the anguish of
Martha and Mary, though poignant, would be tran
sient, but he saw therein a type of sorrow never
absent from the world, a sorrow embittered at its
source by sin.
There were no tears at Calvary, but that fountain
of woe from which tears spring was opened up
within the sufferer's heart. Christ was grieved that
men could be so wicked, that human hearts which
were made to be the springs of all goodwill, and
sources of delight at which other hearts might
drink, should become poisoned fountains, pouring
out streams of bitterness. " Forty years long was I
grieved with this generation," wrote down a Hebrew
poet as a true account of the Divine mind. May we
not extend the saying to cover all the generations

vii THE SORROW CHRIST REVEALS 315
of mankind ? Surely the grief made visible for a few
hours in Christ was a revelation of the truth that
everywhere and always, sin is a cause of grief to the
Creator, — a grief so intense that nothing less than
Calvary could set it forth. We rightly think of sin
as causing misery to those who practise it, and to all
whom it affects in person. But the Cross calls us to
consider how lamentable it is in God's sight, and
how He mourns to see confusion, strife and moral
disease, where order, amity and health are His
desire. b. Akin to this great sorrow of the Creator over
the marring of His works, — the King over the deso
lation of His kingdom — the Father over the degra
dation and disruption of His family — there are clear
evidences of sorrow on account of our agony, our
abject misery, and above all there is a manifesta
tion of sympathy with men in the shame, and fear,
and self-abhorrence which burn like the flames of
Gehenna when the consciousness of sin has been
aroused. One of the most striking features of the Christ is
this strong fellow-feeling with the sufferers He be
held, the sick He healed, and the sinners He re
proved and forgave, or sorrowfully forewarned of
judgment. We often think of Him as healing
multitudes with sublime ease, and contrast His
royal method and invariable success with the slow
and precarious use of means by ordinary phy
sicians. Yet the evangelists make it plain that
Jesus was not a cold, passionless healer, but One

316 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
Who spent His strength in working miracles.
Outwardly these great signs were wrought with
ease, yet inwardly they wrung His spirit and drew
virtue from His vital store. " Surely He has borne
our sicknesses and carried our sorrows," wrote Isaiah ;
and, as already noticed, Matthew finds a fulfilment
of this strange utterance, not in any contraction of
disease, but in the compassionate miracles of heal
ing, wherein His loving spirit took the burden of
affliction upon itself. He " healed all that were sick :
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah
the prophet, saying, ' Himself took our infirmities
and bare our diseases'" (Matt. viii. 17). The sym
pathy of Christ is brought home to us by all the in
cidents of His ministry, but His blood attests it better
than any words, or works, or sighs, or groans, or tears.
By the power of His cross He has made sinners feel
that He is their nearest, most discerning, and most
consecrated friend, Souls lost in the most awful of
all solitudes — the sense of guilt and doom — have
learned that the crucified One is able to be with
them in that wilderness, that though He knew no
sin of His own, He knew the shame, the horror and
the burning ache of guilt. No multiplication of
miracles, no shedding of tears, no eloquence of
words, could thus have touched us with a sense of
Divine sympathy in the sorrows which have com
passed us through sin ; and in order to lay upon our
stricken souls this healing touch, it pleased the Lord
to bruise His well-beloved Son, and put Him to
grief.

vii THE SORROW CHRIST REVEALS 317
c. But within and below all these elements of
sorrow, there may be discerned another which can
scarcely be defined in words, yet has been dimly
seen by myriads of simple souls while gazing on
the cross. I can only hint at what I would express,
by describing it as the sorrow of the Almighty be
cause of the limitation set upon the benignant use
of His power, as the Maker and lover of men. I
am aware that to some minds such words may
have no meaning, and that to others they may seem
almost impious, and altogether absurd. It will be
said : How can we dare to attribute a feeling of
weakness, or insufficiency to God? Theologians
who start with an assertion of God's absolute sover
eignty, and particularly those who allow their
glorification of His authority and might to eclipse
His moral attributes, will denounce such language,
and will ask : Can anything be too hard for God ?
Can He not do whatever He wills to do in His own
universe? But such questions count for little in
view of Scriptural statements and historical facts ;
and surely they should be silenced in the presence
of Him Who fell under the burden of His cross, and
became weak as we are in order to manifest the King
Eternal, Immortal, Invisible !
The thought I wish to exhibit may become clearer,
if we compare the language of Scripture concerning
God's work in Creation with that employed to de
scribe His work in Redemption ; or in other words,
if we compare the old creation whereby the world,
including man, was made, with the new creation

318 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
whereby men are spiritually made new creatures in
Christ Jesus. The first creation is always represented
as effected with ease. Not a sentence can be quoted
which suggests an idea of Divine effort. " God said,
Let there be light ; and there was light." " He
spake, and it was done, He commanded and it stood
fast." " By the word of the Lord the heavens were
made." These are fair examples of Scriptural lan
guage on this theme. With sublime ease the Al
mighty will issued in command, and without labour
or weariness the cosmos was framed. But in dealing
as King with created moral beings the Creator was
limited by His own determinate counsel and election
to endow them with a power of obedience, which
necessarily involves a power of disobedience to His
mandates. Here again in this moral realm God
commanded, but His law was set at nought. Omni
potence could produce unnumbered stars and solar
systems, but it could not produce a willing spirit by
any coercive fiat. Out of stones or dust it could
produce men, and by an effectual decree it could
endow them with the faculties we now possess.
But having given such faculties, even Divine power
could only work towards its ultimate ends and ob
jects by calling them into active exercise, and by
subjecting them to appropriate discipline. Hence
all through the Old Testament we find anthropo
morphic language which attributes to God a sense
of failure and disappointment. We are strangely
told that when He beheld rampant wickedness
on earth, " it repented the Lord that He had made

vn THE LIMITATION OF GOD 3^9
man." Of the cowardly and rebellious children of
the Exodus it is written :
" How oft did they rebel against Him in the wilderness,
And grieve Him in the desert ?
And they turned again and tempted God,
And limited the Holy One of Israel." (Psm. lxxviii. 40. 41.)
The same thought of one whose kind intentions
are restrained by sinful unbelief is uttered with even
deeper pathos in another Psalm.
" Oh that my people would hearken unto me,
That Israel would walk in my ways !
I should soon subdue their enemies,
And turn mine hand against their adversaries.
The haters of the Lord should submit themselves unto
Him ;
But their time should endure for ever.
He should feed them also with the finest of the wheat :
And with honey out of the rock should I satisfy thee."
(Psm. lxxxi, 13 — 16.)
Similarly in his Song of the Vineyard Isaiah
challenged Israel to confess that He had done all
He possibly could do to secure a vintage of right
eousness. Hosea also laments in God's name,
" Though I have taught and strengthened their arms,
yet do they imagine mischief against me. They
return, but not to Him that is on high : they are
like a deceitful bow" (Hosea vii., 15, 16) : i.e., God's
people were like a faulty weapon which frustrates
the skill of the finest archer, so that he cannot
reach the mark at which he aims. These are not
exceptional voices, but samples of an ever-recurring
note of upbraiding and grief attributed to Him
whose goodness is thwarted by man's sin,

320 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
Throughout many centuries the Spirit of prophecy
foretold that God would do something to conquer
rebellion, and to save men from their follies and
sins ; but no prophet ventured to speak of this pre
determined work as an easy or simple task, or as a
thing which God could do at any moment. In the
most wonderful poem of salvation that was ever
written, the prophet foretold that the work could
only be done by a suffering " Arm of the Lord."
He would be able to reach His goal, but only
through humiliation and anguish. He would not
fail to beget a spiritual seed, but it would be through
an agonising travail of soul. Prophetic imagery
thus likened the Messiah's work in begetting
spiritual sons to the throes of natural maternity,
instead of to the calm and effortless production of
the cosmos by God's word. Not by might, nor by
power, but by the sacrificial life and death of the
Man of Sorrows was man's redemption to be
wrought. In the New Testament we read the fulfilment of
these oracles. Throughout His career we see Jesus
working under self-imposed conditions, which de
manded the use of slow moral methods, and pre
cluded any prospect of instantaneous success.
The temptation to convert stones into bread
appealed to the natural craving of a hungry Son of
Man for food, and the temptation was strong, because
the power to make bread was there, and in itself
nothing could be more innocent. But when temp
tation became an incitement to take a short road

vii THE LIMITATION OF GOD 321
to royal power, it was stronger still, because it ap
pealed to the hunger of a loving heart to reign over
men for their good and to put an end for ever to
injustice and oppression. Those who have yearned
to deliver their fellows from evil and have found
them madly wedded to their bane, can faintly
apprehend the agony of Christ in conquering this
temptation, as with painful self-restraint He chose
that tedious road which lay through years of mis-
judgment and contempt to Calvary ; the road
which He still is treading, in the Church which is
His body, through centuries of long-suffering and
delay. Not by might nor by power, but by a meek
and lowly spirit was He to win His throne in human
hearts. Even the miracles of Christ were not wrought to
dazzle or subdue, but were, with a few instructive
exceptions, granted as His reply to believing re
quests. His delight was in showing mercy, yet
He marvelled at men's unbelief by which he was
so restricted in His work. It has been placed
on record concerning His sojourn in His own
country " and He could there do no mighty work "
(Mark vi. 5). He had come in obedience to His
Father's command, " Let there be light." Yet He
had to lament that many were not enlightened
because they preferred darkness. He had come in
the power of God's spirit to seek and to save the
lost, to preach good tidings to the poor, to proclaim
release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the
blind, to set at liberty them that were bruised ; yet
Y

322 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
He could confer no spiritual boon apart from a
humble, contrite, and receptive spirit, which bowed
men as learners at His feet. He was rich in mercy,
full of compassion, and hungry and thirsty to satisfy
men's needs ; yet after bewailing the indifference and
scorn of the cities of Galilee, He was constrained to
stretch forth His hands towards the crowd, and
make known the tender yet inexorable conditions of
relief, " Come unto Me all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my
yoke upon you and learn of Me ; for I am meek and
lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
Still more expressive of the grief felt by one
mighty to save, yet limited by man's perversity,
are the words Christ uttered, and the tears He
shed when drawing nigh to the city of Jerusalem
a few days before His death. " If thou hadst
known in this thy day, even thou, the things which
belong unto peace ! but now they are hid from
thine eyes," and again a few days later, "O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets,
and stonest them that are sent unto her ! How
often would I have gathered thy children together,
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her
wings, and ye would not! Behold your house is
left unto you desolate."
It may help us to form a more definite conception
of God's sorrow (and incidentally it will show
the importance of its revelation), if we observe
how perfectly it meets and answers some of

vii THE LIMITATION OF GOD 323
the most widespread and persistent hindrances to
Theistic faith, viz., those which arise from the
presence of evil in a world which is declared to be
under the dominion of a God Who is infinite in both
Power and Goodness. In some form or other the
ancient dilemma is perpetually recurring, — God does
not prevent or remove evil ; therefore we must be
lieve, either that He cannot, or that He will not put
it away. If He cannot do this, He must be deficient
in power ; if He will not, He must be less than
perfectly good. This is not a mere catchword of
theoretic atheism. It is the problem of problems
by which seekers after truth have been dismayed.
Even now, with all the light of Christ to shine
away our fears, this difficulty recurs with every
fresh display of apparently triumphant and uncon
querable evil. It is the not infrequent burden of
saintly souls who are jealous for God's honour. In
a vague, but keenly painful form it haunts the minds
of many children. They have been taught to believe
that nothing is too hard for God, and that no care
is too slight to wake His sympathy ; yet they have
to bear heart-rending sorrows, and call aloud for
pity, without apparent answer from the heavens.
This difficulty has perhaps never been expressed
more lucidly, or with a more sincere desire to find a
credible solution, than by J. S. Mill in the third of
his " Essays of Religion." He found what he deemed
to be the only conceivable answer in the hypothesis
of a God restricted in power, but doing His best to
overcome evil with good ; and on this he based a
Y 2

324 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
truly noble appeal for conformity to his own ideal
of life, as an endeavour to help God in the stupend
ous task of governing, healing, and perfecting
humanity. I have often lingered with satisfaction over those
lines which only came to the world when their
author had gone out to read the great secret ; because
they show how Mill's " rational scepticism " made a
tardy but wistful approach towards Christian hopes
and sentiments. I prize them also because they put
into words the nebulous thoughts of many common
men, and agree with the instinctive preference of all
true hearts for goodness as better than strength.
But most of all I value them because calculated to
quicken our appreciation of Christ's answer to the
problem they discuss.
Every Christian will respect Mill's contention
that it were infinitely better to believe in a God
of limited power, who loves us, than to acknow
ledge an omnipotent autocrat to whom the ruin of
millions is no grief. The whole creation groaneth
and travaileth in pain together until now, and, as
Paul wrote, even we who have the earnest of the
Spirit do groan within ourselves ; and there can be
no effectual consolation and no convincing plea
for faith, unless the Creator has some sympathy
with creation in her pangs. Our hearts can never
be quite right with His heart while left to think of
Him as having coldly laid out plans which involve
universal suffering of which He remains an impas-
1 See Appendix, Note 33.

vii THE WEAKNESS OF OMNIPOTENCE 325
sive spectator. The cross is therefore precious be
cause it reveals the fact that God is not a mere
passionless watcher of an agonising evolution, but is
Himself a partaker of the universal travail, and has
been constrained by love to take the chief labour on
Himself. The cross is thus an objective evidence of
the truth which Paul declares in marvellous words :
" The Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with
groanings which cannot be uttered " : and in this
He maketh intercession, " according to the Will of
God." The cross has no special function to declare God
omnipotent. It makes no effort to correct our
definition of this term, or to provide a formula by
which we can correlate the infinite attributes of
wisdom, power and love. But neither affirming nor
denying omnipotence, it instructs the world that
dynamic power, whether infinite or finite, can only
have a place of subordinate ministry when acting as
the servant of God's heart in the spiritual realm.
The force which gave form and motion to the uni
verse has in itself no power of appeal to the affec
tions ; it cannot penetrate to the secret springs of
emotion and volition to turn men from their evil
desires and purposes, and bring them as contrite
suppliants to their Father's feet. Hence the cross
reveals the ineffectiveness of mere omnipotence, to
bring order out of a moral chaos. There is some
thing deeper therefore in the Saviour's grief than a
simple sorrow for the wrecking of His works, or for
the sufferings of infatuated persons. It is a sorrow

326 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
that can best be likened to that of an affluent and
sagacious human father when he beholds a son
running down the road to ruin, and is conscious not
only of an intense desire to save him, but of ample
knowledge and resources for the purpose ; yet finds
his affectionate desire thwarted, and all his wealth,
influence and wisdom as though they were not, be
cause his gracious gifts are turned into lascivious-
ness, while his pleadings and counsels are despised,
and his affection flouted or denied.
This kind of sorrow, which only the great and
good are capable of feeling, and which must needs
be keenest in the greatest and the best, is most
beautifully expressed in the parables of Christ, but
best of all in the life and death of Him who uttered
them. It has often been pleaded that there is no
atonement in the parable of the prodigal son — and
this is true. But those who dilate upon this fact to
disparage the idea of atonement, would do well to
observe, that some of the indispensable marks of a
perfect fatherhood are also absent. There is no
sign of any fatherly effort to avert the son's cala
mitous experiment, no urging to remain at home, no
warning of danger, no cautionary counsel, no solicit
ous following of the prodigal's career, no attempt to
maintain or to re-open correspondence, no endeavour
of any kind to induce repentance ; and even after re
pentance has begun we hear of no encouragement to
return. If we are to treat the parable as a denial of
every doctrine that it does not teach, we must regard
it as teaching that God is a Father who feels nothing

vu A NEW POWER WANTED 327
and does nothing for His erring children, until they
spontaneously arise and tread the homeward way.
But against such barbarous treatment of Christ's
words, common sense protests. If the parable de
scribes no atonement in words, it is in itself a proof
that atonement was in the heart of the speaker. It
is instinct with the passion of a peacemaker between
God and man ; and coupled with the parables of the
seeking Shepherd and the Housewife it compels us to
think of Christ as standing in the midst of our " far
country " to declare to us our Father's sorrow, and
to bid us think of God as one who laments the loss
of any single human child, and sends His well-
beloved Son to seek and find and bring us home.
One of the finest features of the parable is lost, unless
we are led to contrast the spirit of Christ with the
Pharisaic spirit of the elder brother He depicted.
The one would not go in, because the prodigal had
been received ; the other willingly came out, because
the Father's heart was yearning to recover His lost
sons. Every word and every touch which depicts the
father's joy in welcoming his contrite son, connotes
a corresponding sorrow during the period of absence.
The gladness with which he killed the fatted calf
and called for music and dancing compels us to con
sider Him as being grieved throughout those d ays
when having enough and to spare, he was obliged by
His very love to leave the wanderer to the discipline
of exile, famine and shame.
I have used this parable to illustrate the kind of
sorrow I desire to predicate of God ; but even when

/
328 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect. j
combined with the two parables of seeking it remains;
deficient. We may strengthen the picture by read
ing John x. as an expansion of the idea of seeking
contained in the parables of the lost sheep and the
missing coin. The journey into the wilderness to
recover a single sheep is richly significant, but it
rather implies than exhibits a sacrificial labour and
sorrow. But in the Johannine discourse we see the
Good Shepherd as a sufferer, a willing, and indeed a
determined sufferer, who lays down His life for
the sheep. Thus we are free, nay compelled, to
bring the death of Christ into the parables of Luke,
and to find in Calvary an expression of that im
measurable grief which constrained the Father to
acquire a new power over human hearts, — a power
which even as omnipotent He could not otherwise
possess. The blood of Christ tells us of an anguish
so unspeakable that it embraced the cross as its
only relief, because it was in God's sight the only
method by which He could fulfil His own joy as
man's Creator.
Christ not obscurely indicated these feelings in
several utterances. " I have a baptism to be
baptised with ; and how am I straitened until it be
accomplished ! " (Luke xii. 50.) " And I, if I be
lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."
(John xii. 32.) "Except a grain of wheat fall into
the ground and die, it abideth by itself alone ; but if
it die, it beareth much fruit " (John xii. 24). They
are also plainly announced by the author of Hebrews :
" For it became Him, for whom are all things, and

vn POWER ACQUIRED BY SACRIFICE 329
through whom are all things, in bringing many sons
unto glory, to make the author (jov dpyr}<yov) of their
salvation perfect through sufferings." (Hebr. ii. 10.)
" Let us run with patience the race that is set before
us, looking unto Jesus the Author and Perfecter of
our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him
endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat
down at the right hand of the throne of God."
(Hebr. xii. 2.)
Many passages of kindred significance might be
quoted, but these suffice to justify what has been
said. They set before us thoughts too deep for
words, and teach us to fill up the parables of Christ
with all the meaning of His blood. The Father of
the Prodigal Man was no inert unsympathetic being,
who felt no pangs of bereavement, for He sent forth
His well-beloved Son to seek and save the lost. All
that this Son endured in the far country has ex
pressed to us the Father's heart, and all the tears and
agonies of Christ, which were endured to bring us
unto God, declare that God loved the world after
this sacrificial manner, because so, and only so, He
could take to Himself the kind of power which He
required for the reconciliation of "all things to
Himself." (Col. i. 20.)
8. Without death Christ would not have given
the strongest possible demonstration of God's
antagonism to sin. God has taken many means
to make this clear, but none so potent as the death
of His Son. The Divine abhorrence of iniquity is
written in our consciences and attested by our self-

330 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
reproaches, our fears of judgment, our anger against
those who injure us, or wrong our friends and neigh
bours. In clear tones this hatred of evil is pro
claimed in many ancient laws before which mankind
has bowed ; not only in the Mosaic law, but in all
laws, however imperfect, which have sprung from
man's moral intuitions, enlightened and developed
by experience. God's hatred of sin has also been
attested by the denunciations of prophets, and by
the chastisements and judgments inflicted upon those
families and nations which have most flagrantly
outraged the common law of righteousness. But the
death of Christ has deepened the sense of awe, and
intensified the conviction that God is eternally antag
onistic to sin. No interpretation of the words Christ
uttered when handing the wine-cup to His disciples
can eliminate the idea that the shedding of His blood
was associated in His own mind with "the remis
sion of sins." When the light of these words is
flashed into the darkness of Calvary, we behold an
everlasting witness that sin is so obnoxious that
God will spare no blood that may be needful for its
extermination, and that as He spared not His well-
beloved Son for this purpose, so, if necessary, He
would not spare the blood of nations or of all
mankind. If the Son of God died to take away
sin, His death is not only the measure of God's
love for men, but also the measure of His ab
horrence of the evil from which He rescues them
at such inestimable cost. No terrors of judgment,
no fires of penal anguish, and still less any words

vii THE COSTLINESS OF MERCY 33'
of spoken detestation could be so impressive as
the cross.
9. If Christ had not died He would have failed to
reveal to mankind the unspeakable difficulty and
costliness of mercy.
In recent years many writers and preachers have
declared or implied that forgiveness is a very simple
and easy thing, and that consequently there was no
necessity for the death of Christ. As a protest
against the dogma that God cannot righteously fore
go punishment such teachings have a value, but they
must none the less be deplored as superficial, and, I
fear, morally debilitating. In one sense it is easy
for God to forgive, inasmuch as He delights in
mercy, while judgment is His strange work, but the
central thought of Christianity is that God can only
delight Himself in mercy at a great cost to Himself.
In our study of Propitiation and Redemption we
have seen that although Christ does not buy God's
mercy yet human redemption is costly to God ; and
deep down below all disfiguring and objectionable
dogmas and phrases about the " price of pardon "
there lives in millions of Christian minds a truly
apostolic and most sanctifying conviction that the
blood of Christ represents the measure of the diffi
culty and costliness of our salvation.
Some who admit that forgiveness may be costly
to God still deprecate the suggestion that He has
been at pains to impress His creatures with a bur
densome sense of the fact. Such an objection is
plausible, but it overlooks the vital reasons which

332 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
exist for bringing home to men the truth that salva
tion is not easy even for God. It is indeed true that
a noble spirit will not ostentatiously parade its sacri
fices for the sake of winning admiration or gratitude.
The most loving service that one man can render to
another is that which seeks only to do good, " hoping
for nothing again." " Love seeketh not her own," but
always another's benefit, and the holiest sacrifices
are those which fine souls make in secret, so that no
humbling or saddening perception of their painful-
ness may detract from the happiness they confer.
Probably no one will question that this is indeed a
law of love. But it is not a complete or adequate
truth, for the law of self-effacement in sacrifice
can have no conceivable application to any case in
which the supreme blessing to be conferred is a
knowledge of the benefactor as a person. The
Creator can impart no boon so great as a true
understanding of Himself as the Lord exercising
loving kindness and righteousness in the earth. In
comparison with this blessing, those benefits which
He can bestow while hiding Himself are as nothing.
This is eternal life, to know God and Jesus Christ
Whom He hath sent, and to object to the idea of
Divine manifestation in sacrifice as a form of self-
display is to confound things which are as funda
mentally different as are Love and Vanity.
Closely connected with this thought there is
the further consideration, that if the costliness of
redemption had been hidden, men would not have
been duly affected by Divine mercy, because in-

vii THE COSTLINESS OF MERCY 333
capable of appreciating its intrinsic value or its
moral nature. In other words, the revelation of
the cost is an integral part of God's redemptive
method, and without it there would have been
no redemption.
With some apparent exceptions, it is notorious
that things which cost the giver little are lightly
taken, and awaken no deep sense of gratitude. It
is true that cheap gifts may under some circum
stances be prized more highly than things of great
cost. A flower may mean more than a gem. A
crude piece of handwork may be dearer, for the
worker's sake, than the lavish presents of a million
aire. But these familiar facts do not alter the truth
that when a real service of love has been rendered,
the worth of it is always gauged by the sacrifice
involved. When David poured out the water from
the well of Bethlehem upon the ground, it was not
because he prized it little, but because he prized the
lives and the love of his heroic followers more.
He was ashamed to have his own thirst quenched
while others were pining, and grieved to think that
those mighty men of valour should have risked
their lives to gratify His wish. To his last hour he
would remember those men, and would value their
devotion as among the chief riches of his kingdom.
A rich man's largesse begets some gratitude, but
the poor widow's division of her cruse of oil and
barrel of meal was beautiful in the eyes of God,
and won, not only the exiled prophet's love and
reverence, but a place among the world's choicest

334 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
memorials. In like manner the two mites which
another widow cast into the Temple treasury
received the praise of Christ, because in giving
them she gave all that she had.
The same law holds good in the moral realm.
The easy lenity of parents who pass by their
children's faults with careless readiness inspires no
respect for themselves, no reverence for virtue, and
no abhorrence of evil. Such treatment fosters a low
estimate of the difference between right and wrong.
It makes further transgression easy, and, if habitual,
its effect is to narcotise the conscience. Hence a mere
promulgation of the truth that God is ready to forgive,
without any manifestation of God's hatred of sin,
and of His inexorable resolve to by no means clear
the guilty, would have put a premium upon sin, and
would have been equivalent to an abrogation of His
law. God can only promise to bestow forgiveness
under conditions which will make mercy a minister
of righteousness. Forgiveness without repentance
is simply the condonation of sin. Hence it is, and
must be, difficult for God to forgive sin, not because
He is reluctant to show mercy, not because mercy
is essentially subversive of righteousness ; but
because it is difficult to lead free agents to fulfil
the moral conditions of forgiveness. God can only
cancel the guilt of disobedience as the spirit of
disobedience is cast out. He can only cease to
condemn the sinner, when He has induced the
sinner to condemn himself. He can only take
away sin, as He leads the wrongdoer to forsake it

vii THE COSTLINESS OF MERCY 335
in heart, and at least prospectively in life. Until
we see the greatness of God's sacrifice to induce
these eternal conditions of forgiveness in mankind,
we can never be duly affected by the moral energy
of His love.
It is when we see this significance of Christ's
blood that it becomes a cleansing fountain, and
washes the very thoughts and intents of the heart,
so that everything which grieves God becomes
hateful, and a new desire to please Him becomes
the animating principle of life. It is this percep
tion of costliness which gives the believer in Christ
a motive power which no refinement of taste, no
craving for happiness, no terrors of law, and no
dread of damnation can furnish. It is this which
has made the gospel of forgiveness a quickener of
the conscience among the highest and the lowest
races of mankind. It is this which awakens a
sense of obligation to obey and serve the Redeemer,
and throughout the most progressive course of dis-
cipleship continues to preserve from self-righteous
ness, and spurs the noblest servants to increased
endeavour ; and when at last a servant, who has
won the praise of human multitudes, lays down his
sword and trowel, it is this thought of God's expen
diture of Christ which humbles him to say, " I am
an unprofitable servant," and sends him heavenward
not to claim reward, but looking for the final grace
which has yet' to be revealed. Most beautifully,
therefore, does Peter, dwelling on this thought of
infinite indebtedness to the Father, write, " Where-

