by W. G. T. Shedd
IT is a very important question whether, in the reconciliation of man with God, the change of feeling and relationship that confessedly occurs between the parties, is solely upon the side of man, or whether that method which proposes to bring about peace and harmony between the sinner and his Judge, contains a provision that refers immediately to the being and ethical nature of God. Is the Divine Essence absolutely passive, and entirely unaffected by the propitiatory death of Christ, and is all the movement and affection that occurs confined to human nature; or is there in the Godhead itself, by virtue of its essential nature and quality, something that requires a judicial satisfaction for sin, and which, when satisfied, produces the specific sense of satisfaction, or, to use a biblical term, of "propitiation," in the Deity himself? In short, is the reconciliation of man with God merely and wholly subjective, an occurrence in the human soul but no real event and fact in the Divine Mind? Is the sinner merely reconciled to God, God remaining precisely the same towards him that He is irrespective of the work of Christ, and antecedent to his appropriation of that work; or does God first, by and through a judicial infliction of his own providing, and his own enduring in the person of the Son,—Himself the judge, Himself the priest, Himself the sacrifice,—conciliate his own holy justice towards the guilty, and thereby lay the foundation for the consciousness of reconciliation in the penitent?*
The phraseology of scripture teaches, beyond a doubt, that the transaction of reconciliation is not confined exclusively to human nature. We are told, for example, by the apostle John, that "Jesus Christ the righteous is the propitiation for our sins." Propitiation is the strong word employed to denote the real nature of Christ's work by that mild and loving apostle whose intuition of Christianity some biblical critics would array against that of Paul, and in whose writings they profess to find only the doctrine of spiritual life and sanctification, and not that of expiation and justification. But this term certainly implies two parties,—an offending and an offended one. "A mediator," argues Paul, in his Epistle to the Galatians, "is not a mediator of one;" that is, in order to mediation, there must be two persons between whom to mediate. In like manner, propitiation implies that one being has wakened the just displeasure of another being, and that the latter needs to be placated by some valid and satisfactory method. Propitiation, therefore,—an idea that weaves the warp and weaves the woof of the entire scriptures,—if it has any solid signification, looks Godward.* God, and not man, is the party primarily offended by sin. It is his nature which requires the propitiatory sacrifice, and he himself provides it. "Since, in his crucifixion," says John Howe, "Christ was a sacrifice, that is, was placatory and reconciling, and since reconciliations are always mutual, of both the contending parties to one another, it must have the proper influence of a sacrifice immediately upon both, and as well mollify men's hearts towards God, as procure that he should express favorable inclinations towards them."
Another very pointed scripture text, from which we cannot deduce anything but the doctrine of a real satisfaction of the Divine Nature by the work of Christ, is the declaration of Paul, that "if while we were yet [impenitent] sinners Christ died for us, much more, then, being now justified by his blood we shall be saved from wrath through him."* Whose wrath is this, from which, the apostle teaches, we are saved by the propitiatory death of Christ? Is it the wrath of man, and not the wrath of God? Most certainly it is not from that selfish and wicked passion in the human heart, which we most commonly associate with the term anger, that we are delivered by the blood of redemption. But may it not be our own moral indignation merely, and not that of our Creator and Judge, to which the apostle refers? May not the appeasing effect of Christ's blood of expiation be confined to the human conscience solely, and there be no actual pacification of any attribute or feeling in the Deity? But this is only a part of the truth. We do, indeed, need to be saved from the terrible wrath and remorse of our own consciences, as they bite back (remordere) upon us after the commission of sin,—and of this we shall speak in its place,—but we need primarily to be saved from the judicial displeasure of that immaculate SPIRIT, in whose character and ethical feeling towards sin the human conscience itself has its eternal ground and authority, and of which it is the most sensitive index and measure.
The natural teaching, then, of these and similar passages of scripture is, that the atoning sacrifice of the God-man renders, "propitious" towards the transgressor, that particular side of the Divine Nature, and that one specific emotion of the living God, which otherwise and without it is displacent and unappeased. This atonement is a satisfaction for the ethical nature of God as well as man. This propitiation sustains an immediate relation to an attribute and quality in the Divine Essence, and exerts a specific influence upon it. By it God's holy justice and moral anger against sin are conciliated to guilty man, that man's remorseful conscience may, as a consequence of this pacification in the Divine Essence, experience the peace that passeth all understanding. It will therefore be the purpose of this Essay to evince that the piacular work of the incarnate Deity sustains relations to both the nature of God and the nature of man; and more particularly to show that the pacification of the human conscience itself is possible only in case there has been an antecedent propitiation and satisfaction of that side of the Divine Nature which is the deep and eternal ground of conscience.