336 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
fore girding up the loins of your mind, be sober, and
set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be
brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ,
as children of obedience, not fashioning yourselves
according to your former lusts in the time of your
ignorance ; but like as He which calleth you is
holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of
living. . . . And if ye call on Him as Father . . .
pass the time of your sojourning in fear : knowing
that ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things,
with silver and gold from your vain manner of life,
handed down from your fathers, but with precious
blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without
spot, even the blood of Christ . . . who was mani
fested at the end of the times for your sake, who
through Him are believers in God, who raised
Him from the dead and gave Him glory ; so that
your faith and hope might be in God" (i Pet. i,
12 — 21).
Reviewing our prolonged discussion of the sig
nificance of Christ's death, the question may arise
whether believers in Christ have usually appreciated
or even perceived so many separate rays of revela
tion beaming from the cross ; and again, whether
the greater portion of mankind has any intellectual
need for such an analytical interpretation. To such
questions there can be only one reply. No single
mind may feel all the difficulties which have been
referred to, acutely or simultaneously at any one
stage of its experience, and specific answers are

vii THE LIGHT OF THE CROSS 337
required only for specific inquiries and doubts. But
this in no way detracts from the importance of the
particular aspects of truth which have been pre
sented, nor does it suggest that any single item
could be spared. The labouring man who when
awakened in the morning finds the earth illumined
by the sun goes forth to his daily task, and walks in
the light with the same gladness as is felt by a
professor of natural science, and without daylight
he could not do his work or be sustained in life.
He has no theory of light, knows of no difference
between the rays which warm and those which
brighten the world, and has no notion of the manner
in which the many-coloured beauty of the earth
and sky is produced. Since man arrived on this
globe the sun has done its work for him, and would
do it still if every scientific treatise were destroyed.
But this most certain fact does not falsify or discredit
the progressive discoveries of natural science, nor
does it affect the truth that these discoveries have
been conducive in countless ways to the comfort,
convenience, and safety of cities, to the furtherance
of art, the healing of disease, and the preservation
of health.
In a similar way multitudes of simple souls have
rejoiced in the light of the cross, and have experi
enced the healing of its beams, without defining the
manner in which it has silenced their murmurs,
bound up their broken hearts, dispelled their gloomy
fears, and filled them with peace and joy in believing z

338 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
in the love of God. The wonderful power of the
cross lies in the fact that it does not attack man's
unbelief controversially, but sheds forth a light in
which the causes of unbelief vanish. The remedy
works, not as an articulate denial of falsehoods or a
logical refutation of suspicions, but as the revelation
of a Divine Person, and the faith it elicits is not a
mere belief of theological doctrines, but a belief in
God, as the faithful Creator, the Benignant Ruler
and the Righteous Father of men.
This faith is something infinitely deeper, stronger
and more precious than any intellectual expression
of its content, or any reasoned application of it to
the explanation of particular events, of personal ex
perience, or of abstract problems. This is a faith
which overcomes the world, because it justifies the
finite intellect in awaiting without dismay the solu
tion of all the most daunting problems which present
themselves in the past history and present condition
of the world. But while insisting upon this view, we
must still affirm that the Gospel would be no remedy
for the world's sin and misery, unless it contained
within its ample fulness an implicit, contradiction of
every lie which sin can breed in alienated minds, and
an answer to every question which can harass an
inquiring spirit when in quest of religious truth. It
is because the Death of Christ contains a fulness of
meaning which may be resolved into an answer to
all these questions, that it is the power of God to
extirpate those thoughts and feelings which are the

vii THE EFFULGENCE OF GOD'S GLORY 339
roots of sin in human nature. It reveals Love in
all the splendour of its moral purity, and in its rela
tion to us as sinners, and as the victims of sin. It
was necessary for man's redemption, because by no
lesser means could the same effects have been pro
duced. Apart from the Life of Jesus Christ, and
apart from the discipline of earlier ages, the Death
would have been as a book written in an unknown
tongue, but without this Death all previous messages
of mercy would have been as an unfinished letter,
and all preceding discipline of the race by law and
prophecy and chastening experience, would have
been in vain. The human intellect never could have
devised so marvellous a sign as that of the uplifted
Son of Man, but since it has been given, we know
that without it the human heart must have starved
as in a famine-stricken land, because destitute of
any meat on which faith, hope and love could live.
The Cross shines before us in Divine beauty as the
sun shines in the firmament, not only excelling but
paling every other light, because the blood of Christ
is the solemn attestation of the truth that God is
Love, and Love is perfect Righteousness. God thus
loved the world, as Christ Himself declared, that
men might be able to believe in His love for them,
and so might not perish through ignorance and aliena
tion, but be born again into the eternal life which
comes of fellowship with Him. It was not con
ceivably a secondary or incidental purpose of Christ
to shine into our hearts the light of the knowledge
z 2

340 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect. vii
of the Glory of God. He is our Salvation because
He is our Light, and the light which shines through
Him, as a Lamp uplifted in the midst of darkness,
is the effulgence of the Father's Glory, and the
Father's Glory is the fulness of His grace and
truth.1 1 See Appendix, Note 34.

LECTURE VIII
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH
WE have now to ask whether the view thus far
presented of the place and value of Faith in man's
salvation is complete, or whether it requires to be
supplemented. This question does not affect the
soundness of anything that has been here advanced.
If faith has a value not yet exhibited, this must
tend to verify our principles. The more important
faith is, and the more stress we find laid upon it
as a means or condition of salvation, the more
certain we must feel that its elicitation was a
primary object of God in sending His Son to live
and die among men. Nothing can be said in ex
altation of faith which can shake the conclusion
that its provocation was indispensable to the accom
plishment of God's purposes, or that the death of
Christ was necessary for its production, and for the
awakening of that love which is the fulfilment of
Divine Law and the essence of righteousness in
God and man.
Taking our stand, therefore, on this solid ground.

342 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
we may proceed to ask, " Is Faith represented in
Scripture solely as a converting and sanctifying
force ; or is it also placed before us as the ground
or condition of a Divine act of grace in which man
has no part, and which does not await or depend
upon, but rather precedes and becomes a factor in,
the ethical evolution of Christian life? In other words,
we have to inquire whether God justifies believers
only in the sense of setting them in right relations
with Himself and influencing their character through
the rectifying power of the gospel, or whether He
justifies believers as such, so releasing them from
condemnation before their characters are conformed
to all the requirements of His perfect will.
It is difficult to state these alternatives without
wrapping up a fallacy in our words, because faith
and Christian character are not separable, although
distinguishable in thought. In a profound sense
no character can be right in God's sight which is
not rooted in faith. Without faith it is impossible
to please Him, for distrust is in itself a rank offence,
and inevitably brings forth fruit in disobedience.
Thus Faith is character, and that which produces
faith in God transforms the hidden man of the
heart at which God looks and by which man is
judged. These statements somewhat anticipate the results
of the following discussion, but they are necessary
to a clear perception of the question awaiting
decision. We need to know whether justification by
faith means simply and solely a spiritual rectification

viii THE QUESTION DEFINED 343
of life by faith, or whether it means a judicial act of
God whereby the believer is delivered from condem
nation. The question is not whether the believer in
Christ is ushered into a life of filial love and obedience,
and is thereby reset in his due place in the spiritual
order as a child of God. No Christian thinker has
ever doubted the sonship of believers, and, although
the doctrine of regeneration has taken many extra
ordinary forms, it appears in some form in all
Christian theologies. Hence the question before us
is not, " Are men justified by God as a kingly Law
giver and Judge, or are they begotten to sonship by
God as a Father?" but " Is there a judicial act of
justification as well as a paternal begetting, and if
so, how can these be harmonised ? "
It may be feared that to many minds such an
inquiry will be distasteful. It is often said, and not
without some reason, that the very word justification
has to-day become repugnant to English congre
gations, and it is certain that in countless pulpits it
is seldom if ever used. As a reaction from the pas
sionate discussions and the wearisome technical dis
quisitions which once abounded, this disuse of the
term is not unnatural. It must also be confessed
that the Latinised term is itself repellent, and serves
to hide the sequence of thought in Paul's great
argument, because it conceals the affinity of the
word dikaioo (to justify) with the words dikaios
(righteous) and dikaiosune (righteousness). It would
have been a great blessing to English readers if all
these terms had been rendered in Anglo-Saxon, so

344 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
preserving their relationship and avoiding the harsh
ness and coldness of the Latin term. But, however
strongly we may regret the original and now irre
parable mistake of early translators, the word justify
stands for an aspect of truth which cannot be
neglected without loss, and whatever our feeling
about its ecclesiastical misuse, I believe that the
teaching of the New Testament on the subject will
commend itself as simple, beautiful, and evidently
true, and as a potent instrument for the furtherance
of faith and righteousness.
The question thus opened can best be considered
in a review of Paul's Epistle to the Romans.
The Righteousness of God.
It has often been said that justification by faith is
the theme of Paul's greatest epistle, but this is
scarcely accurate. Undoubtedly Paul was stirred
to defend this doctrine against the assaults of hostile
Jews, and to so expound it as to relieve the scruples
of many ill-instructed Christians, but while the mo
tive of his letter may be thus defined, the subject of
it is far more comprehensive, viz., the Righteousness
of God.
It was only by dealing with this vaster subject
that Paul could effectually dispose of the several
objections which were urged against his gospel. His
opponents differed not a little in their opinions, and
still more in character and spirit, but they were
united by the distinctively Jewish conception of God

viii THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD 345
as a Lawgiver and Judge. It was not a false
thought, nor can we eliminate it from any worthy
idea of the Supreme Being. But it is an inadequate
thought. The idea of God which begins and ends
in a personification of legal justice, logically leaves
no room for the idea of grace, and therefore excludes
the doctrine of justification by faith. Hence, in order
to vindicate his doctrine, the apostle was compelled
to exhibit an enlarged and glorified conception of
the Righteousness of God.
This task involved a consideration of God's
righteousness under several aspects, and the epistle
may be logically divided into corresponding sections.
It deals with God's righteousness in (1) addressing
all men as sinners ; (2) in finally judging all men by
Jesus Christ ; (3) in justifying them that believe
in Jesus Christ ; (4) in establishing a kingdom in
which believing Jews and Gentiles are placed on an
equality as the spiritual seed of Abraham. These
topics represent the logical structure of the Epistle
to the Romans.
In a pregnant sentence Paul discloses the motive
of his epistle, and indicates the general nature of
his reply to detractors. " I am not ashamed of the
gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to
every one that believeth .... for therein is revealed
a righteousness of God by faith unto faith, as it
is written, But the righteous shall live by faith1'
(Rom. i. 16, 17).
By omitting the words " to the Jew first and also
to the Greek," we bring together clauses which

346 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
ought never to be separated. The gospel is the
power of God unto salvation, because it is a revela
tion of God's righteousness, and of this in some way
which is intimately connected with salvation. The
precise relation of the two is not stated, but the
teaching clearly is that Divine self-revelation is
effected through the gospel, which preaches forgive
ness, and this gospel issues in faith in godly life,
in harmony with the ancient oracle, " The just shall
live by faith."
Having thus linked the thoughts of Righteousness,
Revelation, Faith and Godliness, Paul proceeds to
expound and defend the doctrine which he was
supposed to be ashamed to preach in the great
imperial city. He did not sit down to write a
systematic treatise in which abstract truth might
be stated with cold exactitude. He wrote with the
passion of a preacher to convince and persuade
others for their good. He sought to overcome pre
judice and to win, rather than to master his readers.
Hence we find abrupt transitions, heated exclama
tions and interjected appeals to heart and conscience
as well as to the reason. Failing to apprehend
these facts, we may fail to find any logical sequence
in his letter, but bearing these in mind we shall be
able to appreciate the fire of sympathy which burned
within, moving him now to indignation, now to pity,
but always stirring him to bring his readers, not as
defeated controversialists, but as humbled fellow
sinners to the feet of God.
i. At the outset of his task it was necessary to

viii ALL MEN HA VE SINNED 347
insist on the righteousness of God in including all
men under a charge of sin. The gospel has no
meaning for just men who need no repentance,
for it assumes that all who hear it deserve condem
nation. While a man thinks " I have not sinned,"
he cannot be reconciled to God, for only as a sinner
can he believe in God's righteousness either in
judging or in showing mercy. Perhaps an offer to
forgive one who considers himself innocent is more
aggravating and insulting than the infliction of un
deserved punishment. It was in this way that self-
righteous Jews felt affronted by the gospel which
put them on a level with publicans, harlots and
pagans. Having to combat this resentful feeling, Paul's
chief task was to convince the Jews of sin. But
before attempting this task he naturally began by
rehearsing the familiar facts of Gentile depravity.
His black picture of pagan life has been censured
as exaggerated, but it required no marshalling of
evidence for those who lived in Rome, and the
literature of the age confirms the truth of every
charge. So far as the Gentiles were concerned, the
difficulty was not to prove the facts, but to so far
enlighten their consciences as to produce a sense of
shame. Given the Christian or the Jewish conception
of sin, there was no man in Rome of any nationality
who would dispute the assertion that without ex
ception the Gentiles had all sinned.1
The only comment on this indictment which seems
1 See Appendix, Note 35.

348 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
called for is in regard to what it does not include.
Paul does not say that all men are born under con
demnation on account of Adam's transgression or its
inherited virus in the blood. The only sin to which
he refers is that of which men may be personally
convicted at the bar of conscience.
Having stated the transgressions which were rife
among pagans, Paul invokes the self-judgment of
his Jewish readers, and urges each censor of
others to deal faithfully with himself and to stand
in awe of the impartial judgment of God. When he
comes to deal specifically with Jews (cap. ii. 17),
his references to iniquity are hypothetical, or take
the form of searching questions, such as, " Dost thou
commit adultery ? " He does not reason like a
lawyer who strives to prove to a jury the guilt of an
accused person. No conviction of another man's sin
would serve his purpose. " What is thy sin ? " he
asks of each, and leaves each to make reply to his
own soul. AH this is most unsatisfactory as the
proof of an abstract doctrine of sin, but it
has made the second chapter of this epistle one of
the most heart-searching appeals to the human
conscience which even the Scriptures can furnish.
My business is not to examine it in detail. I am
satisfied to urge that no man in the Roman Church
could have read this chapter without confessing to
himself, " I have sinned " ; thus owning the justice
of the gospel in assuming that all men stand in need
of mercy.
2. The gospel announces a general judgment of

viii ALL MEN WILL BE TUDGED 349
mankind by Jesus Christ, and it was necessary for
Paul to emphasise this fact as proof that his
doctrine did not dispense with an administration of
justice. It was also incumbent upon him to vindi
cate the method of judgment as equitable to all
mankind. Men are prone to regard Divine judgment with
dread, and are not slow to question the possibility of
applying a single standard of duty to people of all
ages and lands, with their'vast differences of culture
and opportunity. But Paul presents it as an event to
which the race may look forward with satisfaction.
If the message of Christianity had run : " There
shall be no Divine inquiry, no redress of wrongs, no
exposure of false pretences, no clearance of mis
judged character, and no ultimate award of a lot in
accordance with men's works," every wakeful con
science would have protested against such encourage
ment to anarchy. A moral governor who does not
execute judgment is worse than the criminals who
make havoc in his realm. Hence the apostle insists
that the declaration of universal judgment is an in
tegral part of his gospel.
But the assurance of judgment, though essential, is
not enough to convince us of God's righteousness.
Hebrew poets had cried aloud for the manifestation
of Divine anger against evil-doers and had bidden
the righteous rejoice before the Lord, because He
would surely come to judge the nations with equity
and truth. But this great hope had been tinctured
with a not unnatural but certainly rather selfish

350 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
patriotism. Confidence in God's justice had never
given birth to a doctrine which foreigners and men
of strange religions could revere as impartial. To
command universal confidence we need a doctrine
of judgment which will give no unfair advantage to
those who have had a large share of privilege on
earth. It must declare a judgment which will not
only smite the openly wicked, but will search out the
hidden iniquities of thought, motive and spirit, and
will estimate conduct not merely in relation to an
objective standard, but in relation to subjective con
ditions, to inherited advantages and disadvantages,
and to the helps and hindrances of environment.
This immense desideratum is presented in the gospel.
Every man is to be judged according to his light.
The Judge will be One who has experienced tempta
tion and knows all the secrets of human hearts.
Every man's memory will bear an unerring witness
to himself. His own thoughts will be quickened to
pronounce a judicial verdict, and by the unalterable
law of his being they will become God's executioner
to carry out the sentence on himself. In such a
tribunal, presided over and guided by Christ, there
can be no injustice, no inequality, no mistake, and
no respect of persons.
It is not suggested that such a judgment has no
terrors, but it is terrible only to those who ought to
tremble. It is peculiarly dreadful to the man who,
under ordinary judgment, would escape most easily.
It is fitted to alarm those who know and exult in the
knowledge of God's will, yet do it not ; but its most

vm SAL VA TION BY LAW IMPOSSIBLE 351
threatening aspect is reserved for those who sternly
impose a yoke of law on their fellows, and dare to act
as judges while themselves guilty of transgression.
This was the common fault of Jews and Judaising
Christians in the first age of the Church, and to them
Paul addressed his most fervid remonstrance. " Not
the hearers of a law are righteous before God, but
the doers of a law (whatever law they know) shall be
justified " or accounted righteous by the Judge ; and
in the final assize every condemnation which men
have pronounced on others will recoil upon themselves
with all the certainty and severity of a divinely
aroused self-judgment. Law gives the knowledge of
sin, and the higher the law the keener is the moral
judgment, and the more terrible its sentence upon
self. This is the tremendous truth which Paul pressed
home upon self-complacent Jews.
This vindication of God's righteousness in account
ing all men sinners and in judging them according
to the measure of their moral light, left the Jew
without a reasonable reply. Salvation by law is
hereby shown to be inconceivable. If, therefore,
there is to be salvation for men it must be provided
apart from law. Hence Paul proceeds to discuss
the subject of God's righteousness in relation to
the central and most distinctive truth of his
gospel. 3. The gospel proclaims the remission of sins to
all who believe, and Paul sought to convince his
readers that God's righteousness not only permits
such a message but is therein most lustrously re-

352 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
vealed. In dealing with this part of his subject he
was very bold. He was not content to argue that a
doctrine of forgiveness runs through the ancient
Scriptures, though in this way he might have con
founded his opponents. Nor was he satisfied to
speak of Christ as the truest revealer of God's mercy,
for although such a doctrine would be true it would
be irrelevant to his argument. To meet the scruples
of legalists he had to show not only that God can,
and does forgive, as the great prophets and psalmists
of Israel had ever taught, but that the forgiveness
which their fathers had prayed for and believed in
was an outcome of Divine righteousness. His theme
in this place is not merely the mercy of God, but the
righteousness of mercy. He asserts that this most
adorable attribute of God is revealed to human faith
in Jesus Christ, who thus becomes the propitiatory,
the Mercy Seat, in whom God can meet with sinful
men and commune with them, and through whom
He can remit their sins (Rom. iii. 20 — 26).
We have already considered this passage in our
study of Propitiation, and again while endeavouring
to interpret the significance of Christ's death.
We have seen that there is no suggestion here
that Christ did or suffered anything which made
it righteous for God to remit sin. His work was to
demonstrate the righteousness of mercy, and so to
clear the way for its world-wide administration.
Resting on this conclusion we have now to investi
gate the meaning of the word Justification, and to
appreciate the new element imported into the subject

vm WHAT IS JUSTIFICATION? 353
by the mention of Jesus Christ as the object of faith
where the Old Testament speaks of God.
The supreme question to be considered is whether
by justification we are to understand a judicial act
or a making righteous ethically, and setting us in
our true place in the spiritual order by imparting
a filial spirit and therewith the privileges of Sonship
to God.
In discussing this question I have to bespeak the
reader's patient attention, because the view I desire
to commend differs essentially from that which is
usually taken by those who affirm the forensic
significance of Paul's language, and yet I cannot
deny that their affirmation is correct. In my judg
ment the language is forensic, yet I believe that
Paul's great object was to eliminate the legal
element from our conception of the believer's status
before God. I make this preliminary statement that
no hasty conclusions may prejudice my argument
to prove that justification is set before us by the
apostle as a judicial act.
I gladly avow my sympathy with the spirit and
object of Thomas Erskine's admirable book on " The
Spiritual Order." The whole Church of Christ owes
a debt of gratitude to Erskine and the notable group
of thinkers through whom he influenced the last
generation. His aim was to spiritualise Christian
thought, and to transport men's minds from the
arid region of scholasticism to the warm and fertile
paradise of Biblical simplicity. He wanted to take
us away from the law-courts and fill us with
A A

354 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
thoughts and feelings which can live only in a
Father's house. In order to accomplish this pur
pose it seemed to him necessary to get rid of the
judicial conception of justification, because itappeared
to him utterly foreign to the idea of Sonship and fatal
to the cultivation of childlike trust, because savouring
of legal claim on the part of those who have been
justified. He disliked it also because he thought it
involved something akin to a legal fiction. In these
views Erskine has been widely followed by many
who have not seen his writings ; and by not a few
who have scarcely heard his name.
In former years I gave a most favourable con
sideration to Erskine's contention that dikaioo is
not a forensic term ; but his arguments were never
convincing, and after much thought were dismissed
as unsound. For some time this conclusion was a
source of keen regret and seemed to be fraught with
serious theological consequences ; but before long
I perceived not only that Erskine had erred critically,
but that his error tended rather to frustrate than to
promote his religious purpose, because it was only
by using dikaioo in a forensic sense that Paul was
able to meet the objections of Jewish opponents, and
provide a rational account of man's deliverance from
bondage to law. Indeed, it is not too much to say
that by denying that justification is a judicial act we
expose the apostle to a charge of deliberate evasion,
and break up his epistle to the Romans into a mere
farrago of illogical fragments.
The philological argument is not unimportant,

viii WHAT IS JUSTIFICATION? 355
but it is necessarily inconclusive. The forensic use
of dikaioo can certainly be sustained by ample
evidence, but no amount of evidence culled from
classical sources would suffice to prove that Paul
thus employed it, if such a meaning were demon
strably inconsistent with the drift of his argu
ment or with the spirit of his teaching. On this
account I shall rest the case on a critical examina
tion of New Testament usage and a general survey
of the logical structure of Romans.
Turning to the New Testament we find the verb
twice in Mat. xii. 37, " By thy words thou shalt
be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be con
demned." Here the word "justified" is obviously
antithetic to " condemned," and the context shows
that Christ was explicitly speaking of " the day of
judgment." In Luke vii. 29 we are told that " the people and
the publicans justified God," i.e., they recognised His
righteousness and openly declared their judgment.
In x. 29 we read that the lawyer who had tempted
Christ, and had felt himself condemned by Christ's
reply, tried to "justify". himself. This cannot mean
that he tried to make himself a righteous man
or tried to readjust his position, but that he tried
to make himself out to be right in the judg
ment of the audience and thus to discredit the
implied condemnation of Christ. In xvi. 15 Christ
charges the Pharisees with an attempt to "justify"
themselves before men, i.e., to secure a favourable
verdict at the bar of human opinion. In xviii. 14
A A 2

356 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
we are told that the publican who, instead of
justifying himself, confessed his sin before God,
"went down to his house justified." According to
Acts xiii. 39, Paul said to certain men of Israel
"Be it known unto you, brethren, that through
this man is proclaimed unto you remission of
sins ; and by Him every one that believeth is
justified from all things, from which ye could not
be justified by the law of Moses." The association
of "remission of sins" with "justified from all
things," forbids us to think of moral rectification,
or anything less than a release from condemna
tion ] as the blessing proclaimed. There were
many sins for which the law prescribed punishment
" without mercy," and no civil authority was allowed
to remit these penalties. Paul declared that Christ
was under no such restrictions.
In the epistle to the Romans dikaioo occurs in
several passages where its meaning is unmistakable.
In ii. 12 we are taken into the Divine tribunal to
observe the method of judgment, and are told that
" as many as have sinned under law shall be judged
by law : for not the hearers of a law are righteous
before God, but the doers of a law shall be justified."
The case of these righteous persons is, of course,
purely hypothetical, but the declaration is that if
such persons existed, they would be justified by the
great Judge. In iii. 4 we still meet with the idea
of a judgment passed, though it is passed by man
on God, i.e., He is found to be true, and all accusing
mouths are stopped. In verse 20 we learn that a

WHA TISJ USTIFICA TION? 357

chief effect of the law is that it brings men within
the pale of God's judgment by giving them a clear
knowledge of sin. Hence it is inferred that no
activities of obedience to the law of which man is
capable can be so perfect as to merit justification
when brought to trial before God. Up to this point,
therefore, the apostle has been dealing most dis
tinctly with judicial acts. He has gone with his
adversaries into the heavenly Forum, and has
proved the hopelessness of their case if summoned
before God to be judged without mercy and accord
ing to the measure of their obedience to the law
in which they made their boast.
It is not necessary to review all the passages in
which the term occurs. Enough has been said to
prove that it is freely used to denote not an
ethical process, or a readjustment of relations,
but a genuine judgment of the mind on the
righteousness of some act or some person, and
that up to the point in Romans where our
discussion centres, it is used by Paul in a strictly
forensic sense. This at once brings us to consider
the requirements of his argument in this place.
When clearly stated the question to be decided
affects not merely the apostle's doctrine but his
personal fitness to be a religious teacher. Step by
step he has brought his readers to confess that if
judged by a strictly legal standard, justification is
impossible and condemnation inevitable ; and he is
about to propound a doctrine in which the same
great terms are used. Was he, then, so absurd, or

358 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
so dishonest, as to play like a sophistical juggler
with this word dikaioo by suddenly using it in a
totally new sense? If we venture to say, "Yes,
this is what Paul did," we shall have to impeach
either his common sense, or, worse still, his common
honesty. In this section of the epistle Paul had to restate
that part of his gospel which was most offensive
to his fellow Israelites, viz., that which seemed
to make void the law by releasing believers in
Jesus Christ from their legal responsibilities. The
Jews offered no opposition to the gospel as an
efficient agent for the correction of life, or for
the resetting of men in right relations with
God. Their objection was that the gospel gave
a false view of these relations, and made light
of conduct. No sane man could think it un
righteous of God to make men righteous or to
recover their allegiance to Himself. What the
Jews denied was the possibility of sinful men
being released from condemnation merely because
they believed in Jesus. The justification which
Paul had to defend was therefore a Divine act
which afforded at least a plausible pretext for their
complaint. His opponents no doubt failed to
apprehend his doctrine aright, and he had not
only to defend but to elucidate the gospel ; but
however explained, this gospel must have contained
the promise of a Divine act which liberates the
believer from a state of condemnation as a trans
gressor of the law. Subsequently Paul vindicates

viii WHA T IS JUSTIFICA TION ? 359
the doctrine on ethical grounds, but in this chapter
he asserts it in defiance of all objections.
In the closing verses of Chapter iii. Paul com
mends, his doctrine on two grounds : (1) As in har
mony with the fundamental religious principle that
man's attitude before God should always be one of
lowly humility, and never that of a presumptuous
claimant. (2) As consonant with the truth, that
there is but one God, who must necessarily deal
with all mankind according to one uniform principle.
These were invaluable thoughts for Jews. To
our minds they are almost axiomatic, and call
for attention only as providing a logical transi
tion to the subject discussed in Chapter iv. Paul
knew that his assertion of an equal treatment of
all races and classes of men would be resented
as a denial of God's covenant with the family of
Abraham. He anticipated the certain retort of his
countrymen. " If the circumcised and the un-
circumcised are to be treated alike, what advantage
have we ? What was the special blessing of our
father Abraham ? " The introduction of Abraham's
case has often been criticised as out of place and
inconsequential. It is, however, not only logical,
but a mark of the highest genius because it supplies
an argument which leaves every candid son of
Abraham without a reply to Paul's doctrine of
justification, except one which would assail God's
treatment of the Patriarch as unrighteous.
Having started the question, What was Abra
ham's blessing? Paul gives a manifold reply. (1) He

360 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
states negatively that it could not have been any
thing which afforded Abraham a ground of glory
ing before God, and thence he concludes that it
could not have been a recompense of good deeds,
because in that case Abraham would have owed
nothing to Divine grace, and could have stood
with head erect before God as one who received no
more than he deserved. (2) He points out again
negatively that it was not circumcision. This rite,
as recorded in Genesis was appointed after Abra
ham's justification, and was the constituted mark
and seal of the righteousness of the faith previously
displayed. (3) He quotes the words of Gen. xv. 6,
which no religious Hebrew could disparage, " Abra
ham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him
for righteousness." (4) In addition to this personal
blessing Abraham was assured that through his
posterity the same blessing which had come upon
himself should ultimately be imparted to all nations.
In other words, Paul exhibits the covenant with Abra
ham in which the Jews gloried as nothing less than a
promise that in some future age God would awaken
Abrahamic faith among all peoples, and would
reckon that faith to them for righteousness.
It thus transpires that in adverting to the life of
an ancient patriarch, Paul was not wandering from his
subject. He found in the story of Abraham an
argument which stopped the mouths of those who
objected to the justification of believers as a novelty,
as immoral, and as involving a violation of Hebrew
privilege. It proved that his doctrine, though new

viii THE STORY OF ABRAHAM 361
in form, and containing a new element in the posi
tion it assigned to Jesus Christ, was fundamentally
the same as that which gave to Hebrew. Theism
its most distinctive character. It made room for
his contention that the statute law of Moses
was a local and temporary code, interposed for
educational purposes between the promise and
its fulfilment by Jesus as the Author of Faith
and the distributor of Abraham's blessing to
the world. It made way- for him to show inci
dentally that even while the Hebrew law reigned the
continuity of Divine action was preserved, so that
erring men whom the law condemned were able to
obtain mercy, and, like Abraham, experienced the
blessedness of "the man to whom the Lord will
not impute sin." Above all, Paul was able to show
that, according to the views of his opponents, the
covenant with Abraham could never be fulfilled,
whereas through the preaching of the gospel among
the Gentiles it was being fulfilled before their eyes.
With Rom. iv. spread out before us we ought
to have no difficulty in forming a clear conception
of justification by faith. The reasoning is condensed ;
some expressions need elucidation before their full
value can be appreciated, and there are abrupt tran
sitions which leave as much work for the reader's
mind as is left by some of Browning's poems. But
the general drift is unmistakable, and the most essen
tial statements are repeated in such a variety of
forms and connections that we are able to ascertain and
verify their interpretation with certainty. For those

362 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
who are content to take the apostle's words in their
plain natural sense this chapter is luminous and
helpful ; but the task of exposition is complicated by
the fact that some of the Reformers felt it necessary
to correct Paul's theology, and in order to do so
presumed to contradict his statement that God
reckons faith for righteousness. They were afraid
that, by adhering to the unadulterated language of
Scripture, they would be raising faith to the level
of a " good work," and to avoid this Pauline heresy
they manufactured a doctrine of imputed righteous
ness which is utterly foreign to Paul's thought and
fatal to the ethical purity and spiritual simplicity of
the gospel.
Paul's language is of daylight clearness, and repro
duces the frank simplicity of the statement in Genesis
that " Abraham believed God, and it (i.e., the act of
believing) was reckoned to him for righteousness."
" To him that worketh not but believeth on Him that
justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned unto him
for righteousness." (5) But in the face of this state
ment the "Westminster Confession" (chapter xi.)
ventures to categorically deny that God justifies men
" by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any
other evangelical obedience to them as their righteous
ness." Having thus denied the apostle's doctrine it
goes on to substitute another, viz., that God justifies
" by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ
unto them."
If Paul had desired to teach that the merit of
Christ's righteousness is reckoned to the credit of

viii IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS 363
believers, he was quite capable of putting this thought
into clear, forcible words ; and inasmuch as he never
did this, and the doctrine cannot possibly be stated
without using terms and expressions which are not
to be found in" his writings, we are more than war
ranted in repudiating the traditional doctrine of
imputed righteousness as un-Pauline, and indeed
anti-Pauline. But such a summary dismissal of a
doctrine dear to many Christians would be unsatis
factory, and we must therefore adopt a more tedious
method. The verb logizomai, to reckon or impute,
is invariably used to denote a genuine estimate
of facts, and never represents a merely formal or
nominal, much less a fictitious attribution to things
or persons, of some quality which is not actually
recognised as theirs. In particular, it is never used
in any sentence which suggests the ascription to one
person of any merit or demerit which actually belongs
to some one else. A few illustrative instances, where no
doctrinal issue is involved may make this sufficiently
clear, e.g., " Reckonest thou this, O man, who judgest
them that practise such things, and doest the same,
that thou shalt escape the judgment of God " (Rom.
ii. 3). " We reckon therefore that a man is justified by
faith " (iii. 28). " To him that accounteth anything to
be unclean, to him it is unclean " (xiv. 14). " Let a
man so account of us" (I. Cor. iv. 1), " I count to be
bold against some, which count of us as if we walked
according to the flesh " (II. Cor. x. 2). " Let such an
one reckon this, that what we are in word by letters

364 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
when we are absent, such are we also in deed when
we are present " (x. 11). "I count not myself to have
apprehended" (Phil. iii. 13). "I reckon that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be
compared" (Rom. viii. 18).1
These quotations may not determine the force of
the word more certainly than the oft-repeated state
ments in Rom. iv., but they may render it more
obvious to those who read the doctrinal passages
with minds clouded by traditional misinterpretations.
Taken together they leave no room for reasonable
doubt that logizomai always means a genuine act of
judgment. Hence we are constrained to admit that
Paul affirms a veritable judgment of God s mind when
He reckons faith for righteousness to them that be
lieve in Himself as having delivered Jesus for our
trespasses and raised Him up for our justification. In
like manner we are required to believe that when
God ceases to impute sin it is not because He shuts
His eyes to man's misdeeds, or permits them to be
covered up and hidden from His view, or calls them
by anything but their true name, but because in His
righteous judgment they no longer represent the
hidden man of the heart.2
Having arrived at this conclusion it becomes
necessary to ask whether- we can discern any quality
in faith, and particularly faith in Jesus Christ as the
gift of God for our Salvation, which can explain
God's thought of its righteousness ; and if so, How

1 See Appendix, Note 36.
2 See Appendix, Notes 37 and 38

viii WICLIFFE'S DOCTRINE 365
does this Divine recognition stand related on the
one side to Law and on the other side to Grace ?
No man, however distinguished as a religious
leader, can be regarded as an authority on such a
subject, but we may derive some strength and light
from the opinions of two such men as John Wicliffe
and Martin Luther.
Wicliffe had no hesitation in saying that there
is a righteousness in faith. As a schoolman he dis
tinguished between " meritum de condigno " and
" meritum de congruo" and while strenuously deny
ing that faith possessed the former, he insisted quite
as firmly that it possessed the latter. By denying that
faith has meritum de condigno, Wicliffe denied that
faith has any such merit as could constitute a claim
on God. He dwelt with great constancy on the
thought of God's grace as the source of salvation,
and emphatically of the believer's justification.
What God bestows on men is absolutely a free gift,
and never to be thought of as the payment of a debt.
But he justly observed that while a gift cannot be
earned, or bought, the most liberal giver would be
unwise and even culpable if he dispensed his gifts
without regard to the fitness of things. If God justi
fied the suspicious and the unbelieving, His action
would shock us by its immoral perversity, and by its
irrational encouragement of what is inherently wrong,
and fraught with social disaster. If God conferred
His rewards on unrepentant evil-doers, He would be
the worst evil-doer in the universe, and would be
courting rebellion and insult. But when God

366 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
pronounces His approval of Faith, and bestows
his blessings on those who put their trust in Him, we
can see congruity, wisdom and equity. He is not a
paymaster, or a debtor discharging a legal claim.
He is acting as the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
but He is not unrighteous, nor does He encourage
disloyalty, or spread confusion in His realm.
These are not Wicliffe's words, but they fairly repro
duce and illustrate his thought ; and they may most
usefully be allowed to lay at least a basis for a
sound and scriptural estimate of what Paul calls
" the righteousness of faith."
Luther, though a less subtle thinker than Wicliffe,
had perhaps a deeper insight into the intrinsic value of
faith in the estimation of God. He fastened on the
words of Rom. iv. 20, where it is said of Abraham that
he "waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God"
and from them he drew the great thought that " faith
in God maketh the chiefest worship, the chiefest duty,
the chiefest obedience, and the chiefest sacrifice ....
The power thereof is infinite and inestimable ; for it
giveth glory unto God, which is the highest service
that can be given to Him. Now, to give glory unto
God, is to believe in Him, to count Him true, wise,
righteous, merciful, almighty ; briefly it is to acknow
ledge Him to be the author and giver of all good
ness .... no majesty or divinity remaineth to God
where faith is not. And the chiefest thing that God
requireth of man is, that He give unto Him His
glory and His Divinity  To be able to give
that glory unto God, it is the wisdom of wisdoms,

viii LUTHER ON FAITH 367
the righteousness of righteousness, the religion of
religions, and sacrifice of sacrifices. Hereby we
may see what a high and excellent righteousness faith
is, and so by the contrary, what a horrible and
grievous sin infidelity is." x (Comment on Gal.
iii, 6.)
To appreciate Paul's conception of the Righteous
ness of Faith it is necessary to clearly understand
the secret of his contempt for that " righteousness
which is in the law," which he was ready to cast
away as refuse. The two conceptions are so sharply
contrasted and so mutually exclusive that any defect
in our estimate of the one must tend to obscure the
significance of the other.
It is commonly assumed that Paul's denial of
justification by works of the law grew out of his
conviction that no man ever did, or ever can achieve
a flawless obedience. That he had this conviction
is certain, and it is shared by every man who knows
human nature. But while Paul had this thought,
and wove it into his argument again and again, it by
no means accounts for the intensity of his feeling.
He not merely despaired of a flawless obedience,
but contemplating such an obedience as an ideal
possibility, he poured contempt upon it as not
merely valueless, but as positive loss when com
pared with the righteousness which is through
faith in Christ. The argument of Phil. iii. is drawn
from the writer's own experience and aspirations.
1 See Appendix, Note 39.

368 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
He deprecates the supposition that, judged by any
human standard, he had been a moral wreck. On
the contrary, he condescends for the sake of others
to declare that he had more ground for self-con
fidence than the best of his fellow-countrymen.
According to the highest Pharisaic standard of
righteousness he boldly claims to have been " found
blameless." He thus goes to the verge of self-
righteousness in language, and can be acquitted of
boastfulness only, because this momentary vaunting
was the outcome of a passionate desire to magnify
Christ, and to exalt the righteousness which is
through faith in Him, as infinitely higher than the
loftiest moral altitude to which man can climb by
independent effort. He praises the righteousness
of faith, not merely as superior to a defective
conformity to the law, but as transcendently
superior to a perfect conformity, if such a thing
were possible. It is not the failure but the success
of bondservice which he spurns as refuse for the
sake of that which comes to men through the
excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Hence the Apostle's pleading with the Philippians
was not that they should cleave to Christ merely
because they were moral failures, and had no other
hope of standing in the judgment. This would
have been sound advice, and it presents an aspect
of truth which no wise man will pretend to despise.
But to those choice friends of his in Philippi he
wanted to impart a deeper, holier truth, viz., that
the life of faith on the Son of God was a purer life,

vm LEGAL RIGHTEOUSNESS FAULTY 369
and one more beautiful in God's sight, and more
honouring to His Name, than a life of perfect law-
keeping would be, if this were attainable by man.
He declares that for his own part, if he could present
himself before God as one who might challenge his
Maker to convict him of legal transgression, he
would abjure such an attitude, and would rather
choose to appear as one to whom God was pleased
to reckon faith in Jesus Christ for righteousness.1
This estimate of legal righteousness is not peculiar
to one epistle but is given at least as clearly in Gal.
iii. 21 : "If there had been a law given which could
make alive, verily righteousness would have been of
the law." Here there is no doubt an implied acknow
ledgment that the law failed to secure a thorough
obedience to its own mandates, but the thought is much
profounder. It is not only an assertion of failure, but
an exposure of the secret of failure. The impotence
of law lies in its total inability to give the life out of
which righteousness proceeds. It cannot regenerate,
it cannot create a clean heart or renew a right spirit,
and without this, mere outward correctness of be
haviour is of little worth, and is not far removed from
hypocrisy. Conduct regulated by precept is not the
highest conduct. Obedience rendered to law as law
lacks the ethical quality of spontaneity, and can never
rise above the moral level of its source in the spirit of
servitude. With such obedience no father can be
satisfied, and even at its best it must be less lovely in
His eyes than the most rudimentary efforts to please
1 See Appendix, Note 40. B B

370 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
Him which spring freely and with no thought of
obligation from a heart which trustfully and lovingly
responds to His love.
Before comparing Paul's doctrine with that of his
Master it may be interesting and not uninstructive to
observe how his estimate of legal righteousness as
ethically poor has been reproduced in the terms of
modern philosophy by Mr. Herbert Spencer. It
cannot be admitted that this writer has given a
scientific account of the transmutation of the base
metal of egoism into the fine gold of altruism, but in
his attempt to achieve this miracle he has rendered
homage to the Pauline principle that the most per
fect conceivable obedience to law, as such, is not
worthy to be compared with an uncalculating course
of conduct which springs spontaneously from puri
fied moral sentiments. He looks forward to a time
when " that element in the moral consciousness which
is expressed by the word obligation will disappear."
Consciously, or unconsciously, Mr. Spencer adopts
Paul's account of the function of law in the evolution
of an enlightened sense of duty. As man " passes
into the social state there arises the need for sundry
additional subordinations of lower to higher," and
this need is met by "restraints caused by mental
representations of extrinsic effects in the shape of
political, religious and social penalties." I have no
occasion here to criticise the defects of Mr. Spencer's
ultimate ideal of human conduct or his endeavour to
account for the phenomena of moral consciousness

vm HERBERT SPENCER'S ETHICS 37i
without recognising the validity of man's sense of
accountability to One Higher than himself. My sole
object is to point out to some with whom it may
have weight that Mr. Spencer, from his scientific view
point, agrees with Paul in the need for legal discip
line as one stage of moral education, and also in the
opinion that this need is transitory and altogether
ceases when men have learned to do what is right
freely and from an inward impulse. The great
difference between the ancient Christian teacher and
the modern agnostic lies in the fact that the latter
puts Christianity and Judaism on the same level as
systems of external "compulsion," whereas Paul
wanted to get rid of Judaism, because it was a system
of compulsion, in favour of Christianity because it is
not. The glory of the gospel is that it propSses to
place men in a position where they may lay aside
all self-regarding fears and every servile feeling of
obligation, and, while releasing them from bondage
to law, provides them with the purest possible motive
to do right by inspiring them with faith in the love
of God. The doctrine of justification by faith, as
taught in the New Testament, reveals the only
imaginable gate by which men, as we know them to
day, can enter upon a path of life which leads to
absolute ethical purity, i.e., a life from which selfish
ness has been utterly purged. That no Christian
life is thus suddenly perfected is clear, but until
a man has been delivered from the fear of con
demnation, his efforts after righteousness must be
tainted with the passion of self-salvation ; and all his
B B 2

372 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
conduct remains on the low level of prudential
scrupulosity. The only secret of moral perfection is
love. If Mr. Spencer's scheme of automatic evolu
tion were to be accomplished, so that without any
external compulsion or conscious self-compulsion
" the moral sentiments will guide men just as spon
taneously and adequately as now do the sensations,"
the resultant manhood would have no ethical quality,
unless by " moral sentiments," we are permitted to
understand that the love of others is intended. Given
this meaning, Mr. Spencer's ideal becomes one with
Paul's, though the " scientific basis " of morals sup
plied by agnostic philosophy has no more power to
shed abroad such love in our hearts than brilliant
moonlight can give warmth to a frozen sea. Paul's
contempt for the righteousness which is of the- law
ought to command the sympathy of all who admire
Mr. Spencer, and might well lead them to re-study
the gospel as an historical factor in the past evolu
tion of moral consciousness, and a still unexhausted
power for the ethical improvement of the race. In
any case the teachings of this great thinker are a
witness that Paul was right in his contention that
the Jewish law was, from its very nature, incapable
of producing the highest type of character, even if it
could succeed in getting its commands obeyed.1
At this point we may not unwisely ask whether
Paul's idea of the righteousness of faith was originated
by himself, or whether he derived it from Christ.
1 The Data of Ethics, Chap. vii. § 64.

viii THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST 373
Much has been said about Paul as the author of a
theology of which our Lord knew nothing, and we
are invited to go back to the simplicity of Christ as
an escape from Pauline dogmatism. An appeal from
the servant to the master is never unwise, and in this
instance we shall find that the ideas which Paul was
obliged to express in a controversial form are iden
tical with those which charm us in the life and teach
ings of our Lord.
Looking first at the life, we can scarcely fail to see
that all we venerate in " Jesus Christ the righteous,"
illustrates and confirms what has been said. What
is it which renders Christ the " altogether lovely " ? Is
it scrupulosity? Is it a rigorous observance of
statutes ? Is it the precision and correctness of one
who is perpetually setting a code of law before His
mind and fashioning His conduct thereby ? Can we
compare Christ to a musician who places upon a
stand the score of a sonata written by some one else,
and then strikes corresponding notes upon an instru
ment ? On the contrary, the righteousness of Christ
may be likened to the work of a musician of the
highest genius, who violates no law of harmony, but
is conscious of no constraint as he pours out strains
of unpremeditated beauty, and produces that
which others will delight to reproduce for ages.
To use another image : we may describe Christ's
visible righteousness as the natural radiance of a
spirit which is in itself the precious jewel which God
treasures, though He alone can see it as it is. We
see in Him the free working of a Son who has no

374 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
fear of doing wrong, because He knows and loves the
Father's perfect will, and lives at liberty because He
has no adverse aims or purposes to be restrained.
Christ's righteousness exceeded that of the Scribes
and Pharisees, not because He was a more conscien
tious servant, but because He was a Son. He thus
teaches us that Sonship is the highest righteousness
the Infinite Father can discern in man. In the
perfect Son it stands revealed in unsurpassable glory,
undimmed by the faintest shadow of doubt, un
blemished by the slightest wavering of purpose to
bear and do the Father's will.
Neither in Abraham nor in Paul, nor in any son
of man except Jesus, can God see Sonship in perfec
tion ; but what He cannot see in perfect maturity
He may see in its infancy, and even to one who is
spiritually a new born babe He can truly say, " My
Son." Wherever He can see the birth of filial trust,
He sees that which is intrinsically right, and which
contains in itself the promise and germ of all righteous
ness. He sees a spirit which, fed and disciplined by
Himself, will grow up into the likeness and stature
of a mature man in Christ Jesus.
If we turn now from the contemplation of the per
fect Son of Man to observe His attitude towards
faulty men and women, and to hear the words in
which He revealed the Father's mind concerning
them, we shall find in these an adequate source for
all that is essential in Paul's doctrine.
The Pauline conception of imputed righteousness

viii THE SOURCE OF PAUL'S DOCTRINE 375
or justification pervades the gospel narratives and
reports, but we can only glance at a few significant
utterances. The two views of righteousness which
Paul discussed are contrasted in the parable of the
Publican and the Pharisee. Christ did not charge
the latter with hypocrisy or insinuate that he lied
to God about his virtues. The man's fault lay too
deep for any criticism of his conduct to be of conse
quence. Christ leaves us free to regard him as like
Paul, blameless, "as touching the righteousness which
is in the law." Indeed, the force of the contrast
between the two men delineated lies in the hypo
thetical concession that the Pharisee is one of those
who "need no repentance." Our Lord does not
dispute his pretensions or insinuate insincerity, but
taking him at his own estimate denies that God
accounted him righteous. His works may have been
all that he claimed and even better, but he was not
thereby justified before God. On the other hand
Christ did not defend the publican. He did not
suggest that he was morbidly conscientious in con
fessing himself a sinner. But this man " went down
to his house justified," i.e., God accounted him
righteous, rather than the other, and did not impute
to him his iniquities.
The same principle is embodied in the parable of
the Prodigal Son. The father saw, and all sym
pathetic readers can see, the promise and potency of
a finer filial life in the self-condemned vagrant, who
came confessing his unworthiness to be called a son,
yet, with beautiful inconsistency and unconscious,

376 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
but unquestioning faith, said : "Father, I have sinned,"
than can be seen in the outwardly correct behaviour
of the older brother, whose righteousness, tested by
the law of commandments, was blameless." Jesus
represents the elder brother as saying with sincerity
and with a boldness of indignant assertion which
feared no accusing retort, " I never transgressed a
commandment of thine." The picture drawn is not
that of a hollow pretender or even a self-deceiver.
For the sake of conveying a greater lesson than could
otherwise be taught, Christ refrains from any hint
that this self-satisfied law-keeper was less than he
claimed to be. Thus conceding hypothetically all
that the most devout and austere Pharisee ever
professed, our Lord reveals the worthlessness of such
" a righteousness which is of the law," and lays bare
for judgment the unfilial spirit which lurked beneath
its vaunted perfection.
In His picture of the younger son our Lord sets
before us the quality which God can see and approve
in the heart of one who has been a great sinner —
the quality which makes it congruous with righteous
ness for the returned prodigal to receive the paternal
kiss of peace, to have a ring placed upon his finger,
to be arrayed in the best robe, and to be rejoiced
over as one alive from the dead. Christ does not
extenuate the prodigal's guilt in leaving home or in
living dissolutely in the far country. But we see
that, coming to his father just as he was, he was
abundantly pardoned. Nor was pardon all. The
father did not stipulate for future obedience, nor did

vm THE SOURCE OF PAUL'S DOCTRINE 377
he throw open his door conditionally, or with a threat
of expulsion if foreign vices were renewed. He did
not prescribe a period of probation and thus wait to
see how the returned vagrant would behave. At
once his grace abounded with faith and love, and
without a word or thought of any future dissolution
of the bond, he gave him welcome as a son. The
wayward son might subsequently fail at times and
might come short in duty. Possibly he might forget
sometimes the greatness of the grace he had received ;
but he would remain a son, and the father would
never be so unjust as to look upon an occasional
blemish or defect as a true index to the inner man
of the heart. We cannot read the parable without
knowing that from the moment of that kiss which
sealed the restoration of sonship, the father ceased
to remember his contrite son's transgressions against
him. From that hour he ceased to impute or reckon
them to his son as faults of which he must still be
held guilty and for which he must remain under
condemnation. There was no adjourned upbraiding,
no half-hearted or conditional reinstatement in the
forfeited relationship and status of a son ; and we
are left to assume that out of this trustful and
affectionate reunion an ever-growing harmony of
thought and action would ensue.
These two parables perfectly accord with all Christ
said, and with His language and attitude to sinful
men and women. Faith always received His appro
bation, and none who trusted in Him were sent
away. In other words, He never failed to acknow-

378 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
ledge faith as a deeper, truer and more fruitful
righteousness than could be found in any works done
in a spirit" of bondage.
Aided by the light which shines into our hearts
from Christ we may return to Paul's teachings with
a renewed assurance that we shall find them — not
withstanding their polemical character — redolent of
the Master's wisdom and love.
It is important at this point to carefully consider
the pregnant utterance in Romans iv. 16, " It is of
faith, that it may be according to grace, to the end
that the promise may be sure to all the seed."
These words contain two vital truths which are
often overlooked.
I. That faith is the only conceivable channel
through which the sanctifying, ennobling and joy-
giving riches of God's goodness can be conveyed into
man's nature. Paul here, as everywhere, regards
God's grace as the primal source of all blessings, but
points out that God can only give effect to his spon
taneous liberality through human faith. Giving and
receiving are correlative and cannot be disjoined.
Without a receiver there can be no transmission of
a gift, nor can the giver enjoy the highest blessed
ness which love can know. The love I do not trust
is as no love to me. The spiritual gifts and inspiring
truths which, being imbibed, would come to the soul
as rain and dew and sunshine to the earth, are as
non-existent to the unbeliever. Forgiveness may be
ready ; God may be waiting to be gracious ; He may
be stretching forth His hands for days and years,

viii FAITH INDISPENSABLE 379
but only faith can take His favour as a little child
receives a gift.
It is a popular fallacy that faith is an arbitrary
condition of salvation imposed by God, but which
might be dispensed with or exchanged for something
else. But there is no substitute for faith. Without
faith no social intercourse is possible, and personal
beings stand apart, isolated, hostile, suspicious, and
all commerce of the affections is arrested. Not be
cause God would impose a needless condition of
salvation, but because He desires to make no con
dition, to withhold no good thing, because to Him
it is more blessed to give than to receive, or to retain,
He freely offers all that man can need. Because He
wills to give liberally, and without upbraiding, He
seeks to awaken our receptive trust. It is therefore
" of faith that it may be according to grace."
2. These words contain the truth that when God
reckons faith for righteousness He is not merely
doling out measured deserts. He is dealing justly,
but he is dealing bountifully. He is giving ex
ceeding abundantly above all that could be claimed
at law. He is, as we have seen in the ways
and words of Christ, judging truly. Indeed He is
judging according to a higher spirit of equity than
He would display if He took cognisance only of
man's outward conformity, or nonconformity, to the
mandates of a legal code.
There is a profound sense, moreover, in which by
requiring faith God is asking what to unaided man
hood is impossible, more utterly and hopelessly im-

380 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
possible than even a perfect legal obedience. In
counting faith for righteousness God is sealing with
His own approval that of which He Himself is
the author, and that which has cost Him more
for its production, than did the creation of a million
worlds. This thought exposes the baselessness of the
charge that if God reckoned faith for righteousness
it would be conceding to man a ground of glorying,
and would exalt faith into a work of merit. The
man whose faith has been elicited by the uplifted
Son of Man will never be so insensate as to plume
himself upon it as a virtue of his own. If faith
were self-originated, and self-sustained ; if it were
an independent product of effort or volition ; if
it could exist apart from the revelation of God,
which draws it forth, confirms and verifies its con
tent and continually enriches it with knowledge —
then faith might be called a human achievement.
But inasmuch as Christian faith has been begotten
and is kept alive by the crucified Son of God, all
ground of boasting is abolished. When a royal
banquet has been prepared, and many people have
been bidden, only those who respond aright can sit
down at the table ; and even when thus seated none
can enjoy the feast without actually eating and
drinking what is set before them. Their coming to
the feast, and their hearty appreciation of it, will give
pleasure to their host, while a refusal to come would
be an insult, and would necessarily exclude from
the king's circle of friends. But in saying this do

viii justification and GRACE 381
we detract from the king's gracious hospitality?
Was it ever known that guests thanked themselves
for eating, instead of thanking the host who lavished
wealth upon their entertainment ? Nothing so pre
posterous ever entered into a man's brain except to
illustrate an analogous absurdity. Faith is man's
response to God's bidding in the gospel. It is
man's taking and eating of the Great Supper which
He has spread for His enemies, as symbolised in
the eucharistic meal. He that believeth not ex
cludes himself, partaketh not and is condemned ;
but they who believe and take what God so freely
gives will never fail to magnify the Lord, who at so
great a cost has spread a table in the wilderness for
souls that were ready to perish.1
We now approach a point where two apparently
discordant thoughts meet and harmonise. We have
found that in justifying the believer God is acting as
a Judge, and is delivering a fiat which takes effect
upon what in analogical terms can best be spoken
of as his legal status. We have also found that He
is not judging the man by a legal code, and that in
reckoning his faith to him for righteousness, He is
bestowing a grace, and not discharging a debt. How,
then, do these thoughts combine? How can the
forensic term " justify " contain within itself or be
harmonised with the idea of grace, which seems
rather to describe the ways of a Father than those
of a Judge ? 1 See Appendix, Note 41.

382 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
The clue to a clear reply must be found in the
fact that we are now watching the transition from
one dispensation to another. Paul is telling us, or
rather we hear him telling the Jews, how men
may pass from servitude to sonship, from legal
bondage to the glorious liberty of the Sons of God ;
and it needs but little reflection to perceive that he
can only exhibit such a process by using terms
which indicate a rational, and above all, a righteous
nexus between the old and the new relations.
I have no wish to restrict the application of Paul's
words to the transitional period in which he wrote ;
nor can it be allowed that his doctrine of justifica
tion is devoid of significance except for Jews, and
in relation to their national law. On the contrary,
I hold that it contains a truth of vital import for all
ages and all peoples. But the particular form in
which Paul wrote was evidently determined by the
needs of the great crisis in which he was the chief
actor. It is a striking fact which any reader can
verify for himself, that Paul never states his gospel
in forensic terms, except in controversial passages
where he is dealing with Jewish scruples. He wrote
to repel slanderous and malicious accusations, but
he was far more concerned to relieve the consciences
of men who saw nothing but moral chaos, where he
himself saw the emergence of a new heaven and a
new earth. Whatever, therefore, may be the value
of his teaching for the modern world, we can only
appreciate it when interpreted in the first instance
as addressed to men who knew the law, and were

vm SOVEREIGNTY AND FATHERHOOD AGREE 383
dominated by a conviction of its eternal sufficiency
to express the relations between God and man.
In order to follow the movements of Paul's
thought, we must clear our minds of the delusive
assumption that there is a necessary incompatibility
between fatherhood and judicial or kingly relations.
Volumes, we might say libraries, have been written
on the question whether sovereignty or fatherhood
should furnish the basal truth or ruling idea of
Christian theology, but the issue thus raised is
misleading, for there is no necessary antagonism
between these terms, and our idea of God is one
sided and partial, unless we unite them in our
thoughts. That their unification is simple, and unconsciously
made, even by the keenest disputants, is evidenced
by the opening sentences of the Lord's Prayer.
" Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be
Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done
on earth." Here Christ has exquisitely interfused
the idea of a Heavenly Father with the reverence
due to His sovereignty, and the submission due to
His will. Even on earth we see the harmony of
the several relative titles which we transfer analo
gically to God. In a royal family the children call
the king their father, because their father happens
to be the king. These royal children are subjects
owing fealty to the king, and are liable to be judged
by him, or by his magisterial representatives, if they
violate the laws of his realm. Since this combina
tion of relations subsists between men, much more

384 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
must it be possible, and indeed actual, between men
and God. He is the One King who has created His
own Kingdom, and sees no subjects who are not
also His offspring. God is a word which includes
all the relations with the universe which we can
strive to express by multiplied imagery, but the
useful and inevitable breaking up and partition of
functions in our human types and emblems must
not mislead us into the absurdity of supposing that
these functions are conflictive or separable in God,
so that when He acts as a King, or as a Judge,
He is not acting as a Father. The term Father
expresses the most radical conception of God as re
lated to us, and it is the special name by which
He is declared to us by Christ. But in calling Him
" Our Father " we need to remember that He is
not like an earthly father whose authority is limited
or terminable. No other authorities set bounds to
His discretion. No one else has either the power
or the right to protect His children against undue
severity, or to put constraint upon Him to care
for their support, their education, and their health.
No one else has a prior right to claim their services
for reasons which override the claims of family and
home. God is the blessed and only Potentate in
whose hands our breath is, and whose are all our
ways. He is the King Eternal, yet we are His
offspring, and we never know our duty, our privi
leges, our dignity, our safety, our possibilities of
glory, until we are emboldened to regard ourselves
as the King's sons, and trustfully look up, awed but

viii ANALOGICAL TERMS DEFECTIVE 385
undismayed by His glory, and say to Him, " Our
Father." When we have accomplished in thought this unifi
cation of attributes and functions, and have familiar
ised our minds with it, we see how inadequate our
analogical terms are, and how fallacious it would be
to mentally divide the Godhead into separate de
partments and offices which involve different prin
ciples in the treatment of men. We see that the
strict separation of functions which is found neces
sary in distributing the duties of government among
finite and fallible beings becomes impossible in
regard to Him who is the fountain of all authority,
and is the same in spirit and purpose while mani
festing Himself by different methods and under
different aspects. In this way we are prepared to
see what Paul strove to show, viz., that there is
no variableness in God, even when dispensations
are changed, and revelation takes new and higher
forms. One changeless heart sought one benignant
end, and dealt with men in one gracious manner
in the patriarchal and the Mosaic ages, and this
heart remains unaltered in the age of Christ.
Hence the transition in Paul's day from law to
grace, was a change which affected man's conception
of his relationship to God, but not a change in God's
relationship to man ; and the chief work which Paul
laboured to accomplish was that of guiding men's
thoughts from the contemplation of God as re
vealed in law, to the contemplation of Him as
revealed in the gospel. The '' everlasting gospel "
C C

386 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
was not the announcement of a change in God : it
was a changed and more advanced proclamation of
what had always been true, but which could not be
made known until the world had been prepared for
its reception.
In his epistle to the Galatians, Paul helped his
Jewish brethren to see the true nature of the transi
tion they were called upon to accept, by using the
analogy of a son, who up to a certain age is under
legal obligations to obey his father's commands, and
in this respect resembles a bond-servant. This
obligation is one which may, of course, be defied,
but it is one from which the son cannot liberate
himself; it is fixed for him by law, and every
breach of it must be condemned and may be
punished. Yet this same law-bound person, on
attaining a full age, is legally set free. By an
operation which is strictly legal, he is delivered
from the bonds of legal obligation to obey his
father's behests.
The analogy of an emancipated son assists us to
conceive the harmony of a forensic dismissal from
the claims of law with a simultaneous entrance into
a state which cannot be defined in legal terms. It
shows that underneath the changes thus variously
expressed there is a continuity of fundamental rela
tions, a persistent purpose which never varies, and a
changeless spirit of love out of which all changes of
manifestation proceed.
The analogy thus unifies and enriches our thought
pf God, because it shows us that even among men

viii GOD ALWAYS PATERNAL 387
fatherhood does not begin when the son emerges
from his legal subjection. The father is always the
father, his aims and purposes are the same, and even
his law of commandments is designed to fit his
child for the day of deliverance from restraint.
Even through the years of legal subjection, no good
father presses the yoke of compulsion, and no good
son obeys in a servile spirit. Where love reigns,
legal emancipation makes no alteration in the
father's tone and demeanour, or in the son's alacrity
in pleasing. The son who has learned obedience
does not cease to serve because free. On the
contrary, a son's respect for his father's wishes and
his eagerness to please, usually increase as years
advance, until old age brings weakness to the one
and quickens protective zeal in the other. So look
ing back on former ages, we can see that while law
was in force God was paternal, and those who most
revered His law were most conscious of liberty.
While law reigned grace was not lacking. God was
merciful and gracious, and when He smote it was
" as a man chasteneth his son" (Deut. viii. 5). He
never dealt with men as an austere exactor, and was
always " slow to anger " and " ready to forgive."
The most religious minds saw and rejoiced in this
truth, and if technically they were bond-servants,
they felt no chain, but served the Lord with glad
ness, and had no sorrow in His presence except on
account of their own failures and transgressions.
Hence the close of the legal dispensation implied no
change in God. The Gospel did but reveal more
C C 2

388 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
clearly the King in His beauty of Fatherhood, and
it involved no more sudden revolution than the
passage from legal infancy to legal manhood brings
to an earthly father and son.
One aspect of this analogy calls for special notice,
viz., that in the human law of subjection during im
maturity, we can all recognise a wise and indispens
able provision for the protection and education of
the child. In the parental assertion and exercise
of authority we can also see a loving desire to
train a child in habits of self-control and in the
practice of righteousness with a view to an ultimate
enjoyment and beneficial use of liberty. So Paul
declares that " before faith came, we were kept
in ward under the law, shut up unto the faith that
should afterwards be revealed. So that the law
hath been our tutor to bring us to Christ "
(Gal. iii. 23, 24). It was at no time a method of
government which God adopted for its own sake,
but one which He employed as a means of prepara
tion for something better. Faith was revealed later,
but the truth which faith apprehends in Christ was
always true because God is eternally the same.
The Fatherhood of the Lawgiver is set forth in the
description of His subject people as "the heir."
The heir differed nothing from a bondman in his
subjection to one to whom he absolutely belonged,
but underlying this resemblance there was the
indestructible fact that he was a son and heir.
Thus the law was simply the Father's educational
method, and the object before His mind was one

viii GOD ALWAYS PATERNAL 389
which required an abandonment of this method as
soon as it had done its tutorial work.
This analogy well portrays the historical transi
tion from Judaism to Christianity for the Jews as a
people. It illustrates and proves the naturalness
and simplicity of a change from one form of obliga
tion to another, but it was not adapted or intended
to dispose of the whole difficulty felt by Jews in
regard to justification. The supreme difficulty
which Paul had to grapple with was not merely the
passage of an obedient Israel from legal infancy to
the free life of mature manhood, but the release
of erring, sinful individuals from subjection to a law
by which they stood condemned. The emancipation
of a son on attaining his majority represents an
ideal transition. It allows us to regard the collect
ive people as an obedient son who has come to full
age in happy concord with his father, and thus
passes into a state for which he has morally and men
tally been ripening. Hence, although the analogy
greatly helps our thought, it elucidates only some
aspects of justification by faith, and requires to be
viewed in conjunction with other thoughts.
The analogy of a son legally passing from subjec
tion to liberty shows more clearly than any other that
there is nothing impossible, or incongruous, or un
desirable in such a transition as the Jews thought
monstrous. It shows that God's ideal requirement
is not servile correctness of conduct. What he desires
to see is a filial spirit which confides in His wisdom
and love and seeks to please Him, not because afraid

390 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
of banishment and disinheritance in case of failure,
but because such an effort is the natural response to
His goodness. This same analogy shows us that
there is no discordance between the idea of God as
Lawgiver and God as Father, because the law was a
transient mode of paternal discipline which had for
its object the preparation of its subjects for freedom
as full grown sons. It brings home to us the truth
that what Paul calls the righteousness which is
of the law, however perfect of its kind, is inferior
in kind to even an imperfect but genuine spirit
of sonship.
Fixing these thoughts in our minds, we may with
out difficulty proceed to link them with the teaching
of Christ's parable of the two sons, and with the
polemical version of that teaching which Paul gives.
Man's faults and failures cannot alter the Divine
ideal, or divert God from His purposes. They may
and do necessitate plans and expedients which but
for human sin would have been causeless and object
less, but they affect only the road to be traversed,
not the destination to be reached. Hence we are
assured that God's desire for disobedient, vagrant
sons is not a coming back to obedience in the
capacity of servants, but a coming back into His
home and family — a reunion of heart as sons. If
the prodigal could have his humble request con
ceded and were sent to an outhouse to share the lot
of bond-servants, the father's son would still be
dead, and the father's love would still be denied its

GOD ALWAYS PATERNAL 391

joy, and this none the less if the young man were
to become a model of propriety and diligence
as a servant.
We may vary this illustration by supposing that
the younger son returned home and took his place,
but served his father with the hard, calculating
subserviency which is visible in the elder brother.
Would this satisfy the father? Would he not
tolerate a little less rigour in the outward observ
ance of his commands, rather than miss the light of
love in the son's eyes, and the warm clasp and
fervent kiss of affection ?
When it has been recognised that it would have
been a poor and unsatisfactory thing for the scape
grace son to be transformed into the image of his
punctilious brother, we are bound to acknowledge
that the elder needed to be transformed into a like
ness of the younger, not in his life of sin, but in the
state of his heart after coming to himself and to his
father. For the prodigal and for the precisian alike
one thing was needful, and when the self-satisfied
lawkeeper went away from his father's door, he
betrayed an absence of that filial spirit which had
always been lacking.
For him there could be no happiness in the
old home, until travelling by a different road he
reached the same state of mind as his repentant
brother, and found humility to say " Father, I also
have sinned, and am no more worthy to be called
thy son ! " With such a confession on his lips he too
might be welcomed with delight. The new spirit

392 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
thus expressed would be one of sonship and brother
hood, and out of it all righteousness would freely
spring, because it is the love which looking God-
wards is filial, and looking manward is fraternal, and
is in itself the fulfilling of eternal law.
As Christ looked upon the proud self-righteous
Pharisees, and upon the sin-stained but penitent
men and women standing around, He saw in the
one a spectacle over which he wept, and over which
the angels of God might rain their tears from Heaven.
In the other He saw the beginning of a change
which He had come from Heaven to induce and over
which the angels of God were rejoicing with songs
more joyous and triumphant than hitherto had been
heard around the Throne. To see such birth of new
hearts where moral decay appeared to mock the
thought of remedy, was to see the travail of His
soul ; it was to see a sight which made the cross
welcome, and death a victory.
In sympathy with Christ Paul saw that the
gospel was the power of God unto Salvation, and
the only power by which Jew or Gentile could be
saved, because by it alone could either class be
fitted to abide in the Father's house. In his view
both were outside and neither could enter except
by one door, the door which grace had opened, but
through which only faith could pass. He saw that
those who believed in Jesus Christ, believed through
Him in God. Paul perceived that faith in Christ
contains in itself such a view of God as con
victs lawkeepers and law breakers alike of sin,

viii THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH 393
humbles to repentance, intensifies sorrow, encour
ages confession, inspires submission to whatever
chastisement the Father may inflict, and impels the
returning rebel to yield himself up unto God as one
alive from the dead. Hence he saw that faith in
Christ is not only a fit and appropriate response to
Divine grace, but that it contains in itself the very
essence of that sonship which God has eternally had
before Him as the object of creation, the object of
all law and discipline, the object of all sacrifice, the
costly fruition of Christ's travail, the desired trophy
of His conquest by the cross.
Another aspect of earthly fatherhood which may
faintly shadow what is meant by counting faith
for righteousness. It not infrequently happens
that in a large family there is one son who feels
himself aggrieved and regards his father with a
suspicion which gradually deepens into distrust.
When once distrust has gained a lodgment in the
mind it finds aliment in abundance, and no matter
how the father acts the moody watcher of his ways
reads confirmation of his hard misjudgment. Kind
ness and severity are alike misread, until distrust
becomes hostility. But when the father is truly good,
and full of loving solicitude, there sometimes comes
a day when he sees his alienated son hovering on
the verge of ruin, and hastens to save his boy from
irretrievable disgrace at a great cost to himself.
The sacrifice involved may be of money or of health
and almost loss of life — but the sacrifice is freely

394 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
made, and the rescued son beholds with amazement
the great love which he has been denying. He
owns the falsity of his thoughts, and the wicked
ness of his passion-blinded aversion ; and, seeing
the condemning truth of his father's goodness,
he is crushed in spirit, filled with shame, and can
scarcely endure to meet his father's gaze. But
presently he ventures to look up, and seeing
tender sympathy and compassion for his anguish
and remorse, he gathers strength to say, " Father,
I have wronged you, I have wounded and dis
graced you. Would to God I had not been so
blind) so base, so cruelly unjust. Oh how differ
ent would have been my life had I but trusted !
Now I see, but it is too late, and I can hardly
dare to ask you to forgive." How then does a good
father meet this broken-hearted cry ? Does he
not lay his hand upon the bowed head and say
" My son, it is enough. 1 have waited and prayed
for this hour. Now that you see what is in my heart
all will be well. Your distrust has sorely grieved
me, but I can forgive all you have ever done, or
said. The one thing which has divided us has been
distrust : that is now gone, and I have no fear of
future strife. We shall both of us have our infirmi
ties, but I shall know that your heart is right, and
you will never doubt my love."
Allowing for inevitable differences, such a recon
ciliation as this appears to be a true image of Paul's
doctrine of imputed righteousness. Thus interpreted
there is nothing artificial in his doctrine, nothing

viii THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH 395
strained, nothing untrue, nothing which savours
of legal technicality. The word "justify" is
forensic, and the accounting faith for righteous
ness is on one side a judicial act. It is judicial
because it releases from condemnation, but it is
something infinitely deeper than forensic analo
gies can express, because the Judge is our Father
pronouncing His satisfaction in the faith His own
goodness has begotten. By a true act of judgment
therefore, man is granted an exit from the state of
condemnation, but by this same act viewed under
another aspect he is welcomed into a state of grace
in which the terms of law have no place. The deeper
reality of this transition belongs to the realm best
understood by the analogy of fatherhood, but for
all who have transgressed the law, whether written
in words, or in the constitution of our moral nature,
there is need of some assurance that God will no
longer reckon them transgressors. To the Jew this
forensic aspect of salvation was supremely impor
tant, and it was for him and such Gentiles as he
had influenced that Paul's language was originally
moulded. But no guilty conscience can enter with
joyous freedom into the life of a son, and dare to
reckon himself an heir of God and a joint heir with
Christ, without the sanction and approval of the great
heart-searcher who is the Judge of all the earth. No
teaching of the Fatherhood of God which ignores
the fact that our Father in Heaven is the King, the
Lawgiver and the Judge, can fully satisfy a contrite
heart. We need to see that our Salvation proceeds

396 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
from Him who is all, and more than all these titles
can express ; and that nothing which any one of these
great names is intended to reveal is suppressed, or
violated, or in the least degree impaired by our
deliverance from condemnation.
If I have given a true interpretation of Paul's
doctrine, we may expect to find some verification of
the fact in the subsequent parts of his epistle, and
it is not difficult to say what form such verification
must take. We have seen that as a sequel to the
proof of universal sin, and the impossibility of
justification by law, Paul could only state the
manner of man's release from legal condemnation
in terms which denote a judicial act. Hence the
forensic force of the word dikaiod is determined by
its relation to the preceding arguments and to the
Jewish objections which called them forth. But we
have seen that this judicial act of release from con
demnation is also an act of grace. The grace is
righteous, but for this reason it is the more and not
the less worthy to be called grace. If this view be
correct, we must expect to find that in discussing
the Christian's subsequent life and position before
God, Paul will not be content to linger on forensic
terms, but will exhibit the filial life which we have
identified with faith in Christ. We may expect also
that he will take pains to so exhibit the spiritual
fruits of this faith, as to prove to his questioners the
congruity of his doctrine with the righteousness
of God, and with the supremacy of His holy will.

viii SPIRITUAL FRUITS OF FAITH 397
The remainder of the epistle fully answers to this
expectation. The fifth chapter opens with a sentence
which, particularly in the original, identifies justifica
tion by faith with the reckoning of faith for righteous
ness, and then proceeds to describe the outcome of
the great transition we have surveyed. The primary
effect of the change is that we are introduced into a
state of " peace with God." x There is nothing
said here about peace as a state of the emotions,
but peace with God is declared to be the state
into which we enter, by faith in Jesus Christ.
Having entered into this state, in which God
deals with us according to the riches of His own
spontaneous goodness, we look forward with hope
to a glorious consummation. Thus faith is the
basis of an expectation which, being mixed with
desire for things not yet seen, becomes a joyful
hope, and this again is an animating and sustaining
power to the life which must still be lived in the
flesh. Thus, with a sudden but perfectly natural
transition, Paul declares that we rejoice, not only in
the far off prospect of glory, but in the present
discipline and trial of our faith (cf. James i. 2) not
because tribulation is pleasant, but because it works
patience, and patience having its perfect work brings
experimental proof of that which faith apprehends.
This confirmation again works livelier hope, — thus
transmuting tribulation into helpful discipline and
feeding faith itself from day to-day.
But here an objector may sneer at a life of hope
1 See Appendix, Note 42.

398 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
as the pursuit of a lovely mirage, and even believers
may at times grow weary and faint in their minds
because of hope deferred. Hence Paul meets their
need by adding, " and hope putteth not to shame ; "
not because we have possession of all we desire, but
" because the love of God hath been shed abroad in
our hearts through the Holy Spirit which was
given us."
Here three points demand special notice, (i)
Paul does not speak of any legal claim to a future
heritage. Our confidence is not to be built upon
any such foundation, but upon the love of God.
Judicial release from condemnation is behind, but
we are now in the region of grace where legal title
deeds can have no place. (2) Paul wisely seeks to
divert our thoughts from the subjective conditions
of faith, and to turn our eyes to Him who is its
author and finisher, because only by beholding Him
can faith survive. (3) Paul introduces a thought
which he assumes his readers to be familiar with,
though not previously presented in this epistle, viz.,
that the believer in Christ is not a lonely creature
clinging to Christ for life, with a clasp which must,
under peril of death, be maintained in his own
strength. There is, we are reminded, an unseen and
voiceless Friend, the promised Paraclete who comes
to those who trust in Christ, guiding them into
truth, taking the things of Christ which are the
things of the Father, and shewing them unto us.
Thus quietly the thought is instilled that faith is not
only a condition of justification, but a bond of

vm SPIRITUAL FRUITS OF FAITH 399
living intercourse with the Divine Spirit. The
Christian life is not only one of prayer and en
deavour, but one of personal communion. In this
communion God is not only the sought one, but
the Seeker ; not only a Hearer but a Speaker ;
and thus we are taught to let our hearts go out
from self to Him as at all times our very present
Help. Having introduced this mystical yet most
practical and realistic truth, Paul hastens to describe
its definite effects in personal experience. The Holy
Spirit has done, he declares, precisely what Christ
said He should do. He has not spoken of Himself,
or revealed Himself. He has not announced His
own presence ; but He has brought to our hearts a
vision of the love objectively revealed in Christ.
What then is the love shed abroad in our hearts ?
It is the love commended in the Death of Christ.
While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Surely
then He who gave us Christ will give us all things
needful to make this great gift effective in our
ultimate salvation. If He has conquered our
enmity, will He not foster our weak friendship into
perfect love ? If He died for us, will He not
employ the forces of His risen life to complete His
benignant work, and crown His own sacrifice with
glory ? Thus Paul feeds faith, hope and love, by
uniting his testimony with every believer's experience
and with the voiceless witness of the Spirit. Then,
having begun by declaring that we have peace with
God, he rises to his loftiest note of exultation. We

400 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
are not only at peace, not merely reconciled, but
God, who but for Christ would have been our fear
and dread, has become our delight. " We joy in
God." Jesus Christ, who slew our enmity by com
mending God's love to us while we were yet sinners,
so clears our vision, that we see more and more of
God's glory, and abound more and more in adoring
praise and love. Christ is the Alpha and Omega,
the author and completer of salvation, and our part
is to see, and hear, and take into our hearts the
infinite riches of His grace.
The remaining portion of this chapter has great
value, but for our immediate purpose it demands no
more than a passing reference as leading to the
subject of chapter six. In pursuance of his purpose
to declare God's righteousness in dealing with men
of all nationalities, Paul points out that the bitter
consequences of ancestral sin have flowed like an
ever broadening river wherever the race of man
has multiplied, but repeats his great principle that'
where there is no law sin is not imputed. Having
thus recognised the most appalling facts of human
history, he unfolds the righteous principle that as
all have suffered in like manner from one man's
fault, a common redemption is provided for all
through one man, Jesus Christ. The same law of
social fellowship which permits the diffusion of sin
and death is being graciously employed for the
diffusion of righteousness and life. Thus Christ
has been made the source of a new river which is
destined to deepen and widen, until at last it heals

viii FAITH BEGINS NEW LIFE 401
the sea of death as prefigured in the vision of
Ezekiel.1 By a new line of thought Paul has thus brought
us back to the contemplation of justification by faith
as a blessing offered in the gospel to every creature
under heaven. He has stated it without flinching
in the face of hostile critics ; now he is logically free
and morally bound to entertain their chief objection.
He has significantly said that grace is to reign
through righteousness unto eternal life, but something
more than this assertion is required to meet the
sinister suggestion : — If you magnify God because of
His abounding grace, why not indulge in sin more
freely that God may have more ample scope to
glorify Himself by its forgiveness?
Paul's answer has already been foreshadowed in his
account of what faith in Christ contains and effects
in the experience of the believer, but in the sixth
chapter this truth is expanded and illustrated. He
points out that the man who has really been united
to Christ in the manner symbolised by the baptism
of a believer, has thereby entered into a living
fellowship with One who died to condemn sin, and
to destroy it in our hearts, who also rose again to
bring us into a new life of filial service to God. No
man who has verily trusted in Christ as the
Redeemer from Sin can conceivably desire to con
tinue in the state from which he seeks salvation.
Thus the believer in the crucified and ascended
Christ becomes a new creature. Viewed in relation
1 See Appendix, Note 43.
D D

402 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
to his past life, he has died to sin. Viewed in
relation to the life he enters upon, he is born again,
regenerated by the incorruptible seed of truth con
tained in the gospel.
Analogical terms fail to fully cover the significance
of spiritual facts, and the most contradictory terms are
used to represent different aspects of the same great
change. As a judicial deliverance from condemna
tion it is "justification " by faith. As a forsaking of
sin it is a death. As an escape from moral decay and
restoration to fellowship with God it is a resurrection.
As a commencement of filial obedience it is a birth.
As a cessation of opposition to God it is reconcilia
tion. As a deliverance from the bonds of iniquity,
and from a vain manner of life, effected by God at a
great cost, it is redemption. No one of these terms
is adequate to express all the truth, and each one, if
presented as complete and sufficient becomes untrue,
or at any rate implies something false. These terms
are not all employed in this same chapter, but we
need to recognise the general literary law which
governs their usage, because the change which has
been spoken of as justification and reconciliation in
chapter five is here depicted as a death and a
resurrection, a deliverance from bondage, and a free
life towards God. In literary and in spiritual
harmony with these new terms and aspects of truth,
the believer is also admonished to recognise his
position, his privileges and his responsibilities. His
position is stated in ideal terms, but Paul, ever a
preacher, and never a disputant, except for the sake

viii NEWNESS OF SPIRIT 403
of his preaching, entreats the Roman Christians to
make the realities of life correspond to his doctrinal
¦ theory. In chapter seven Paul reverts to some legal aspects
of the great transition. For the special benefit of
men who were familiar with the law, he uses the
analogy of death as a severance of relations, and a
termination of obligations, setting free the wife from
her husband and the slave from his master. Under
this imagery he enforces a great religious truth.
His language is legal, but his thought is ethical, and
far removed from forensic quibbles and technicali
ties. The man who has died to sin in sympathy with
the crucified Christ, and is delivered from condem
nation, is necessarily dead to the law by which he
was formerly bound. The moral change warrants,
and the judicial release involves, an end of the rela
tions which can be expressed in terms of law.
Thus, the analogy of death is not fanciful, but
profoundly true and realistic, and Paul states it
without flinching from the anticipated reproach of
anarchism. But having stated the case thus he
proceeds, in perfect accord with all that has been
said, to declare that the object and ultimate effect
of this " death " to law is not lawlessness in any evil
sense, but a fuller, sweeter, and more, ethical obedi
ence, " so that we serve in newness of spirit, and not
in the oldness of the letter."
To Jewish minds this was unpalatable, and, until
thoroughly understood, indigestible doctrine. It was
foreseen by Paul that they would regard it as a
D D 2

404 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
wild impeachment of their law, as a blunder and a
failure. To them it seemed clear that his doctrine
meant either that the law of Moses was a mischievous
human invention, or else that God was abdi
cating His throne and relinquishing the duties of
moral government. To remove this grave difficulty
he first of all scouts the imputation that he is cast
ing scorn upon the law, and then explains what the
law could do, and what it could not do ; why it
was needful for a time, and was altogether good
for its intended purpose, and why it had become
necessary for God to let it expire.
The passage which follows is a profound and con
vincing elucidation of the truth, that a mere know
ledge of duty fails to produce right conduct, so that
the higher and more refined the law by which con
science is enlightened, the more difficult obedience
becomes, and the more intense is the consciousness
of sin. Even in well-meaning men law produces
a strife between conscience and inclination. The
most sincere striver after righteousness becomes the
most painfully aware of insurrection in his nature,
and presently is tempted to renounce his futile en
deavours after perfection, and to subside into a de
moralising state of despair. The loftier his ideals,
and the more fervent his aspirations the more self-
condemnatory he becomes, and the more conscious
of impotence to carry out his intents and purposes
in daily life. The cry of the man who knows
his duty towards God, and ignominiously fails to
fulfil it, is a cry to which the law has, and from its

viii UNION WITH CHRIST 405
very nature can have, no response. Paul knew this
cry to be the most pathetic which has ever risen
up to heaven, and he agonised to make his country
men see that it was righteous for God to make
some reply to it, and also that this reply had been
made by Jesus Christ.
The words " there is therefore now no condemna
tion " (viii. 1), are a repetition in a negative form of the
opening thought of chapter five — ¦" Therefore being
justified by faith." They mark indeed a resumption
of the subject there dealt with, and this chapter fills
in the outline sketch of a believer's life and experi
ence given in v. 1-11. It is manifestly designed to
direct the believer's thoughts to the glorious designs
of God, and the living help of His spirit, and so to
foster that hope which is a saving force from the des
pair to which men are reduced by the threatenings
of law. But before enlarging on the believer's en
couragements, Paul is careful to guard his doctrine
of justification by faith against something worse
than hostile attacks, viz., a misuse of it by self-
complaisant hypocrites who might easily wrest it
to their own destruction.
His power to do this is marked by a striking
difference of expression between viii. 1., and v. 1.
" There is therefore now no condemnation to them
that are in Christ fesus." The persons here referred
to are those "justified by faith," but the different
expression gathers up the significance of the in
termediate discussions, which have enriched the idea
of faith in Christ by showing that it carries in itself

406 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
a principle of living fellowship with Him who con
demned sin in the flesh. It carries in itself a parti
cipation in Christ's abhorrence of sin, and His
filial devotion to the will of the Father. It consti
tutes or effects such a change of attitude, disposition
and purpose as amounts to nothing less than a death
to sin, and a resurrection, or rebirth, to godliness.
Hence Paul gathers up the fulness of meaning in
his many analogical terms, and gives expression to
his enlarged, enriched and glorified conception of
the life of faith by saying, " There is therefore now
no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus."
If, following the directive finger-word " therefore "
we glance backwards and ask, "Why is there no
condemnation to these persons ? " we may verify
the road traversed by our exposition. The de
claration does not mean that there is no sin in
believers, for Paul has just said that the man who
rejoices in Christ as the instrument of his deliver
ance from evil, still with his flesh fails to do all the
good he would, and thus in some measure serves
" the law of sin." Nor does it mean that conduct
which in others would be punished is condoned in
believers, for the Apostle has previously warned those
who have " been baptized into Christ " that if they
yield themselves up to serve sin they will earn its
wages and die, and he instantly repeats this solemn
warning, " if ye live after the flesh ye must die."
"If any man have not the spirit of Christ he is none
of His." Thus, like John, he teaches that " if we say
we have no sin in us we deceive ourselves, and make

viii WHY NO CONDEMNATION 407
God a liar," but if we walk in the light the sins of
infirmity which may still beset us will not cut us
off from fellowship with Him who is light. He
agrees also with James that a professed faith which
bears no fruit in conduct is a vain profession.
(James ii. 26.) Dismissing fatal, soul-destroying
notions and supplying a practical test of vital union
with Christ, we thus learn the several reasons why
there is no condemnation to those truly in Christ :
(1) because with their minds they serve the law of
God, though no more subject to the letter of
statutes ; (2) because abiding in Him who is the true
Vine, they as branches are nourished by His word
and by His Spirit of filial obedience to God ; (3) be
cause, although not perfect in the doing of God's
will, they are loyal to Him in heart, are ceasing to
do evil and learning to do well ; and finally (4)
because mystically, but most really one with Him
in whose life and death sin was more impressively
and solemnly condemned than by any thunderings
of law, or by blasting fires of punishment. On
these accounts therefore those in Christ can most
righteously be numbered with God's children, and
receive the same blessing as Abraham, whose faith
was reckoned for righteousness.
Throughout this chapter Paul writes to those
who are in Christ, yet are still hoping for the con
summation of salvation, and still subject to the painful
incidents of life in which faith, hope and loyalty are
severely tried. He passes out of the polemical arena
and meets his Christian brethren with paternal words

408 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
of encouragement. He has declared their judicial
discharge from law, and now he deals with their
temptations and perplexities as children. Never for
a moment does he bid them base their confidence on
a legal status as the guarantee of security, nor does
he bid them look back continually to the reconciling
Cross. As reconciled men he bids them look up to
the living Christ as the one who having died for them
once lives for ever as their Friend and Advocate in
Heaven, who also sends His promised spirit to be His
advocate with them and their ever present friend and
guide and helper on earth. God's love in Christ ;
God's purpose to ultimately bring all who through
Christ love and trust Himself into the likeness of the
perfect Son ; God's overruling providence in making
all things (and particularly those which seem to be
against us) work together for our good ; God's un
wearied patience in bringing the creation itself into
final harmony with the yearnings and satisfaction of
His redeemed sons ; these are the sublime thoughts
which Paul presents for the support of the faith and
hope which were begotten by the cross, and which
have their sacred seal and pledge of victory in the
blood which there was shed. The law, though edu
cationally good, has now no function, except that of
explanation and mental guidance for those who are
living as joint heirs with Christ, and are' plied by the
spirit with such holy motives and such inspiring
anticipations. The love which has reached us
through the incarnation and sacrifice of Christ is
a love which will freely give all things to those

viii NO SEPARATION FROM LOVE 409
who receive it into their hearts by faith. The man
in whom Christ has begotten a faith through
which the fulness of God may flow is potentially
possessed of all things needful to sustain the life
of sonship and to bring him at last into conformity
with Jesus Christ. The memory of all that God
has done through Jesus Christ who died is an
everlasting pledge that God will not leave His work
undone or turn aside from His eternal purpose.
Thus the faith which begins with a trembling clasp
of the nail-pierced hand stretched forth in reconciling
grace, increases in power and fills itself with the
riches of God's goodness until the contrite one,
who scarcely dared to take the pardon of his sins, is
emboldened to declare that neither life nor death, nor
any adverse forces in the universe, will ever be able
to separate him from the love of God, which has
sought and found and clasped him in Christ Jesus
our Lord.
In chapters ix, x, and xi, Paul discusses the righte
ousness of God in dealing with all nations in a manner
which the Jews considered would constitute a viola
tion of His covenant with themselves. The main
force of his argument is directed to prove that God
was righteously free to shew mercy to all nations,
and free to exercise judgment upon Israel, if, like
Pharaoh, their old oppressor, the men of Israel
hardened their hearts and fought against the redemp
tion of the Gentiles. In grieved anticipation of an
impending dispersion, Paul renewed the warning

410 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
which Jeremiah had learned in the potter's house.
Israelites were flattering themselves that their privi
leges were secured by an unconditional election, and
it was necessary to repeat the lesson that there was
nothing in the terms of their election to restrict God's
liberty to break them in pieces as a marred vessel is
shattered by a potter, and nothing to prevent Him
from making for Himself a new vessel of clay, a
new and more perfect and much vaster kingdom to
be gathered out of all nations and kindreds of the
earth. This section of the epistle closes with a powerful
appeal to the Gentiles to regard Israel with affec
tionate sympathy rather than with anger or scorn.
They are reminded that alike in her election and rejec
tion she had been impressed by God into the service
of mankind. In calling her He had been governed
by no partiality or personal preference, and in casting
her away He was acting for the good of mankind at
large. Paul also declares his conviction that even
tually Israel will turn to the Lord, and so crown her
own destiny, and fulfil her ministry to the world by
bearing an overwhelming witness to Christ, a witness
which would issue in a world wide conversion.
We saw in the opening of the epistle that Paul
strove to bring all men — Jews and Gentiles alike —
to confess the righteousness of God in charging
them with actual sin. Now, reviewing all his work
in convincing men of sin and judgment, Paul ex
ultantly proclaims that all God's ways have had
universal mercy as their aim and object. All God's

viii THE SACRIFICE GOD CLAIMS 411
judgments and severities of discipline have been
the outcome of His love, and have been wisely
chosen for the furtherance of designs in which His
own glory and man's deliverance from evil have
coalesced. Punishment has never been His final
aim, and if He has shut up all unto disobedience, it
has been in order that He may have mercy upon all.
At this point the Apostle passes from Polemics to
Ethics, from logical reasonings for the establishment
of doctrine to fervent persuasions and sagacious
admonitions for the building up of Christian character
on the firm foundation of faith in the righteous mercy
of God. " Therefore," he pleads — and this word in
troduces what he regards as the only logical
conclusion of his reasonings — " I beseech you there
fore, brethren, by the mercies of God " thus unfolded
to your view, " that ye present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your
reasonable service. And be not fashioned according
to this world, but be ye transformed by the renew
ing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the
good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
It does not fall within the scope of this study to
examine in detail the instructions which follow this
appeal for the consecration to God. The supremely
important point demanding our attention lies in the
connection which is presupposed between the noblest
ideal of human conduct and the great truths of the
gospel revelation.
To appreciate this connection, we need to observe

412 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
the sublime audacity of the demands thus intro
duced. Reading through the chapter, it becomes
evident that duties are called for which exceed
the powers of unaided human nature, as certainly
as fig-bearing transcends the power of thistles
and the bringing forth of grapes is impossible to
briars. We are called upon not merely for kindly
and generous actions, but for affections which we
do not naturally feel, for sacrifices of inclination
which we flinch from as unreasonable and im
possible. We are not only to be patient in
tribulation, as the Stoics taught ; but in spite of
all the disappointments and rebuffs by which the
world scatters bright illusions, and seems to make a
mock of expectation ; and in spite of the inevitable
failure of powers and darkening of earthly prospects,
we are to rejoice in hope. Through years in which
heaven is silent, and requests are often without
visible response, we are to continue stedfastly in
prayer. When persecuted, we are to bless those
who hate and harass us. When sad at heart and
craving sympathy, we are not to burden others with
our grief, but to enhance the joy of those who
rejoice by rejoicing with them. When we are glad,
we are not to expect the sorrowful to come and re
joice with us, but must mourn with those who weep.
Thus we are exhorted to display heroic self-forget-
fulness, to carry our own burdens without asking
help of any except God, and in addition we are
to undertake the superhuman task of bearing the
burdens of our fellow men ! To crown all, while

viii THE TRANSFORMATION OF BELIEVERS 413

resisting the depressing and apparently overwhelm
ing forces of evil in the world, we are called upon
not merely to save ourselves from being vanquished,
but are required to achieve a decisive victory — " Be
not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."
These claims on men who have been "justified by
faith" are an evidence that in Paul's estimation
there was something very real in God's judgment of
the righteousness of faith. It proves that God
expects to gather from every believer the fruits of. a
righteousness which exceeds the righteousness of
Jewish Pharisees and Gentile Stoics. Neither these
nor any other moralists ever dreamed of exacting
such fruit from the poor tree of human nature. All
men can recognise the nobility and beauty of such
an ideal of conduct and spirit, but every man is
ready to confess : It is ideal ; it is Divine, not
human ; it is high, I cannot attain unto it !
Returning to the verses which introduced these
exalted admonitions, we are confronted with what
appears to be a more exorbitant demand than any
regulative precept, " Be ye transformed by the re
newing of your mind."
Fickle people find no difficulty in changing their
minds, i.e., in allowing their thoughts and purposes
to veer round with every gust of wind that blows.
But who can change those secret thoughts and
wishes, and that disposition of the heart, which con
stitute the man himself? He may hate and curse
himself for infatuated folly, or for outbursts of
passion ; and in hours of self-discovery he may

41 4 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
stand aghast at the spectacle uncovered— the naked
soul from which the draperies of self-complacency
have been torn. But the horrible thing is that,
however hideous he finds himself to be, he remains
what he is, and is incapable of self-regeneration. He
may repress many self-betraying impulses. He may
assume a mask of fair behaviour, and cultivate a
smile which seldom changes to a frown, or to the
curves of scorn ; but behind the smile the man who
does not smile is there. It were easier by direct
volition to add a cubit to the stature, or to turn the
hair black or white, than for a man to transform
himself. He may, at any rate for a time, fashion
himself according to any desired pattern so as to be
mistaken for " an angel of light." But this will not
give him love " without dissimulation," nor will it
fill him with " cheerfulness " when affecting to shew
mercy, nor with fervour of spirit in affairs which do
not naturally excite his interest. It will not inspire
prayer, or sympathetic joy or sorrow. It may ape
the habits and demeanour of a Christian, but such
counterfeited virtue will constitute the most direful
and ruinous moral defeat which can happen to a
human soul. Paul knew the limits of self-improve
ment as well as any man who ever lived, and yet in
defiance of these limitations he entreats us to be
transformed, and to be so truly and inwardly trans
formed that the whole life of thought, feeling and
volition shall please the Great Heart Searcher, and
answer hour by hour to His good and acceptable
and perfect will !

viii THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH VERIFIED 415
On what ground, then, did the Apostle venture to
make this extraordinary appeal? The answer is
clear. He was persuaded that what a man cannot
do for himself may yet be done by his use of
Divinely furnished means. He was sure that the
believer in Christ has access to all the resources of
the Divine wisdom, power and grace, and that the
mind which freely eats and drinks the truth as it is
in Jesus will thereby be renewed day by day.
The most significant peculiarity of these apostolic
precepts, when compared with those of any law giver
or ethical teacher, is that they thus follow a revela
tion of regenerative truth, and are associated with
exceeding great and precious promises of help,
together with simple directions for finding it in
every hour of need. Law can promise life to men
if they obey its behests, but on no other terms.
At best it incites to self-sustained endeavour, and
up to the last hour of active life it leaves the striver
a prey to fears of failure, for even at his latter end
he may transgress, and fling away the crown of
many former victories. In such endeavours, even
when most successful, there must always be an
element of self-seeking which detracts from their
ethical purity, and limits their acceptability to Him
who looks not only on the outward forms of con
duct, but on the motives and intents of the heart.
But Christian precepts reverse this order and appeal
to. us not as strugglers for the right to live, but as
being already alive from the dead, already living
sons of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, Because

416 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
we have received such love, such mercy, and such
enfranchisement, we are entreated to devote our
living powers to God.. In order that our active
life in the world may be worthy of its true nature
and origin, we are exhorted to keep it well re
plenished with that heavenly nutriment which is
provided for us in that revelation which is not only
the seed which begets, but the bread which feeds
the sons of God. Without this continual " renew
ing " of the mind, spiritual life must become attenu
ated. If we are justified by faith, we must also live
by faith on the Son of God, and as faith was elicited
by the love which He commended to us as sinners,
even so it can be sustained only by continual look
ing unto Him who has loved us, and by fellowship
with His mind and heart.1
Before commencing a discussion of Justification
by Faith, it was premised that nothing which adds
to the value of faith can weaken the conclusion
already reached, that its provocation through the
Death of Christ was necessary for man's redemption,
because indispensable for the awakening of that
love which is the fulfilment of Divine law, and the
essence of righteousness in God and man. The
justice of that statement is amply confirmed by the
result of our inquiry. We have found that the faith
in God which Christ inspires is itself precious in
God's sight, and is reckoned by Him for righteous
ness prior to the rectification of conduct which is its
] See Appendix, Note 44,

viii THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH VERIFIED 417
ultimate effect. But this in no way diminishes the
vital necessity of a revelation of God's love. We
have seen that while God cannot condone any
fault or be finally satisfied with anything less than
a perfect conformity to His law of love, this perfect
purity of thought, feeling and action is inconceiv
able except as the spontaneous outcome of a heart
which has been delivered from the fear of punish
ment and the lust of reward. Hence for those who
have once sinned, an assured forgiveness and a free
bestowal of Sonship with all its security and
privileges is the sine qua non of ethical perfection.
Faith in God, therefore, not only in general as a
loving Father, but specifically as able righteously to
remit the sins of those who trustfully return to Him,
is necessary for man's redemption. The doctrine of
Justification is therefore not merely in harmony
with our previous conclusions, but it contains within
itself a complementary truth. We may go beyond
this, and say that Paul's polemical theology is but
the vindication of the gospel as it appears in the
parables of Christ, in His treatment of contrite
sinners, in His manifold declaration of the Father's
name, and above all as He illustrates, commends,
and inviolably seals His witness to the truth, by
His death and resurrection from the grave.
Stripped of all the technicalities which were
forced upon him by the objections he encountered,
Paul's idea of religion is therefore sublimely
simple. He regards it as one and the same
thing in all ages, and throughout all dispensations. E E

4i8 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
Christianity in its inmost essence is the religion
of those primitive men who first exercised faith
by calling on the name of the Lord. It is the
religion of the Patriarchs who believed God, and by
faith, obeyed Him to the point of heroic sacrifice.
It is the religion of those ancient law givers who by
precept and ceremonial declared God's Name, and
taught men that though God cannot be appeased by
the insulting sacrifices of the wicked, there is forgive
ness with Him for all who hope in His mercy, and
so confess their sins, and trustfully conform to His
appointed manner of approach. It is the religion
of the prophets, who taught men to live through all
vicissitudes by faith in God. In all these different
forms and stages of development religion is one and
the same, because it is the same spiritual activity
towards God. Pure religion was always a trustful
appeal to Him who exercises righteousness and
lovingkindness in the earth ; but in Christianity
this one permanent religion is enriched by the fruits
of discipline and the teachings of experience. It
comes to us laden with all the added wealth of truth
and heart converting power, which Christ brought
into the world, and left as a legacy of reconciling
love to be administered by disciples as trustees of
the manifold grace of God.
Atonement is an all inclusive word which
announces God's part in rendering this religion
possible, and potentially triumphant on the earth.
It glorifies the cross of Christ as in a pre-eminent
and indeed unique sense the power of God unto

vm ATONEMENT AND LAW 419
salvation ; but it makes that cross the central fact
of history, the culmination of Divine activity on
man's behalf, the sign which interprets all the ways
of God, by revealing the Heart of the Everlasting
Father to His ignorant and alienated sons.

Atonement and Law.
The right of any idea to be called Christian must
necessarily be judged by its agreement with the
ancient documents which are alone in their claim to
acquaint us with the life and teachings of Jesus
Christ; and to this Berean test I now commend what
I have presented as the Christian Idea of Atone
ment. But before writing the word " Finis," I pro
pose to ask, How far will this idea endure the
further and inevitable test of conformity to the
modern scientific conception of Immutable Law ?
It need scarcely be said that no religious doctrine
which fails to endure this test can be regarded as
credible, but this does not warrant an immediate
rejection of every opinion to which objections are
urged in the name of science ; for in this name crude
theories have been propounded, and many illegitimate
inferences have been drawn from verified facts and
sound generalisations. Faith in the reign of law is
essential to the idea of a Cosmos, and therefore to
the idea of God. Apart from a conviction that we
are placed in the midst of a vast universe in which
order prevails, science and religion become equally
impossible ; and no doctrine which demonstrably
E e 2

420 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
violates the principle on which this confidence is
built can survive the fiery trial to which all opinions
are subjected in our day. Whether we speak in
the terms of theology or of natural science, the
inviolability of the universal order must therefore
be maintained against all superficial suggestions of
Divine leniency. Man can, and assuredly does
violate the moral law, but the limits of his power
are confined within impassable walls of possibility;
and having chosen his modes of action, he cannot
choose the consequences ; nor can God be so feeble
a ruler as to disarrange His creation to suit the con
venience of a disobedient creature. " God is not
mocked ; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap." Where God reigns law must reign, for
God's object is, and must necessarily be, the doing, and
not the undoing of His will. It inexorably follows,
therefore, that the Immutability of Law -is as truly
a first principle of religious faith as it is an axiom in
modern science.
The strength of Anselmic Theology in all its
modified forms has. always lain in its supposed
maintenance of this principle. But from a scientific
standpoint we are told that this Anselmic theory
of vicarious punishment is a preposterous device to
evade the principle it professedly honours. The
idea of satisfying law by transferring punishment
from the guilty to the innocent is ridiculed as
absurd, and condemned as immoral in thought. It
is also declared to be impossible, because the reign
of law means the unbroken sequence of cause and

SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM 421

effect, so that man's actions, always do, and always
must, bring their retribution to the doer himself,
and must work out their inexorable consequences
for ever. We are admonished also that any attempt
to conceal or tone down the terrible significance of
this doctrine by tempting men to expect "inter
rupting mercies " must tend to induce carelessness
in conduct, by fostering delusive hopes of reaping
a good harvest after sowing bad seed,
In estimating the force of this objection to the
doctrine of Atonement by vicarious Penance, it
must be observed that Anselmic theologians use
the word law in a sense which includes an element
which is not in the word as employed by scientific
critics. The radical idea of a constant order which
cannot be broken is always present, but the Christian
theologian never loses sight of God as the author
and guardian of this order, and he has always in
his mind the thought of a revealed law in which
God issued decrees. But the strictly scientific critic
knows nothing of Divine words or revealed codes,
and he assails the Anselmic scheme of legal satis
faction by denying that the author of Nature (if
there be one) can imaginably be content with a mere
technical and nominal fulfilment of spoken words,
when this involves a real breach of the order which
binds the universe together. He also points to the
phenomena of the world as ample proof that human
conduct always does entail its natural consequences
without any discoverable breach of continuity.
I have no interest in pursuing the controversy as

422 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
between the parties thus defined. The discussion
in this form has been forestalled by the evidence
adduced to prove that the scriptures do not attri
bute to God any unconditional decree of punish
ment, and that they know nothing of any such
expedient as the Penal Theory propounds in the
name of law. We may, however, freely admit that
the Anselmic theory of Atonement is fatally smitten
by scientific and ethical criticism. Its supposed
satisfaction of law amounts to nothing more than a
colourable pretext for an introduction of mercy into
the Divine government.
But while we thus repudiate responsibility for a
nominal but unreal maintenance of law, we expose
a larger front to the attack of those who plead that
Forgiveness is a breach of order. On Biblical
grounds we have made ample room for forgiveness
as an integral part of the moral order over which
God presides. We have now to ask whether this
theological doctrine of scripture is compatible with
a scientific view of the world.
At the outset I will frankly say that if forgiveness
does really constitute a violation of natural order
and does necessarily involve an arbitrary arrest of
those consequences which flow from transgressions of
the moral law, it cannot rationally be attributed to
the Author of Nature. If anything be clear in our
reading of nature it is that she is no respecter of
persons or of moral qualities. The sun rises and the
rain falls on the evil and the good. Fire burns the
martyr's flesh, as surely as it consumes the offal of a

viii NEW CAUSES OPERATE 423
city. Winds and floods destroy the property of
saints and sinners with equal ruthlessness, and
pestilence sweeps away the righteous and the un
righteous without a sign of compunction. If any
moral design can be discovered in the undiscrimin-
ating processes of nature, it is that of subjecting man
to the operation of general laws as conducive to his
training in virtue and wisdom, and therefore better
for him than any incalculable and bewildering
adaptations of environment to fickle subjective
conditions. To imagine that God interferes with
the operation of general laws out of pity for re
pentant transgressors is to contradict the silent
witness of the Cosmos to His Divine unchangeable-
ness. But by making this unreserved admission we in
no degree weaken the ground of belief in forgive
ness, because forgiveness does not imply an arbitrary
arrest of the natural consequences of transgression,
and the two things can only be identified by a con
fusion of thought. In its ultimate issues forgiveness
may, and the Christian faith includes a belief that it
will bring about a full deliverance from all injurious
effects of disobedience, but to do this it works
within the realm of universal order, and in ways
which are in no sense of the word violations of
natural law.
That this is not impossible may easily be proved.
The reign of natural law does not import the per
petual and unchecked persistence of any given line
of sequences. In Physics a moving body will

424 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
continue to move in the same direction unless
stopped, or deflected by some resisting force ; but
science has never contemplated as probable, or
possible, the endless passage of a body through
space in an infinite straight line. Similarly in the
higher region of morals, a man's conduct necessarily
affects his own character and environment, and will
continue to work out its natural consequences until,
or unless, other causes operate to arrest or modify
these effects. Hence we may conclude that although
sin naturally and necessarily produces ill effects on
the evil-doer, and on his neighbours and descend
ants; and although each sin must continue thus to
operate unless modified or overcome by other causes ;
yet this by no means excludes the possibility of
remedial discipline, nor does it discredit the idea of
counteracting forces of goodness. The inexorable
regularity and persistence of causation in the physical
realm leaves room for medicine and surgery, and for
the beneficial influence of prolonged rest and change
of climate. So in the moral realm there is obviously
room for the curative forces of chastisement, the
sobering effects of painful consequences witnessed
or experienced, the gentler touch of kindly per
suasion, the trenchant power of rebuke, the constraint
of sympathy and love.
Looking at familiar facts we see all around us
striking illustrations of these principles. Law
reigns in every family, and no member of it can
evade or escape its grasp, so that in every home sin
produces ill effects. But in a well-ordered family

PARDON A REMEDIAL AGENT 425

the sin of a child is not allowed to bring forth its
natural crop of hatred, distrust and disorder, without
strenuous endeavours to counteract the evil. A wise
father will use his utmost powers of thought in
devising means to prevent the offender's deteriora
tion, and to strengthen the power of resistance to
evil in other inmates of the home. In such a
family, correction, amendment and ennoblement of
character are not unknown or rare phenomena. The
tendency of sin is to spread like a contagious
disease, but there are such things as moral disin
fectants, and laws of health are known which skill
and love can use for the preservation of virtue in the
midst of manifold temptations.
Among the forces thus employed forgiveness has
a most important and absolutely indispensable
place. A merciless parent inevitably drives his
children to despair. Among faulty creatures the
possibility of retrieving errors and failures, and the
hope of restoration to favour after offences have been
committed, is essential to moral progress. Hence in
refined social life mercy has a high place among the
virtues, and implacableness is condemned as the
mark of a bad disposition. Every wise man knows
that capricious, unconditional forgiveness is demor
alising, but the duty and the moral limits of forgive
ness can be stated in definite terms, and, as previously
urged, its influence, when dispensed in accordance
with the law of Christ, is wholly favourable to
righteousness. In considering the relation of forgiveness to the

426 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
natural consequences of sin it is important to
observe that, although the physical and moral
realms are quite distinct, and each is under the
dominion of its own laws, yet they are not separable,
and each is powerfully affected by the other. Moral
conduct includes bodily action, and physical health
is in no small measure dependent on the supremacy
of good or evil principles. A moral change for the
better often removes an active cause of physical
deterioration, while a change for the worse begins
or aggravates mischief, so that what the theologian
calls sin is, in many of its forms, recognised by
physicians as a certain cause of decay. On the
other hand, a physical experience often acts on the
moral nature, and the bodily effects of transgression
not infrequently serve to point the preacher's appeal
to conscience, and become a voice from God, saying,
" Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die ? " In the light
of these facts we are obliged to conclude that if the
diseases which are wasting the strength of many
nations are to be exterminated, the religious teacher
must work hand in hand with the physician ; because
apart from the operation of moral forces to restrain
wickedness, and to direct, and enable self control,
the physical consequences of sin which are now so
appalling, and so threatening to the race, will never
be overcome.
Within certain limits the justice of this contention
will be universally acknowledged, but it will be
justly pleaded that it does not constitute a complete
solution of the problem. It makes room for moral

viii PARDON HAS PHYSICAL EFFECTS 427

causes to be recognised as remedial agents, even in
the physical realm : and it points a little hopefully
towards a gradual amelioration of man's condition in
spite of tendencies which of themselves are porten
tous of racial decrepitude, senility and death. But
it does not adequately show how moral measures,
whether human or Divine, or both in co-operation, can
effectually deal with all the consequences of wrong
doing, nor does it touch the question raised by the
continued prevalence of death.
These two points may seem to involve two
discussions, but they are inseparably connected,
and each helps to elucidate the other.
It has not been ¦ suggested that forgiveness
operates directly to counteract or eliminate the evil
consequences of sin, except in those ways in which
it is naturally adapted to arrest their course, and set
up a new train of moral sequences. On the physical
effects of sin it acts only to a limited extent, almost
always indirectly, and in such ways as have been
exemplified. More than this we have no need to
affirm ; nor have we any warrant in Scripture for
a more sanguine estimate of its results. The teach
ings of Christ and of the New Testament writers
contain no suggestion that a pardoned transgressor
will be forthwith relieved of all the fruits of his evil
ways. The sower of wild oats in youth will find
them cropping up among the good corn of later
sowing. The drunkard may have his life saved by
conversion, and marred nerves and organs may forth
with begin to recuperate, but they will never be as

428 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
they might have been but for misuse, and if serious
injury has been suffered the man may become an
early wreck. Late repentance followed by complete
forgiveness is not so blessed in its issues as an
early consecration. How then can the man be
wholly saved ? How can these bodily effects of sin
be exterminated ?
The answer comes in the word Death. We are
taught that Christ has made death powerless to
harm His followers, but He leaves them to die. The
Death of Christ on the cross has not availed to save
us from dying also. Christ has died for us, but not
instead of us, and, as elsewhere urged, this is in
explicable on the supposition that death is in every
case a penal infliction. It is perfectly consistent,
however, with the conviction that death has been
linked with sin by Divine appointment, and must
therefore be regarded as a consequence of sin. It is
also consistent with faith in the pardoning love of
God, when we learn of Christ to view death as a
needful part of our salvation, because it is God's
physical remedy for those physical effects of sin which
no spiritual means can remove. The process of dis
solution takes to pieces the tabernacle of flesh, and
reduces it to its original elements in a manner which
finally dissipates all the ravages wrought by ancestral
or personal transgression. Corruption and deformity
pertain only to the organism, and when this has
been effectually dissolved the constituent elements
retain their pristine purity, and the liberated
material may be remoulded into new forms of use

viii DEATH A PHYSICAL REMEDY 429
and beauty by the chemistry which is for ever busy
in nature making all things new.
To this thought of death as the physical remedy
of all the physical consequences of human trans
gression, we may add the complementary Christian
doctrine of a future life. According to this doctrine,
the man who has been truly reconciled to God, and
made eager to do His will with undivided loyalty
of Spirit, is released by death from the body in
which duty has been so difficult, and is removed
from the environment which has hindered the attain
ment of ideal perfection. By this emancipation the
man who has cried out so often, " O wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body
of Death ? " is prepared for a sinless life of conformity
to the will of God ; and if clothed upon with a body
of finer make, a fit organ for the expression of holy
thoughts and Christlike purposes, the .redemption
of such a man from evil would be complete. The
clean heart would dwell in a clean house. The right
spirit would reign in a congenial body, a body which
would never war against its mandates, would no
more be weak when called upon for effort, and no
more be strong in any rival clamourings for satisfac
tion. Such considerations effectually dispose of the
gloomy and superficial notion that the reign of law
precludes the possibility of Divine forgiveness.
Believing in the existence of an Author of Nature
who is also the moral Ruler of mankind, we must of
necessity believe that His government corresponds

430 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
in its essential principles and spirit to that which
He has made it natural for us to honour as good.
We may indeed put the case more strongly, and say,
that this belief in the existence of a moral Governor
carries in itself a conviction that His government of
the world is to no small extent administered in and
through the equity and mercy which he enjoins
among men. No worse state of confusion could
be imagined than is suggested by the hypothesis of
a Divine Father who lacks that readiness to forgive
which our hearts admire as one of the truest marks
of moral greatness and superiority to passion. Eter
nal law must also be universal, and the moral order
of the Cosmos must include both God and men
within its harmony. Having found, therefore, that
within the order which includes our human activities
forgiveness has an essential place as a remedial
agent, we cannot rationally exclude' Divine forgive
ness as in itself a breach of law, nor can we restrict
its effects to the moral sphere. If we disbelieve in
its reality, we must base our scepticism on some
other ground. Nothing but atheism can theoreti
cally exclude Divine forgiveness from the system
of nature, and it does so not by insisting on the
inviolability of law, but by denying God.1
When a necessary place for forgiveness has been
found in the Cosmos, the one thing needful to har
monise its dispensation with law, viewed as the
revealed will of God, is precisely that Christian Idea
1 See Appendix, Note 45.

vm JUSTICE INCLUDES MERCY 431
of Atonement which I have striven to elucidate and
commend. Readiness to forgive cannot mean a
readiness to abdicate the Seat ofAuthority in heaven
or on earth. As a Divine Lawgiver and Judge God's
will concerning us, whether declared or undeclared,
must needs be wise and good, so that any alteration
or suspension of it would be an inconceivable de
clension from the choice of what is best for the
universe. Particular codes and forms of expression
may be — and in a progressive world must be — tran
sient, passing away as occasions change and fuller
revelations and fewer restrictions become wisely
possible ; but the demand of love for love can never
be rescinded. Hence a righteous and beneficent
forgiveness can have no widespread dispensation
without the use of accessory measures, which are
adapted to secure obedience as the sequel to de
liverance from condemnation. The Divine anger
justly ceases to burn against those who have sinned,
yet when searched by an Omniscient eye, are seen
to have new hearts and right spirits. Therefore the
everlasting Father is moved by His own love of
righteousness and mercy to beget those conditions
of forgiveness which erring men are powerless to
provide without His aid. When once He has
effected this, mercy becomes the most absolute
justice, and to treat a purified son as still guilty of
the sins he has been inspired to abandon and
abhor would be a breach of the eternal law of
righteousness. In accordance with these principles the history of

432 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
revelation as recorded in the Bible is the history of
atoning work. The ancient law said, " Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God . . . and thy neighbour." It
was thus an utterance of the everlasting demand
which nothing can abate, but read in the light of
after days it was the utterance of eternal love. It
was more than a command, it was a prophecy of
what should come to pass on earth when God's will
at last prevailed. Nor was it only a prediction,
for it announced a Divine intention, it was a living
and active word expressing the changeless purpose
of the Lord, a purpose which as announced to
man contained in itself a constructive pledge and
promise that God would adopt all possible measures
to effectuate His will ; a promise, therefore, that He
would do everything congruous with a righteous use
of omnipotence to satisfy the demands of His own
nature by inspiring men with love for Himself and
for one another. Thus Sinai looks on to Calvary for
the fulfilment of its law, and the work of atonement
fills the hours of all the centuries until it culminates
upon the Cross, where the blood of Christ repeats
the old commandment in new tones and with new
and self-fulfilling power upon the heart, " Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God."
The discoveries and generalisations of modern
science afford no ground of objection to this idea
of atonement. If the story of the cross were only
a fable it would, when thus interpreted, be the
sublimest exaltation of law and order which the
human mind can conceive. It widens our con-

viii A NEW SPIRITUAL FORCE 433
ception of the law to which Christ became subject
through His human birth. It represents God
thus stooping to act through His Son under the
conditions of time and space and under the reign of
physical and moral law for the deliverance of man
from the ruin entailed by lawlessness. It declares
the introduction of a new spiritual energy into the
world to operate among all the forces of good and
evil as a reinforcement of those which make for
righteousness. It thus represents God as foregoing
nothing of His claim to our obedience, and conced
ing nothing to our ill desires, but overcoming
opposition to His will, not by might nor by power —
which would be impossible — nor in the twinkling of
an eye by some magical process, but little by little
and by spiritual means in absolute agreement with
His own nature and with ours, and in perfect adap
tation to the necessities which arise from the nature
and consequences of sin.
The perfect harmony of this Christian idea of
atonement with the reign of natural law by no
means demonstrates the truth of our belief that
God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Him
self, but it leaves us free to receive into our hearts
the joy of that belief without intellectual misgivings.
It is an indisputable fact that a new spiritual power
did come into the world with Christ, and that this
power operates in ways which can be scientifically
observed. Opinions may differ as to the extent of
its past achievements, its present efficiency, and
its prospects of future triumph ; but beyond question
F F

434 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
it is a real power which has penetrated human
society and is entering more and more widely and
profoundly into the mental and moral life of the
world. It has changed, and is still changing, men's
ideals, purifying their affections, redirecting their
purposes, and, working through willing minds and
hearts, it is counteracting the forces of sin ; always
resisting, and often arresting, destructive processes ;
and animating ingenious and persistent endeavours
to remove the social, political and religious causes
of misery and degradation. Working downward,
this same power is sanctifying man's increasing
sway over the forces of nature, by directing its use
in ways which multiply the comforts of life, and
promote the general welfare of the race in body,
mind and spirit.
The warfare between good and evil in the world
is not a simple issue fought out by two banded
armies, with uplifted banners, around which com
batants are grouped in distinguishing apparel.
The combatants are interspersed confusedly, and
in all the two opposing principles contend for
mastery. Those who would survey the field, and
measure the advance of either side towards victory,
are apt to mistake the incidents of a single spot, and
of a few moments, for the deciding struggles of a
campaign. The field is so vast, so hidden by
smoke, and so filled with mingled cries and the
noise of clashing arms, that the keenest observer
finds his judgment and feelings unduly swayed
by local and transient signs. But in hours of

viii REMEDIAL EFFECTS INDISPUTABLE 435
clearest thought and calmest contemplation of the
past and present it becomes evident that the forces
of good are in the ascendant. Inside and outside
the Church of Christ the love of truth and righteous
ness, and the appreciation of mercy, are extending ;
and these are the chief marks of the kingdom of
Christ on the side which is visible on earth. Re
actionary movements are common and sadly dis
couraging, but in spite of them old things are
passing away. The Christian conscience is putting
a restraint on kings and statesmen and peoples ;
and the teachings of Christ, though still holier and
loftier than the lives of His best disciples, are per
meating the minds of millions who disown their
authority, or fail to understand their actual source.
One of the most significant features of the Christian
era, perhaps the most significant of all, is the indis
putable fact that the most beneficent movements
for the elevation of ignorant, oppressed and morally
degraded people have been inaugurated and are
sustained by men who professedly draw the
strength and inspiration of their lives from an
unseen source by the exercise of faith in Christ as
the Redeemer of the world. Even if their faith
were a delusion it would still be true that the
greatest reformers, emancipators, legislators, mission
aries and teachers have been believers in God
through Jesus Christ. It would also be true that
the nations which have done most for human free
dom, for the redress of wrong, the diffusion of
knowledge, and the furtherance of peace, have
F F 2

436 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF ATONEMENT lect.
been those which, however faulty, have been more
richly imbued than any others with the Christian
faith. Faith in the love of God has drawn, and is
still drawing, new moral energy from the mystic
source to which faith looks ; and this energy, however
explained by philosophy, can be traced in its
historical manifestations to that which Paul describes
as the " power of God unto salvation."
These phenomena are within the region in which
natural law prevails, but their only rational elucida
tion is that which accepts the witness of Christ to
Himself as the plenary ambassador of God, and
views His Life, Death and Resurrection as the
revelation of the Father's name, the expression and
demonstration of His Saving Love.
The Christian Idea of Atonement thus links the
Cross of Christ not only with the educational pro
cesses which prepared the way for its introduction
in the fulness of time, but with all subsequent
history, and with the prospective progress of man
kind. Science has nothing to offer in its place, but
will find her highest glory as the conscious or uncon
scious servant of redeeming love. Apart from an
increase of love, her conquests would be fraught with
the most awful dangers, because power, whenever
used for selfish purposes, is a menace to the peace
and almost to the existence of society. But as faith
in God gains converts, brotherly love will grow,
and the achievements of the human intellect will
become the instruments of righteousnesss, and the
weapons of goodwill among men. The destiny of

viii THE SATISFACTION OF GOD] 437
the race, as science reads her forecast in the wreck
age of stars, and in various symptoms of declining
age in our planet, is Death. As surely as this
world had a beginning it will have an end, and it is
at least conceivable that, in«some form, racial death
may close the history of mankind, as it terminates
the career of every separate man. If in this world
only there is hope for man we are more miserable
than the brutes which never contemplate the morrow.
But if we believe that Jesus lived and died and
rose again that He might become the Author and
Answerer of faith in the love of God ; if we believe
that in His Sacrifice God took upon Himself the
burden of our redemption, and suffered to relieve
our woe, to conquer our affections, to draw forth our
trust, and to" incline our hearts to keep His law, that
Death becomes the pledge, not only of a personal
salvation from sin, but of an everlasting purpose to
glorify the race for which Christ died. Believing in
this pledge we are assured that God's atoning work
in Christ will never, be allowed to fail, that, in and
through Christ, God and man will meet and abide
eternally together, so that somewhere beyond the
final tragedy of death, life will reign, and God will
find the satisfaction of that Love which is His
Nature as He hears the ransomed sons of Adam
sing together, " Thanks be to God which giveth us
the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

APPENDIX

Note i, p. 20.
Socinus is charged with having made such a statement, bu
the passage usually quoted by his critics does not warrant the
accusation. The incriminated words do not imply any doubt
of the ill-desert of sin, but simply sustain the innocent thesis
that the Justice of God " of which the Scriptures speak " is not
opposed to mercy, and is " as conspicuous in forgiving sins as
in punishing them." The charge so wrongfully based on these
words can only" be accounted for by a fixed determination to
treat a denial that the punishment of sin must always be in
flicted as a denial of its ill-desert. — Prcelectiones Theologica,
cap. xvi. Cf. also Shedd's criticism, History of Doctrine, vol.
ii-, 377- Note 2, p. 21.
It may be satisfactory to have the basal principle of the
Penal theory stated in the language of some representative
theologian. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to find a single
condensed statement which would be accepted by all as the
clearest and best ; but the one given by Dr. A. A. Hodge in
his " Outlines of Theology " is perfectly clear in its meaning,
and its terms are as little objectionable as any which could be
culled from other writers. The following is his statement of
the fundamental principle on which all Penal theories of the
Atonement are based : —
" The orthodox view .... maintains that the immediate
and chief end of Christ's work was to satisfy that essential
principle of the Divine nature, which demands the punishment
of sin." Note 3, p. 30.
I am not prepared to admit that Athanasius ever contra
dicted the views presented in the text ; but he certainly used

440 APPENDIX

language which has been supposed to teach an opposite doc
trine. His general argument may be summed up in the
following propositions : (i) Under God's Moral Government
death is a necessary consequence of sin, and God would have
seemed untrue if, after transgression, man had been released
from subjection to mortality ; (2) Out of man's fault, and as its
immediate consequence, there had come a corruption of human
nature itself ; (.3) As another consequence of sin man had lost
the true knowledge or right conception of God ; (4) Yet man
could not be abandoned to impurity, ignorance, and death,
because this would be unseemly and unworthy of God's good
ness ; (5) Moreover, in creating man, God had determined to
make him a partaker of His own eternal life, and could not
allow transgression to thwart this purpose. In view of the
problem thus presented, Athanasius inquired, What then could
God do ? or what ought He to do ? Would the difficulties of
the case be met if God accepted man's repentance ? To this
he admirably replies that repentance would have been quite
sufficient if man had required nothing more than forgiveness ;
but in addition to forgiveness he required enlightenment,
regeneration, and sanctification of life, and these are blessings
which repentance has, of itself, no power to provide. They
are blessings which can be imparted by the Logos alone, by
whom man had been created. Thus he reasons that the
Incarnation was absolutely indispensable to the fulfilment of
all God's designs. The whole of His reasoning accords with
the principle that there is nothing in God's nature and nothing
in His spoken words which precludes the forgiveness of all
who truly repent and turn from their iniquity. Had Athanasius
held that God's j'ustice and veracity unconditionally forbade
the remission of penalty he would not have been the man to
conceal or obscurely hint at such a tremendous doctrine, but
would have boldly and explicitly declared it as the primary
reason why the Incarnation was necessary. The deepest
reason why God could not exempt men from mortality is not
the maintenance of His spoken word, but the same reason
which moved Him to speak that word at first — the reason
which still constrains Him to leave those who believe in Christ
to pass through the grave. There is no curse in death for
those who " die in the Lord " and " sleep in Jesus," and as
shown elsewhere (p. 428) the dissolution of the body is God's
ultimate physical remedy for the physical effects of sin. On
this account, and because man's moral discipline can best be
carried on under "the shadow of Death," it was and still "is
appointed unto all men once to die." Athanasius may not have

APPENDIX 441
perceived all this, though some expressions seem to indicate
that he did ; but his answer to the question, " Cur Deus
Homo?" is utterly irreconcilable with Anselm's.
Note 4, p. 37.
As between man and God, there is no logical room in
Anselm's theory for any subjective condition, for when a debt
has been paid, and even overpaid, the creditor has no claim on
his former debtor, and can impose no conditions of release.
But as between man and Christ the case is different. Christ
might be represented as saying. " I have paid your great
debt, but unless you comply with my wishes I shall not include
your name among those to whom I desire my Father to repay
a portion of His debt to me." Such a refinement as this would
not commend itself to many, but it is at least a logical alterna
tive, and its cold spirit of barter serves to show how repugnant
to the spirit and letter of the New Testament the whole idea
of debt and repayment becomes when an occasional figure of
speech is magnified and hardened into a scholastic account of
the relations between God and man, and between God and
Christ. This repugnance is manifestly felt even by those who
most loudly praise Anselm as the first scientific exponent of
orthodox Protestant Soteriology.
It would be superfluous to discuss the extent to which this
feeling was shared by the Reformers, but it is perfectly clear
that they improved upon Anselm by giving prominence to
faith, and also that they provided themselves with a powerful
weapon for their warfare with Rome. Luther and Calvin
differed fundamentally in their views of justification, but were
equally insistent on faith as a condition of salvation, and on
the nullity of all attempts to intermingle the foreign elements
of human merit and Divine grace.
Note 5, p. 45.
For convenient reference I reproduce the verses mentioned.
Their irrelevance needs no further demonstration.
" Through one man sin entered into the world and death by
sin ; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned "
(Rom. v. 12).
" The wages of sin is death " (vi. 23).
" For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made
alive" (I. Cor. xv. 22).
" Sin when it is full grown bringeth forth death " (James
i. 15).

442 APPENDIX
Note 6, p. 49.
It will be observed that the words "as an offering for
sin," which are printed by the revisers in italics, have no place
in the original. Rightly interpreted, and in their right place,
these words are unobjectionable, but they are not a translation
of Paul's words, and their intrusion is unwarrantable. If the
apostle had wished to say that Christ was a sin-offering, he was
quite capable of thus expressing himself, and whether we
approve or disapprove of the words as an interpretation of his
thought, we may justly deprecate their interpolation in the
text. Note 7, p. 65.
This is said without prejudice to the opinion that as spoken
to Adam these words were a warning and not a threat.
Ezekiel gives them as an utterance of God to the wicked,
and therefore neither a warning nor a threat but a judicial
sentence. If any reader feels obliged to read (Gen. ii. 17)
as a threat he must still recognise that such a threat to an
innocent man, when turned into a sentence of condign
punishment upon one already convicted of sin is appreciably
strengthened. Therefore, if a judicial sentence solemnly
announced to a guilty individual can be remitted without
inconsistency, as promised by Ezekiel, the possibility of such
revocation cannot have been excluded by the foregoing
threat. Note 8, p. 67.
By some critics it might be urged that the witness of Christ
to Himself and also the doctrine of John must be understood
in a modified sense, and not as actually teaching the Divine
authorship of Christ's words and works. For such readers
I may point out that on the lowest estimate of Christ's
person, which admits that He was a " teacher sent from God,"
it is inconceivable that His words or actions could be inhar
monious with the mind and moral nature of the Father. False
guidance on the primary principles of justice and mercy
would be as incompatible with the status and vocation of an
inspired human teacher as with the personality and authority
of one in whom God tabernacled. Note 9, p. y/.
Punishment as defined by the advocates of the Penal
theory is manifestly less than extermination, and of itself has

APPENDIX 443
no necessary tendency to eradicate sin from the nature of those
who suffer it. But while such punishment does not tend to
exterminate sin, extermination may include the most awful
forms of non-eternal punishment of which man has any con
ception. Extermination, therefore, is the more inclusive and
stronger term, and it conveys a more vivid impression of the
intensity and inexorableness of the Divine warfare with sin.
Note io, p. 95.
Technically, the law which enjoined kindness to strangers,
applied only to sojourners in the land of Israel, but no one
could imagine that the duty of kindness ceased when an
Israelite crossed the frontier and became a stranger himself,
seeking hospitable treatment ! The appeal to remember how
his forefathers sojourned in Egypt widened the moral scope
of the law beyond all geographical or racial limits. For many
years the Egyptians were exceedingly good to Israel, and the
behaviour of these foreigners was used in Deuteronomy, pre
cisely as Christ used the conduct of the good Samaritan. In
neither case could any fair-minded son of Jacob miss the
universal application of the pungent lesson.
Note ii, p. 100.
I wish as far as possible to refrain from criticising others,
but must in candour emphasise the conviction that defective
views of love are not confined to those who deny that it fully
comprehends God's nature. Not a few preachers eliminate
the idea of justice from their conception of Fatherhood. The
terrors of the law, rightly understood, are the terrors of love,
which from its very nature is the most inexorable thing in the
universe. It is easier to think of a change in the law of
gravitation than of any variation in the moral government of
God. Note 12, p. 112.
The history of theology may be held to supply a third
alternative, but it is one that does not admit of discussion on
Biblical grounds. The thought that children dying in infancy
were eternally lost was too horrible for Christian parents to
entertain. Yet they could conceive of no salvation without
faith in Christ, and thus the fiction of unconscious faith was
introduced. In the age of Augustine infants were baptised as
believers, and in case of death were regarded as saved from

444 APPENDIX

hell. In those days the sponsor did not promise that later on
in life the children to be baptised would comply with God's
claims, but solemnly declared that they had already repented
and believed, thus using the formula which had been
employed when the subjects of baptism were instructed
persons who personally professed faith in Christ. Pope Boni
face wrote to Augustine urging that this was very absurd,
seeing that such children were incapable of thought, and
Augustine made of necessity a lame reply (Letter xcviii.
7—10) ; but rather than run the risk of burying their children
under a sentence of condemnation, Christian parents eagerly
accepted the doctrine and the ordinance which embodied it
in a sacramental form, as the only refuge from a maddening
dread of sending their babes to perdition. They were at least
logical and consistent in setting up unconscious faith and
involuntary baptism as an appropriate remedy for the uncon
scious sin of infants. For those who can accept such a
doctrine it mitigates the horror of infant damnation, but those
who cannot console themselves with such a fiction must
recognise the fact that the doctrine of justification by faith is
one which has no conceivable applicability to those who, by
reason of immaturity, are incapable of knowing what sin is,
or what is meant by faith in Christ for the remission of sin.

Note 13, p. 131.
Tertullian had a clear view of this principle, which was sub
sequently obscured by those who resolved all sin into " con
cupiscence" and consequently induced a false conscience about
desires which in themselves are as non-moral as the hunger
and thirst which Christ felt in the wilderness {Cf. "De
Anima," xl). Note 14, p. 138.
The views enunciated in the text are not offered as a
dogmatic account of the origin of religion ; nor do they imply
that the most primitive form of religion was an exalted
theism. Our ignorance of prehistoric man is profound, and
our minds ought to be kept open to welcome any facts which
may unexpectedly come to light, for faith is valueless unless
robust enough to digest all knowledge and give thanks. But
all the facts which can be designated historical exhibit man's
inveterate tendency to corrupt and degrade his religious
beliefs and customs ; and however far we penetrate into

APPENDIX 445
antiquity we find traces of some simple childlike acknowledg
ment of a creative Being, overlaid by later superstitions. The
sacred books of India, the monuments of Egypt, and, though
less clearly, those of Assyria, all show the tendency to break
up the Deity into personified attributes, and to set up symbols
which degenerate into idols. Hinduism, Buddhism, and
Mohammedanism have all assumed forms which would have
disgusted their founders and early devotees. It took centuries
of stern teaching and fiery discipline to cure the Hebrews of
the disposition to relapse into idolatry with its sensual rites.
The depravation of Greek religion through the importation of
Asiatic abominations is written clear, even in classical my
thology. Without multiplying illustrations, we must confess
with humiliation that the tendency to degenerate has been
conspicuously manifested in the history of Christianity. Who
could recognise the pure and undefiled religion of Jesus
and His apostles in the semi-paganism of Southern Italy and
of Spain ? How strong must that tendency be which is
to-day struggling to set up images, and favours the veneration
of sacred shrines and relics in the Protestant Church of
England, and is turning a spiritual ordinance like the Lord's
Supper from a commemoration of Christ's death into a
materialistic partaking of His actual flesh and blood ! Reforma
tion in India means a return to the ancient Vedas. Reformation
in Mohammedan countries would mean an abolition of many
barbarous local customs, of which the best Moslems are
ashamed. Reformation in Christian lands has always been a
return towards primitive simplicity of faith and worship. By
what steps primeval man attained to some simple elementary
theism is a legitimate subject of inquiry ; and our present
paucity of information fairly invites and almost compels
speculation ; but archaeological research has thus far served to
illustrate and confirm the Pauline account of religious declen
sion as a senseless and by no means innocent preference for
the worship of things visible, and a willing forgetfulness of
the Power which made man and his habitation.

Note 15, p. 146.
Calvin's teaching on this subject is essentially the same as
Augustine's and differs only in form. The all-important fact
is that he regards infants as guilty before God of the injuries
they suffer as the remote consequences of Adam's fault. He
does not teach that the guilt of Adam's transgression is

446 APPENDIX
immediately imputed to new-born children ; but his doctrine
comes to the same thing and is even more glaringly unjust.
He states that " Original sin, then, may be defined as hereditary
corruption and depravity of our nature, extending to all the
parts of the soul, which first makes us obnoxious to the wrath
of God and then produces in us works which in Scripture
are termed works of the flesh .... being thus perverted and
corrupted .... we are merely on account of such corruption
deservedly condemned by God .... Through him (Adam),
however, not only has punishment been derived, but pollution
instilled, for which punishment is justly due .... Hence even
infants bringing their condemnation with them from their
mother's womb suffer not for another's but for their own
defect. For although they have not yet produced the fruits
of their own unrighteousness, they have the seed implanted in
them. Nay, their whole nature is, as it were, a seed-bed of
sin, and therefore cannot but be odious and abominable to
God. Hence it follows that it is properly deemed sinful in
the sight of God : for there could be no condemnation
without guilt " (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Bk. ii.
cap. i, § 8). Such teaching scarcely needs much comment,
but I desire to impress the thought that there is no escape
from its repulsive and heartbreaking import except in such a
definition of sin as I have presented as Scriptural and
ethically self-evident. The order of Calvin's proof must also
claim attention. He does not infer condemnation from the
demonstrable guiltiness of infants, but first asserts condemna
tion and thence infers guilt. No mother clasping an infant to
her breast can verily believe that her helpless offspring is
guilty of its own defects and " odious " to God, nor can any
such idea be found in the teachings of Him who said " of
such is the Kingdom of Heaven." The idea of infant condem
nation had its origin in the darkening age of the Church, and
in defiance of the dictum of the apostle "sin is not imputed
where there is no law." Note 16, p. 164.
Augustinianism is necessarily a form of Docetism because
it affirms an apparent, but only an apparent, action of the
human will, both in the reprobate who transgress because
delivered to do evil, and in the elect who obey, or appear to
obey, but only because dominated by irresistible grace, i.e.,
by a grace which is dynamical and not ethical in its
operations.

APPENDIX 447

Note 17, p. 172.
Augustine's language on this subject is not always objection
able, and it is possible to quote detached sentences of great
beauty and force. Thus he writes : — " The love, therefore,
wherewith God loveth is incomprehensible and immutable
.... Let not the fact, then, of our having been reconciled
unto God through the death of His Son be so listened to or so
understood, as if the Son so reconciled us unto Him in this
respect that He now began to love those whom He formerly
hated, in the same way as enemy is reconciled to enemy, so
that thereafter they may become friends, and mutual love take
the place of their mutual hatred ; but we were reconciled unto
Him who already loved us, but with whom we were at enmity
because of our sin .... He therefore had love' toward us
even when we were practising enmity against Him .... For
He justly hateth and reprobateth vice as utterly repugnant to
the principle of His procedure, yet He loveth even in the persons
of the vitiated what is susceptible either of His own beneficence
through healing, or of His own judgment by condemnation"
(on St. John, Tractate ex. 6., vol. ii. 460, 1).
I am delighted to quote such words, and I wish it were
possible to leave them as a fair and full presentment of
Augustine's views ; but, unhappily, this is not the case. They
seem to uphold, and when read apart from contextual modifica
tions they do uphold, the sublime principle that it is possible
for God to love men even while condemning them ; so that
even His severities spring from the same fountain of love as
His healing and redeeming mercies. But, unfortunately, these
admirable words are accompanied by others which deprive
them of not a little of their value, and make room after all for
the totally incompatible idea that God hates sinners. Within
the interspaces marked in the above quotation by signs of
omission bewildering statements are interjected. Augustine
quotes with approval the words, " Thou hatest nothing
which Thou hast made" (" Wisdom of Solomon," xi. 25) ; and
against this saying he sets a quotation from (Psal. v. 5).
" Thou hatest, O Lord, every worker of iniquity." These
quotations are given as of co-ordinate authority with each
other, and with New Testament teachings, and then with
more subtlety than insight their conciliation is thus proposed.
"In a wonderful and Divine manner, even when He
hated us He loved us ; for He hated us in as far as we
were not what He Himself had made; and because our
own iniquity had not in every part consumed His work,

448 APPENDIX
He knew at once both how, in each of us, to hate what we
had done, and to love what He had done!' Here Augustine
has laboured to harmonise a mere verbal discrepancy which
might have been disposed of, if calling for any notice, by a
sympathetic and literary exposition of the psalm. But instead
of doing his readers this easy service he has darkened counsel
by treating God's hatred of " what we have done " as if it were
the same thing as hatred of us as persons, so confounding
persons with moral qualities and acts. Thus, notwithstanding
the clear, bell-like statement of the truth that " God had love
toward us even when we were practising enmity against Him
and working iniquity," God's love for His enemies is analysed
into a mere love for His own work, as such, and not for the
men themselves as personal objects of affection. Thus the
conclusion to which we are forced by a consideration of the
entire passage is that in Augustine's opinion God hates all
workers of iniquity viewed as sinners and enemies, because
" He hated us in as far as we were not what He Himself had
made."

Note 18, p. 174.
Calvin, though a less powerful and original thinker, is
more logically thorough, and in some respects, he is more
outspoken, than Augustine. But even he is very cautious,
and not a little hampered by Scriptural assertions of Divine
love which cannot be ignored, and are not easily eviscerated
of their meaning. He propounds the question, How can
the justice of God be reconciled with His mercy ? and then,
having stated the problem to be discussed as quoted in
the text, he admits that " there thus arises some appearance
of contradiction," but undertakes with unfaltering courage
to " explain the difficulty." As a contribution towards this
much-needed service he advances the following extraordinary
statement. " The mode in which the spirit usually speaks in
Scripture is that God was the enemy of men until they were
restored to favour by the death of Christ" (Rom. v. 10.):
that they were cursed until their iniquity was expiated by the
sacrifice of Christ (Gal. iii. 10, 13) ; that they were separated
from God, until by means of Christ's body they were received
into union (Col. i. 21, 22).
With keen controversial instinct these passages are merely
indicated and not reproduced. An immediate exhibition of
Paul's words would have invited attention to the fact that they

APPENDIX 449
are diametrically opposed to the dictum which they are said
to verify. Paul never hinted at God's enmity to man, and
never said or implied that Christ reconciled God to man. In
Col. i. 21, 22, he ascribes enmity to man, but to man alone.
" You being alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil
works hath He reconciled." Here there is an unmistakable
subjective reconciliation of alienated minds, and God has
effected this by the sacrifice of Christ, i.e., by the work of His
own great love. In Gal. iii. io, 13, Paul impresses on those
who thought to be justified by the law that they had really
been under the condemnation and sentence of the law ; but he
neither states nor implies that the curse of the law was a sign
of any lack of love in God. Surely no clearer sign of God's
love for sinful men could be imagined than His deliverance
of His son to be gibbeted on a cross and treated as a male
factor for our sake ! But even more extraordinary than these
distortions, or rather contradictions of the apostle's word, is
the treatment of Rom. v. 10. What Paul actually said is very
beautiful and altogether worthy of acceptance. " God com-
mendeth His own love toward us, in that while we were yet
sinners Christ died for us " ; and again, " If while we were
enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His
Son, much more being reconciled shall we be saved by His
life," thus, according to his teaching we were enemies to God,
and nothing less than the Divine love commended in the death
of Christ could have overcome our enmity. God, however,
did not shrink from that sacrificial demonstration of His love
for rebellious creatures ; and our reconciliation having thereby
been effected, there is now no need of further sacrifice, and
He who died for His enemies will not fail as their living
Saviour to joyfully complete the work initiated by the shedding
of His blood.
The chapter is singularly obscure, and it is difficult to reduce
its dogmatic teaching to clear form. Its general purport, how
ever, is that God is the enemy of all men outside the circle of the
elect, and that He loves only those whom Heintends to reconcile.
His election and his love are eternal, so that, according to our
earthly chronology, He loves the elect before and throughout
the period of their alienation ; but this everlasting love is be
stowed upon them as foreseen and foreordained friends, and
is therefore in no genuine sense a love of His enemies. Thus
in spite of all ambiguities and discordant statements the
doctrine of the chapter as a whole amounts to this— that God
loves none but the elect, and that these are loved only in
consequence of their predestined union with Christ.
G G

450 APPENDIX

Note 19, p. 183.
In employing Dale's word " necessary " I wish to disclaim
the presumption of denying that God could have devised some
scheme of redemption which might have achieved His purpose
in a way to us inconceivable. What God could or could not
do is known only to Himself. We cannot err in saying that
even He cannot work contradictions, or make evil good,
or good evil ; but when the problem concerns the adaptation
of means to the fulfilment of a particular purpose we may well
believe that His resources are not limited to such measures as
we can imagine. Keeping well within the range of human
thought, and dealing with the scheme of redemption which
historically includes the death of Christ, my contention as
against Dale is that its commendation of God's love was not
a mere by-product, which might have been dispensed with,
but that it was a primary and absolutely necessary factor in
the problem of man's redemption and constitutes its reconciling
power. Redemption would not have been effected by the death
of Christ apart from this significance, for no man ever is or can
be redeemed from the state of alienation until his ignorance
of God's true nature has been dissipated, and God's love for
him while yet a sinner has convinced and converted his soul.
Whether God could have convinced an incredulous world of
the same truth by any other expedient than the death of His
Son no man can say, and no one need inquire. Christ has
died, and His death does prove the love of God to all who
appreciate its meaning, as Dale himself allows, and my con
tention is that in this proof lies the redemptive power of the
cross and that this proof was absolutely necessary to the
accomplishment of the purpose for which Christ came into
the world.
Several expressions used by Dale call for passing comment
lest silence should seem to be an admission of their justice, e.g.,
he attributes to his opponents the opinion " that Christ died
for no other purpose than to reveal His love to mankind."
This may be a correct account of what some have said, but
advocates of the Moral theory usually speak of Christ as
revealing the love of the Father, and not merely His own love
as the Son of God and brother of mankind. But leaving the
question of what others have said, my sole concern is to
point out that Dale's statement does not correctly represent
any theory which regards the revelation of love as an instru
mental means for the achievement of God's designs in the

APPENDIX 45 1

salvation of sinners and the extermination of sin, or, in other
words, the subjugation of all things to Himself as the Creator
and Moral Ruler of the universe.
In the same passage Dale states and easily disposes of a
theory " that the death of our Lord was one of the necessary
incidents of His Incarnation," and that " He demonstrated
the greatness of His love for us by not shrinking from the
sufferings and death which were the inevitable consequences
of His work." This fairly represents what has been taught by
some, but certainly not by all who deny that Christ suffered
penally. That Christ intended to die, and to die for us men, is
vividly apparent in the gospels, but this intention is consonant
with any theory of His death which regards it as an essential
and integral part of His appointed and accepted work. No
theory which fails to interpret and glory in the cross in the
light of Christ's words " for this hour came I into the world "
can have any claim to be accepted as Scriptural. But those
who hold that the sufferings of Christ were penal have no
monopoly in the words which describe them as voluntarily
endured in fulfilment of an eternal purpose and as a ransom
for many.

Note 20, p. 187,.
It would be tedious to demonstrate this by a lengthened
criticism, but it may not be superfluous to note the fact that
in the R.V. propitiation stands in the New Testament as the
equivalent of atonement in the Old — the two companies of
revisers failed to agree upon a common use of either term, but,
notwithstanding their etymological difference, the two words
must be understood by English readers in the same sense.

Note 21, p. 192.
Recent authorities regard the piel form *|Q3 in Gen. vi. 14
as a denominative from ^£3 rendered " pitch." (So A.V. and
R.V. and also in LXX.) The question whether ")Q3 agrees
with the Arabic "to cover" or the Syriac "to wipe off "or "to
clean " is unimportant. The latter alternative might perhaps
seem to favour my general contention, but it is too conjectural
C G 2

452 APPENDIX
for use in an argument against those who emphasise the idea
of covering as important. If adopted it would only affect the
form of the argument and not the conclusion reached.

Note 22, p. 204.
Of these cases, three have been referred to in another con
nection (p. 198). The fourth is that of adultery with a bond
woman. For the same offence committed with a free woman
atonement was explicitly forbidden.

Note 23, p. 212.
The extraordinary reverence for the Jewish sacrificial system
evinced by many Christians in the present day was certainly
not shared by the early Church, and evidently grew up with
the increase of sacerdotalism and the love of ritual. Patristic
literature abounds, in references to the Jewish sacrifices as
tolerated rather than enjoined. Gregory Nazianzen has a
fine passage in which he accounts for their sufferance by God
as due to His unwillingness to violently exercise His authority.
He declares that God wished to benefit not the unwilling but
the willing, and therefore permitted sacrifice, as " a tutor or
physician partly cuts off and partly condones ancestral habits,
conceding a little of what is pleasurable ; just as physicians
treat their patients, their medicine being cunningly mixed
with something nice that it may be taken." According to
this method, Gregory states that when God " cut off the idol
He spared the sacrifices " as a concession (Fifth theological
Oration, xx). Note 24, p. 212.
Philo, who based his philosophical system on the most
minute exposition of the LXX, states that in his own day a
great festival was held annually in the Island of Pharos, to
which people came from many lands to show their reverence
for the place in which the light of this translation first shone
forth as a beacon to all nations, and to thank God for this
great gift which, though ancient, was always fresh and new
(Cf. De Vita Mosis, Lib. ii.).

APPENDIX 453

Note 25, p. 218.
It will be observed that this passage in the LXX forms no
exception to the statement made on p. 196, viz., that the pro
phets never use the technical term kipper when denouncing
sacrifice. The Hebrew word is |"P?rT

Note 26, p. 228.
As a conspicuous example of a not uncommon feature of
contemporary references to the significance of Christ's death,
I may refer to Dr. James Denney's treatment of the subject in
a work published since most of these lectures were written.
I cannot recall a single instance in which he has affirmed in
plain words that Christ bore the penalty of sin, but he uses
expressions to which no other meaning can be attached.
Commenting on the words " Who His own self bare our sins,"
he writes : " They are meant to suggest that Christ took on
Himself the consequences of our sins — that He made our
responsibilities, as sin has fixed them, His own .... He
means that all the responsibilities in which sin has involved
us — responsibilities which are summed up in that death which
is the wages of sin — have been taken by Christ upon Himself
.... The apostle does not raise the question whether it is
possible for one to assume the responsibilities of others in this
way ; he assumes that the responsibilities of sinful men have
been taken on Himself by the sinless Lamb of God (" The
Death of Christ," 98). This language is exceedingly vague,
but we are enabled to determine its meaning by a sentence in
the same paragraph. Referring to Num. xiv. 34, as an
illustration of what sin-bearing means, Dr. Denney states that
" the meaning clearly is, bear the consequences of them, take
to yourselves the punishment which they involve." Again
in reference to Exod. xxviii. 43, he writes, " to die and to bear
iniquity are the same thing, death being the penalty here
denounced against impiety," 98. The language used to
indicate the nature of Christ's sufferings is thus less explicit
than that used of Old Testament illustrations, but I trust I
have not misconstrued its intended meaning. The words,
" He made our responsibilities, as sin fixed them, His own," if
taken alone might be explained in a variety of ways, and would
not necessarily clash with the views of Anselm, Abelard,
Luther, Calvin, Grotius, Edwards, Crawford, Dale, or even
McLeod Campbell ; but read in the light of their immediate

454 APPENDIX
context, and in accordance with the criticisms and arguments
of the book, they appear to mean that Christ bore the punish
ment of our sins.
I am reluctantly constrained to refer to Mr. J. Scott Lidgett
in this connection because he has done much to spiritualise
the idea of atonement, and has made one of the most valuable
contributions to the study of this subject which has appeared
in recent years. He has justly contended that the Fatherhood
of God is a deeper and more distinctively Christian conception
than that of Sovereignty, and that no theory can be true which
fails to harmonise the work of Christ with His filial relation
ship to God as His Father and our Father. But while found
ing his argument on this truth he has strangely retained some
of those expressions and thoughts which belong to the penal
Theory. Thus he writes, Our Lord " ' tasted ' to the full of
those penal conditions which reveal the wrath of God against
sin." " To whom was the satisfaction made ? .... it was
made to the Father by the Son." (" The Spiritual Principle of
the Atonement, p. 282.) In the context there is much to prove
that the author has no harsh conception of wrath, and that he
esteems the perfection of sonship as the supreme satisfaction
of the Father. But unhappily he has attempted to conjoin
with this the totally foreign and incompatible idea of " satisfac
tion," as consisting in penal sufferings which satisfy God's
wrath. This use of the word in its old ecclesiastical, and
specifically in its old Roman Catholic sense sadly mars the
clearness of the author's teaching. I must frankly own that I
do not know what Mr. Lidgett wishes his readers to under
stand by "tasting penal conditions," in order to make satisfac
tion to God. The word satisfaction is a good word when used
as it stands in Isa. liii. n. "He shall see of the travail of his
soul and be satisfied," and in this exquisite sense it well
denotes the delight not only of the Son in saving men at a
great cost to Himself, but the satisfaction of the Father in the
issue of His great Sacrifice in sending the Son into the world
as His own agent and representative to seek and save the
lost. But the satisfaction of love is the fulfilment of its own
gracious impulse, and is the moral contradictory of satisfaction
received by the Father from the Son for the mollification of
wrath. Note 27, p. 235.
If it were credible that Paul wrote ?x<B/iej/ it might simplify
my case, but nothing less than overwhelming evidence would

APPENDIX 455
convince me that he wrote anything so vapid. All the reassur
ing language which follows demands a declaration that
believers, being justified, have actually entered into the state of
relationship defined in the words " peace with God," and have
entered into it through faith in Christ as the issue of the pro
cess called reconciliation. An exhortation given to reconciled
and justified men, who have therefore ceased to be enemies,
to " have peace with God " would be worse than pointless.

Note 28, p. 240.
Gesenius and others give "to buy back" as the primary
meaning of ~>i$%, but this is not sustained by more recent
authorities. Driver gives it " to resume a claim or right
which has lapsed," and the synonym fTlS* t0 loose, or set
T X
free by cutting, resembles this more nearly. The resumption
of a right, or the assertion of a claim, as also the cutting
of a tie or bond, may involve a payment, but may quite as
naturally commit the redeemer to an exercise of force as
when God redeemed Israel with a stretched-out arm. The
Greek terms need no elucidation, but it may freely be ad
mitted that ayopdfa is in the strictest sense a commercial
term and means to buy as in a market. It has a precise
equivalent in the popular expression "to market" or "market
ing." Aurpdoi is less glaringly mercantile, but no question
need be raised, \vrpov, a ransom, or ransom price, and
\vrptaa-is or airo\vTpa(ns, redemption, need no discussion.
How far, if at all they involve a commercial view of Atonement
must be determined by LXX and New Testament usage and
cannot be settled by a Lexicon.
Note 29, p. 249.
The passages considered in the text are decisive, and the
passages which speak of redemption must be interpreted in
harmony therewith. Luke xxi. 28 seems to stand related to
xxiv. 21, which betrays a misunderstanding of Christ's reas
suring words. Rom. iii. 24 refers to " the redemption which
is in Christ Jesus " as the instrument of God's saving grace ;
viii. 23 looks forward to a future redemption of the body.
I. Cor. i. 30 simply states that Christ is made unto us "re
demption." In Eph. i. 7 redemption through Christ's blood

456 APPENDIX
is identified with " the forgiveness of our trespasses according
to the riches " of God's grace, and verse 14 points to some
future fulfilment of God's promises ; iv. 30 also contemplates
the future consummation of salvation. Col. i. 14 identifies our
redemption with the forgiveness of our sins, for which thanks
are due to the Father " who delivered us out of the kingdom of
darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His
love," thus making God Himself the redeemer in and through
Christ. Heb. ix. 12, 14 speaks of the redemption of transgres
sions in terms of great beauty, which, like numerous texts
briefly dealt with in this Lecture, will receive fuller notice here
after. Luke ii. 38 speaks of " the redemption of Jerusalem,"
but in an undefined form as a blessing for which Anna and
many others were eagerly waiting at the time of Christ's
advent. There is nothing in any of these references to throw
doubt upon the conclusion drawn from the more important
passages examined in the text. On the contrary, they either
throw no light on the word redemption, or they confirm the
interpretation I have offered.

Note 30, p. 296.
It is possible that the theory of our Lord's death suggested
in the text may be criticised as somewhat akin to sundry
Gnostic speculations of the second century. The resemblance,
if any can be traced, is most superficial. The Valentinians,
who held that the words "why hast thou forsaken me?"
indicated a personal departure, had such absurd mythological
notions of Christ's person, that the very elements for the
weaving of such a theory as I have stated were lacking.
Subject to innumerable variations the idea common to many
Gnostics was that there were two Christs, one of whom flew
away from the other, either during Pilate's judgment or on
the cross, and however this idea was modified, the thought
of separation between Father and Son never appears, nor
could it be worked into any Gnostic system by any effort of
ingenuity. The Apocryphal " Gospel according to Peter " gives us the
best insight into the method and object of Gnostic exegesis.
By giving the etymological force of the Hebrew term for God
in Psal. xxii. 1 ('H Svva/ils p.ov, fj Sivap,i.s, instead of follow
ing the LXX which reads 'O Qeos 'o &cos p.ov), they con
trived to get rid of the idea that the supreme God had
departed, and opened the way for their imaginary Saviour to

APPENDIX 457
be clothed with Scriptural authority. The " Gospel of Peter"
reads: "And the Lord cried out saying, 'My Power, My
Power, why hast thou forsaken Me.' And when He had said
it, He was taken up." Thus a heaven-born Christ ascended
from the cross leaving his more earthly counterpart behind.
This higher Christ was but one of many ^Eons, and only
distantly related to the Father, while the lower Christ was,
according to most of these dreamers, little better than an
optical illusion. By some of them the lower person left upon
the cross was a being capable of suffering death, but no one
suggested that the forsaking was itself the commencement of
the personal dissolution called Death. More generally, real
suffering of any kind on the cross was denied, and by some
the lower Christ was resolved into the feminine " Wisdom "
who was bereft on the cross of " Light." Thus the forsaking
was according to these dreamers the severance of conjugal
relations between two mythical beings, rather than the separ
ation of Father and Son. The Gnostic hypothesis was not
only foreign to the theory given in the text, but seems to have
been devised expressly to obviate the necessity of admitting
that it was the supreme God who dwelt iii Jesus and departed
from Him in the article of Death.

Note 31, p. 299.
The rendering " in all points " rather needlessly provokes a
cavil, because suggesting a minuteness and particularity not
necessarily denoted by Kara jraVra.

Note 32, p. 305.
It will be observed that no reference has been made to the
common idea that men are convinced of their sin and made
sensible of its heinousness by seeing that the punishment of
sin was laid on Christ. I shall not discuss the accuracy of this
account of what takes place in some minds. It may be that
some are affected in the way affirmed, and certainly a good
many would give this as a true account of their experience.
All that I have needed or attempted to show is this, that
however we interpret the nature of Christ's sufferings in our
doctrinal statements, it is the contemplation of them as a fact
which impresses, and enlightens the conscience, and thus
convinces men of their own share in the sin of the world.

458 APPENDIX

Note 33, p. 324.
If engaged in a discussion of Divine goodness with a
disciple of Mill I should criticise his use of the word omnipotent.
He gives no definition of it, but his argument implies that it
means the power to do anything and everything which can be
thought of as desirable, thus leaving no room for the word
" impossible." No theologian predicates omnipotence in this
sense, and Mill may not have been consciously guilty of such
an extravagance, but in no other sense can his dilemma stand.
I have not laid, any stress on his fallacious use of the term ;
because no criticism of that kind would get rid of the facts
which were before his mind. However we define the word
omnipotence, and even if we expunge it from our vocabulary,
no explanation can satisfy our hearts which fails to show that
goodness and power are not truly antithetic, because moral
ends can be reached only by moral means, and these cannot
be measured by any dynamical standard. The cross solves
the difficulty for those who believe in its testimony, but apart
from the cross I know of no reply to the accusation that God
has not done all that so powerful a Being might have done for
our world. Note 34, p. 340.
Before leaving this discussion of the Death of Christ as
necessary to the demonstration of the love of God, and
therefore indispensable for man's redemption, it may be
well to guard our conclusion against two possible miscon
ceptions. 1. By affirming its necessity for man's redemption, we do
not mean to say, nor have we any need to 'suggest, that if the
Death of Christ had not taken place none could have believed
in the love of God. Such a statement would be absurd, and
manifestly false, because we know that some men did thus
believe, in the ages before Christ was born. But for many
excellent reasons this admission does not militate against our
conclusion. (1) Those who thus believed were very few.
(2) Their thought of God's love was large, pure and elevated,
but it was limited in range, and failed to comprehend the length
and breadth and depth and height of that love as now revealed
by Christ. (3) They clung to their conviction with extreme
difficulty and were distressfully conscious of their need of some

APPENDIX 459
clearer light from heaven. (4) Their faith was always associ
ated with a hope that God would do some new thing in
the world for its deliverance from evil. (5) Their faith
was neither strong enough, nor sufficiently definite, to
impel or sustain a ministry of reconciliation to mankind.
Heroic prophets believed that such a ministry would eventually
be entrused to Israel, but the very form in which this convic
tion was expressed was a confession of present powerlessness
to convince the world. (6) This prospective faith was not only
inadequate for the inspiration of such a work as began at
Pentecost and has been carried on ever since, but if nothing
had been done for its fulfilment it must have become weaker in
every generation, until it gradually died down to a fainting
hope and finally expired. It was the coming of Christ, and
the work He did, which verified the faith of former ages,
gathered together the little remnant of weary believers, kindled
enthusiasm, animated courage and provided weapons for the
subjugation of all the strongholds of sin and unbelief, for the
casting down of proud reasonings and vain imaginations and
every high thing which exalted itself against the knowledge
of God.
2. Our conclusion that the Death of Christ was necessary
to man's redemption because it is the supreme power of God to
elicit faith and love, is not incompatible with the fact that vast
numbers of people have never heard the story of the cross, nor
with the still darker fact that many hear and believe not. It
is the mightiest instrument known to us for the extirpation of
those thoughts and feelings which are the root of sin in human
nature. But it is not a power which works a magical trans
formation in those who become acquainted with it, nor is it a
power which operates apart from human ministration. It is a
power which from its very nature respects our freedom and
leaves us in possession of ability to resist its spiritual appeal,
and it incites, but does not compel, believers to propagate their
faith. It is the highest conceivable form of Divine self-expres
sion, and it is effectual for salvation to every one that believeth,
but to no one else.
In treating of the consequences of sin, and the stupendous
difficulty of so revealing love as to actually communicate it to
the hearts of men, enough has been said to explain the
inevitable slowness of God's conquest, but we can now con
firm our position by considering Paul's account of the manner
in which failures of the gospel occur even when preached
in all its pristine simplicity and with apostolic courage,
fervour and faith. He gives his explanation of these lament-

460 APPENDIX
able failures in various forms, but most explicitly, perhaps, in
2 Cor. iv. i — 6. In strict harmony with all his teaching he
declares that the supreme business of the Christian ministry
is the " manifestation of truth" to men's minds. The minister
of the word cannot confer authority upon his message, but
must himself be commended to the consciences of his hearers
by the self-revealing energy of the message itself. Fortified
by this principle he had renounced all the ordinary arts of
rhetoric and sophistry, and all crafty attempts to render his
message acceptable to impaired tastes and prejudiced minds.
He teaches us to regard the Truth as light radiating from the
face of Christ who is the image of God, and asserts that when
His light actually shines into men's hearts it transforms them
into the same image from glory to glory, so that they become
reflectors of the Divine character. But, while presenting this
as the object of the gospel, he recognises that it is not always
successful and boldly propounds his solution of the mystery.
He will not allow us to think that when it fails, it fails because
the good news though true to some is not true to all, or
because naturally incapable of doing its appropriate work, but
attributes non-success to some intercepting " veil " which pre
vents the light from entering the hearer's heart ; just as on
the most brilliant summer day a blind drawn down before a
window excludes the sunlight from a chamber. " But if our
gospel is veiled it is veiled by things which are perishing, by
which the God of this world hath blinded the minds of the
unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ,
who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them." The
figure of a veil is taken from the act of Moses, who covered his
face that men might not see the fading of its brightness. God
does not seek to hide, but to reveal Himself, and the apostle
labours to display what he has seen. But Jewish prejudice was
a veil which shut out the light of Christ from many in Paul's
day ; and the powers of evil in this world have never lacked
veils of many kinds and patterns to do the same obstructive
work among men of other nationalities, creeds and predilec
tions. Such is Paul's explanation of the failure of the gospel
revelation to transform some of its hearers. It is an explanation
which has been illustrated and confirmed in every land to which
the gospel has been carried. It is an explanation which agrees
with, and indeed assumes the truth that the light of the know
ledge of the glory of God, which beams from the face of Jesus
Christ, is the power of God unto salvation, because it reveals
the Truth of God, and that Truth when cordially received
creates within us a clean heart and renews a right spirit, and

APPENDIX 461
fills the recipient soul with peace and joy in believing, thus
saving sinners and exterminating sin.
It will be observed that I have translated 2. Cor. iv. 3, 4 in an
unusual way by taking iv with the datives to denote the instru
ment used to blind men's hearts. This is certainly allowable,
and it appears to be the only rendering which makes sense of
Paul's words. However translated the central thought clearly
is that a veil is spread over men's hearts to obstruct the light
of the gospel, and that this is the sole secret of its frequent
failure to convert.

Note 35, p. 347.
Every reader of classic literature is familiar with the
terrible pictures of vice which scarcely bear translation into
English, but more significant than these repulsive descriptions
is the fact that a man so noble and personally free from
sensuality as Socrates could calmly discuss the philosophy of
fascination with an Athenian harlot, and could contemplate the
love of beautiful youths from the standpoint of expediency and
taste. I do not discuss the historical accuracy of Paul's
account of the decline of religion as antecedent to moral
decay. The elucidation of his doctrine does not call for any
criticism of his views, but it may be observed that so far as
historical data are before us the law of degeneration is clearly
exhibited. Ascent has been achieved, but only as the issue of
tremendous struggles against the tendency to grow weary of
pure theism, and to substitute visible forms and ritualistic
observances for the spiritual worship of the Invisible God.
The steps of descent from a primitive monotheism are plainly
marked in the records of the most ancient Oriental peoples,
but not so plainly as in the history of Christianity itself. The
despicable superstitions and open idolatry of Southern Italy
have no resemblance to the religion of Jesus Christ.

Note 36, p. 364.
The following is an exhaustive list of other passages in which
logizomai occurs outside Rom. iv. where it is used eleven
times : Mark xv. 28 ; Luke xxii. 37 ; Johnxi. 50 ; Acts xix. 27 ;
Rom. ii. 3, 26, vi. 11, ix. 8 ; I. Cor. xiii. 5, 11 ; II. Cor. 111. 5,
v. 19, x. 2, 7, II. xi. 5, xii. 6 ; Gal. iii. 6 ; Phil. iv. 8 ; II. Tim. iv.
16 ; Heb. xi. 19 ; Jam. ii. 23 ; I. Pet. v. 12.

462 APPENDIX

Note 37, p. 364.
It is incredible that any doctrine of imputed righteousness
can be Biblical which is not hinted at in any passage where
the verb " to impute " occurs, but it may be advisable to refer to
other passages which are relied upon as " proof texts." The
one which is appealed to most plausibly is I. Cor. i. 30, " Christ
Jesus who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteous
ness and sanctification and redemption." But on what principle
can we single out one of these great words and connect it with
imputation, without treating all alike ? If this text proves that
Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, it proves also that
wisdom, sanctification, and redemption are imputed, for
each of these terms stands in the same relation as " righteous
ness" to the verb "was made." No one imagines that
God either thinks us wise, or treats us as if we were
wise. Were He to do so we should certainly still lack
wisdom, but with the additional disadvantage that our
education would be arrested. A few unhealthy teachers have
preached a doctrine of " imputed sanctification," but it has
necessarily led to gross corruption of life. If God were to
treat us as being already holy, as Christ is holy, discipline
would cease, and conscience would become a false disturber of
the peace. Imputed redemption would be less immoral than
imputed sanctification, and if any man would be content to
have redemption imputed to him, without being actually
redeemed, no one need begrudge him such a theological
mirage. It would at least give him an effective illustration of
the value of a legal imputation, which expresses no real
thought in God's mind, and represents no fact of human
experience. If God had imputed redemption to the Israelites
in Egypt they would still have had to labour in the brickfields,
and the irony of their blessing would have been complete if
Pharaoh had been graciously pleased to declare that he also
regarded them as free !
II. Cor. v. 21 contains no hint of imputation. It speaks of
the righteousness of God, not that of Christ, and this phrase
must be interpreted in accordance with the whole teaching of
Paul under review in Romans. Phil. iii. 9 contains no hint of
imputation, and must also be interpreted in the light of Paul's
general teaching. The special thought is that Paul abjures
any wish to stand before God as a mere keeper of the law even
if he could keep it. The righteousness he aspires to attain is

APPENDIX 463
that which he speaks of in Rom. iv. as more real and intrin
sically more acceptable to God than any external conformity
to law. Note 38, p. 364.
The interpretation of Scriptural language cannot honestly
or rationally be determined by our judgment of its intrinsic
value or truth. We are bound to read words in their plain
and natural sense, however repulsive and incredible their
purport may appear, and however strongly we may desire
to discover in them some other meaning. But while interpre
tations must be freed from all subjective bias, our personal
acceptance of a religious doctrine will always be more or less
influenced by feeling, and by our ability to cordially " reckon "
it true, equitable and godlike. Papists may be content to
impute truth to ecclesiastical dogmas which are repugnant to
their reason and conscience, but this sort of " assent " is not
faith, and tends to destroy intellectual sincerity, and thus con
duces to the decay of man's moral nature. For this reason I
shall add a few considerations which may help to reconcile
some minds to a surrender of the traditional dogma of
imputed righteousness.
The idea of vicarious obedience as affirmed by the dogma
in question will not bear examination. Vicarious suffering
commands our profoundest veneration, for it is the essence of
true sacrifice, and sacrifice is the sublimest expression of love.
Even vicarious punishment may be so conceived as to lose
much of its inherent offensiveness. Indeed, many hearts are so
impressed by the benignant purpose, and glorious result of
Christ's sufferings on our behalf, that even a perverted theory of
their nature fails to offend, because lost in the radiance of
grace. When men see that the essential truth of the gospel
is that God is glad at any cost to Himself to obviate the
necessity of punishing mankind, they magnify the manifested
mercy, and in myriads of cases are too much occupied with
praise on this account to criticise the supposed expedient by
which the exactions of law are taken out of the way. They do
not ask what the nail was which fastened these adverse
ordinances to the cross ; it is enough for them to believe that
God< has now no legal restraint upon His grace. But when
we pass from vicarious suffering on our behalf to contem
plate the idea of vicarious obedience, we enter a new region
of thought and feeling. God can without loss to His own
honour or to His kingdom lay upon His Son a burden of pain ;

464 APPENDIX
as the agent of His own redeeming love, the source of
a new river of life on earth, through which His own
fulness may flow into all receptive souls. But God cannot.
accept the obedience of one instead of the obedience
of another, much less of millions. Punishment may be
remitted under conditions which in God's judgment promise
a new spirit of obedience, but obedience can never be
dispensed. It must also be insisted that Christ's active obedience could
not contain any surplus for transfer to our credit. It is written
and not disputed that Jesus was born " under the law." He
voluntarily subjected Himself to this responsibility, but this
does not alter the fact that He truly did take upon Himself
the form of a servant, and the obligation once incurred could
not be renounced. As a Son of Man it became His duty to
do and suffer the whole will of God, however strange and hard.
Nothing could be imposed upon Him which exceeded this
obligation ; no deduction from it could be allowed on any
pretext. His glory is that He was obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross, where He was numbered with the
transgressors. The papistical doctrine of supererogation has
no ethical or legal validity. No man's obedience can be
spared from the world. No man can do more than
obey. This principle demands our assent, but let us hypothetically
set it aside. Having done so, it is still clear that whatever
advantage may accrue to us from our Lord's voluntary
subjection to law, His perfect obedience could not alter God's
actual view of our individual characters, or make it wise or
right or even merciful for Him to think of or treat us as being
other than we are. . Whatever Christ was or did we are what
we are, and God is not blind, nor can any cloak intercept His
vision of the facts. He knows our works and our thoughts.
All things are naked and open before Him with whom we have
to do, and if we allow any ecclesiastical figment to prevent
our hearing with solemn awe what the Spirit is saying to the
Churches, Christ will hereafter search us with those eyes of
fire which dismayed His servant John, and will fight against
us with the sword of His mouth.
This thought leads me to urge that if it were possible for
God to really reckon us to be righteous as Christ was, such a
delusion would be the most awful calamity which could happen.
The Christian's chief hope and comfort is that God can see all
his faults, and will deal with them as a wise and faithful Father
should, but that while seeing all defects He can also see the

APPENDIX 465
true self, the heart which yearns for holiness as sick men long
for health, the mind which serves the will of God, and hates
the evil that is done through passion or infirmity. The
instinct of such a soul is not to exult in wearing a cloak, or in
being reckoned righteous, but to look up as Peter after his
great sin looked up to Christ, and say with him, " Lord, Thou
knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee." The
faith which can look up and trust God as greater than the self-
condemnatory heart is the only indissoluble link which binds
imperfect sons to the perfect Father ; and any dogma which
tends -to shift a man's ground of confidence from faith in
God's knowledge to reliance upon His thinking of us more
favourably than the facts would justify must militate against
simplicity of character, and in the long run must be inimical to
faith. In the more modern form of the dogma that Christ's right
eousness is imputed to the believer, it is confessed that God
cannot really think that we are other than we are ; but, it
is held, that without thinking erroneously, He treats us as if
we were, or as if He thought we were, as righteous as Christ.
This modified Calvinism avoids an imputation of false judg
ment to God, but ascribes to Him what is even worse — viz.,
a determination to divorce action from judgment, and to
maintain a permanent discord between deeds and thoughts.
We have already seen that logizomai means always a real
judgment of the mind ; but apart from verbal criticism I would
point out how disastrous it would be if God were really to treat
us in the way alleged. It may be soothing to think of God
opening the door of heaven to us on any pretext, but we know
that for all the practical purposes of discipline we need to be
treated according to the existing realities of character. This
does not mean that we crave to be always punished or
chastised as we deserve, but that we are ready to submit to the
Father's scourging if needful, and crave just such mercy and
such grace to help as each hour of need may require. All
Christians wish God to bear their daily confession of partial
failure, of shortcomings in duty, of unhallowed feelings, or
speech, and their poor and faltering efforts to imitate the
righteousness of Christ. Their cry is not for a screen but for
searching. " Search me O God ! " is the language of all who
hunger and thirst after righteousness. They long for daily
supplies of impulse, guidance, strength and courage to
resume the race set before them. They want in all sincerity
to be treated not as if they had already attained, or were
already perfect, but as aspirants to become what He promises
H H

466 APPENDIX
to make His children, and while with many stumblings, and
occasional faintness, they press on towards the goal unto the
prize of their high calling in Christ Jesus, their boldest hope is
that one day they will see Christ as He is, and at last be per
fectly conformed to the likeness of God's dear Son.

Note 39, p. 367.
In quoting Luther's estimate of faith with approval I do not
commit myself to all his ideas of Justification. His views, as
finally polished by Melancthon and adopted in the Augsburg
Confession, contain a deplorable misrepresentation of Paul's
teaching. In Article IV. it is stated that men are justified
" when they believe that they are received into favour and
their sins forgiven, for Christ's sake who by His death hath
satisfied for our sins. This faith doth God impute for righteous
ness before Him." (Rom. iii. and iv.) This language is
open to criticism on several points, but is chiefly objectionable
because it confounds an assurance of being received into
favour and forgiven, with faith in Jesus Christ, or in " Him
who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead." This misstate
ment of the faith which is reckoned for righteousness is a
fatal flaw in Lutheran theology, and has had a calamitous
effect. This defect, and its curious origin in a misread
chapter of Luther's personal experience, would well repay a
special study, but I must content myself here with a brief
indication of dissent. The non-Biblical words "pro nostris
peccatis satisfecit" are indefensible, and the same may be said
of "propter Christum," but their discussion is not necessary.
None of these mistakes can deprive Luther of the credit of
adhering to the plain meaning of Paul's assertion that faith is
reckoned for righteousness, nor can they weaken the force of
his argument that faith renders glory to God, and is not an
excuse for vainglory in man. In spite of all incongruities of
thought and expression, Luther had a thorough appreciation
of the fact that faith is " the truth of the heart " and he gave
advice which Christians in this day would be wise to adopt.
" Let Christians learn with all diligence to understand this
article of Christian righteousness. And to this end let them
read Paul, and let them read him again .... yea, let them com
pare Paul wholly and fully with himself : then shall they find it
to be true, that Christian righteousness consisted in these
two things : viz., in faith which giveth glory to God, and in
God's imputation .... i.e., that God will not lay to our charge

APPENDIX 467

the remnant of sin : that He will not punish it, nor condemn
us for it : but will cover it and freely forgive it."
Note 40, p. 369.
This appears to be the force of the words rrjv ix Oeov
SiKaioo-iJvriv em tjj w'umi, i.e., the righteousness which comes from
God upon faith. The expression can best be interpreted in
the light of Rom. iv. and indicates the judgment which God
graciously pronounces on faith in Christ as that with which He
is well pleased. Note 41, p. 381.
It should be superfluous, but may not be inexpedient to
glance at the words, " Even God who quickeneth the dead,
and calleth the things that are not as though they were."
These words simply mean that Abraham was accorded a name
which signified the father of many, at a time when in his own
eyes, and in the eyes of his fellow men, he was not the father
of even one child, and was unlikely by reason of age to become
a parent. God who quickeneth the dead was able to give him
sons, and in His sight the future posterity of the old man were
as visible and real as if then alive on earth. In the contem
plation of His own purposes God gave the name of Father,
and therein announced His gift of posterity. From God it was
a gift, but to the man it came as a promise which God was
able to perform ; and Abraham, in the face of apparent
impossibilities, believed in that promise, and took to himself
the name which to unbelief would have been a sardonic
mockery of his disappointment. That name as given was a
true one, and Abraham believed it to be true, and so glorified the
power and faithfulness of God to do all that he had said. Clearly
there is no paltering with truth in the patriarch's anticipative
name, which vividly depicted the future as it lay open to
the sight of God, and has been verified in the history of Israel.

Note 42, p. 397.
The force of irpos tov &eov not obscurely suggests that the
new relation is Godwards, corresponding to the fact that there
never was hostility in God towards man. Man is the
reconciled party. It will be noted that I do not accept the

APPENDIX

reading of the Revised Text. The MSS. do not compel us to
read exmp-ev, and the drift of Paul's reasoning imperatively
demands a definite statement of fact, and forbids a feeble and
pointless exhortation.

Note 43, p. 401.
In this marvellously condensed philosophy of history, Paul
uses some expressions, which standing alone, would teach the
baldest universalism, e.g. "through one act of righteousness
the free gift came unto all men to justification of life."
Calvin justly pointed out that the preposition (els) must be
understood to denote tendency and design, and not as
declaring an actual accomplishment of the design. This
corresponds to the words of the previous verse, " they which
receive the abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness,
reign in life through the one, even Jesus Christ." This is good
exegesis, and good Pauline doctrine. But Calvin unfortunately
omitted to expound in the same way the parallel statement
" through one trespass the judgment came unto (els) all men
to condemnation." The force of the preposition must be the
same in both these antithetical clauses, and thus we again get
good Pauline doctrine, viz., that the natural tendency of trans
gression to issue in universal condemnation is limited or con
ditioned by the principle that sin is not imputed where there
is no law, and consequently there is no condemnation where
(as in the case of infants) the conditions of moral agency do
not exist. There is no escape from the dilemma, that if the
imputation of sin is universal, without any exceptions covered
by Paul's doctrine of responsibility, then the imputation of
righteousness is universal, and all men are justified, and worst
of all, justified in myriads of cases without the receptive act of
faith. Here then we find a strong confirmation of all that has been
previously advanced in exposition of Paul's doctrine. He
knows nothing of condemnation for transgressions of unknown
law, and nothing of condemnation for an ct or for the wounds
inflicted by an act which was done (and forgiven we may hope)
thousands of years before we came as helpless and unthinking
infants into a sin-infested world. The righteousness of God
in providing a way of excape from evil for those who have
entered upon their existence under such gloomy and hopeless
conditions is thus made manifest. Where sin abounded
there grace much more abounded ; and this grace provides

APPENDIX 469
a gift which all men everywhere are invited to receive. There
is only one condition, viz., receptive faith, but this condition is
one which even the grace of God cannot conceivably dispense
with, or vary in the least degree.

Note 44, p. 416.
The great principle on which Paul relied is copiously
expressed in other parts of Scripture. It is the keynote to the
practical teaching of the great " Psalm of the Law." " Where
withal shall a young man cleanse his way ? By taking heed
thereto according to Thy word .... Thy word have I hid in
mine heart that I might not sin against Thee " (Psm. cxix. 9-1 1).
It finds a most appropriate place in the psalm which reads like
a proem to the sacred songs which follow. " Blessed is the
man " who withdraws himself from influences which naturally
vitiate the mind, and submits himself to the cleansing and
fructifying power of Divine thoughts, which, like irrigating
canals, have been brought from the great river of God to
fertilise our wilderness. " His delight is in the law of the
Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night. And he
shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth
forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and
whatsoever he doeth shall prosper" (Psm. i.). This principle
also corresponds to the prophetic assurance of thoughts to be
revealed from the Divine mind in words which, falling like
rain from heaven upon the thirsty, sin-cursed earth, should
work a moral transformation comparable to a bringing forth of
fir trees for thorns, and myrtle trees instead of the brier, and
would induce such joy that mountains and valleys, forests and
fields should break forth into song (Isa. Iv.),
If psalmists and prophets could believe in the transform
ing energy of God's thoughts, when these were so imperfectly
revealed, how much more surely may it be relied upon when
the word of the Lord includes the whole wealth of truth
summed up in Christ !
. Coming back to the New Testament, we find this principle
underlying all its teachings and prominently set forth in many
places. Paul's writings teem with it in various forms, e.g.,he
writes to the Thessalonians, " Ye received from us the word of
the message .... as it is in truth, the word of God which
also worketh in you which believe" (I. Thess., ii. 13). To
the Colossians he writes, " Let the word of God dwell in you
richly" (iii. 16). He exhorts Timothy to abide in the things he

470 APPENDIX

has learned, because able to make him " wise unto salvation "
and profitable " for instruction which is in righteousness : that
the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto
every good work" (II. Tim., iii. 14-17). James enunciates the
same thought, saying, " Of His own will He brought us
forth by the word of truth," and adds, " receive with meekness
the implanted word which is able to save your souls " (i. 18, 21).
Peter is very bold, and declares that through the knowledge
of Christ God has given us " all things that pertain to life and
godliness," and has granted unto us His exceeding great and
precious promises that through these we " may become
partakers of the Divine nature" (II. Pet., i. 2-4).
But the most beautiful and impressive exhibition of this
principle is to be found in the " wholesome words " of Jesus
Christ Himself. It is solemnly proclaimed in the Sermon on
the Mount. It is the central idea of the parable of the sower
and of the great discourse on Bread. It is implied in the word
" Disciple." It is illustrated in Christ's method of training the
twelve, and finally our Lord elevated it into the supreme
regulative principle of Christian life by making it the theme of
His last discourse on the night of His betrayal. Leaving the
house in which the last supper had been eaten — itself a
perpetual symbol of the truth that we live by replenishing
our thoughts of Christ — the little party passed by the fires in
which husbandmen were burning the lopped branches of their
vines. Drawing a new image from this vineyard labour, Christ
told His friends that they were clean through thewordwhich He
had spoken unto them ; and then implored them to abide in
Him, to keep His words in their minds, to let them have free
course through their nature as sap from the root of a vine
flows by a law of growth into its branches. He confessed that
if unsupplied with vital force through the assimilation of those
words which are " spirit and life," His disciples could bring
forth no fruit : whereas being mentally nourished from
Himself, the fruits of righteousness and service would become
their natural product. It is no exaggeration to say that this
closing lesson of Christ contains the most distinctive and vital
element of Christian ethics. It is this, and this alone, which
validates to our reason, and binds upon our consciences those
extraordinary demands which, when divorced from the revela
tion of Divine Truth in Christ, are a mockery of human nature
and more cruel than a command to be warmed and fed, if
given to one ready to perish of cold and hunger, and without
providing fire and food,

APPENDIX 471

Note 45, p. 430.
It will be seen that this argument is strictly parallel to that
which was drawn from Scripture in disproof of Anselm's plea
that what is right in men may not be right in God. The two
discussions are independent, but each adds considerably to the
force of the other. Cf. p. 69.

THE END

K. CLAY AND SONS, LTD., BREAD ST. HILL, E.C, AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK,

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