Before commencing the discussion, we would in the very outset guard against a misconception, which almost uniformly arises in a certain class of minds, and which is not only incompatible with any just understanding of the doctrine of atonement, but prevents even a dispassionate and candid attention to it. When it is asserted that "God requires to be propitiated," and that "his wrath needs to be averted by a judicial infliction upon the sinner's substitute," the image immediately arises before such minds of an enraged and ugly demon, whose wrath is wrong, and who must be pacified by some other being than himself. Such minds labor under a twofold error, of which they ought to be disabused. Their first fatal misconception is, that the Divine anger is selfish and vindictive, instead of just and vindicative of law. And their second consists in their assumption that the placation issues from some other source than the offended One himself. Assuming, as they do, that anger in God is illegitimate, the attribution of this emotion to him, of course undeifies him. And assuming, still further, that wrath against the sinner's sin cannot exist at the same instant with compassion towards the sinner's soul, they find no pity in the Deity as thus defined. His sole emotion must be that of wrath, because, as they imagine, He can have but one feeling at a time, and therefore the creature who has incurred God's displeasure must look elsewhere than to God for the source of hope and peace.
Now this whole view overlooks the complex nature, the infinite plenitude, of the Godhead. For at the very instant when the immaculate holiness of God is burning with intensity, and reacting by an organic recoil against sin,* the infinite pity of God is yearning with a fathomless desire to save the transgressor from the effects of this very displeasure. The emotion of anger against sin is constitutional to the Deity, and is irrepressible at the sight of sin. But this is entirely compatible with the existence and exercise of another and opposite feeling, at the very same moment, in reference, not indeed to the sin, but to the soul of the sinner. Mercy and truth meet together, righteousness and peace kiss each other, in the Divine Essence; and it is a mutilated and meagre conception of the Godhead that can grasp but one of these opposites at once. Even within the narrow and imperfect sphere of human life there may be, and were man holier, there often would be, the most holy and unselfish indignation at wrong doing, united with the utmost readiness to suffer and die if need be for the eternal welfare of the wrong doer.
Such being the actual relation of indignation to compassion in the Divine Essence, it is plain that it is God himself that propitiates himself to the transgressor. In the incarnate person of the Son, God voluntarily endures the weight of his own judicial displeasure, in order that the real criminal may be spared. The Divine compassion itself bears the inflictions of the Divine indignation, in the place of the transgressor.* That ethical emotion in the being of God, which from the nature and necessity of the case is incensed against sin, God himself placates by a personal self-sacrifice that inures to the benefit of the creature, The "propitiation" spoken of by the apostle John is, therefore, no oblation ab extra, no device of a third party, or even of man himself, to render God placable towards man. It is wholly ab intra, a self-oblation upon the part of Deity itself, by which to satisfy those immanent and eternal imperatives of the Divine Nature which without it must find their satisfaction in the punishment of the transgressor, or else be outraged. Neither does the purpose to employ this method of salvation, to provide this satisfaction of ethical and judicial claims, originate outside of the Divine Nature. God is inherently inclined to forgive; and there is no proof of this so strong as the fact, that he does not shrink from this amazing self-sacrifice which forgiveness necessitates. The desire to save his transgressing and guilty creature wells up and overflows from the depths of his own compassionate heart, and needs no soliciting or prompting from without. Side by side in the Godhead, then, there dwell the impulse to punish and the desire to pardon; but the desire to pardon is realized in act, by carrying out the impulse to punish, not indeed upon the person of the criminal, but upon that of his substitute. And the substitute is the Punisher Himself! Side by side in the Godhead there reside the emotion of moral wrath and the feeling of pity; but the feeling of pity is manifested, not by denying, but by asserting, the entire legitimacy of the emotion of moral wrath, and "propitiating" its holy intensity by a sufficient oblation. And that oblation is incarnate Deity Itself!
Viewed from this central point, and under this focal light, how impossible it is not to recognize both love and wrath in the Godhead,* and how impossible it is to conceive of a schism in the Divine Being, and separate his justice from his mercy. It is a real "propitiation" of the Divine anger against sin that is effected, but it is a propitiation that is effected by the Deity himself, out of his own self-sacrificing and principled compassion.
Turning now to the discussion of the theme proposed, the first step requires us to consider the relation which the ethical nature of man sustains to the ethical nature of God. For if both alike are to be satisfied by one and the same atoning work of one and the same Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, it is plain that there must be some common kindredness and sympathy between them. What then is the actual relation that exists between conscience in man and the attribute of justice in God? Do they give differing judgments with respect to the demerit of sin, and do they require different methods of satisfaction for it? Is the human conscience, clamorous for an atonement, while the Divine Nature is wholly indifferent? Or, does the judicial sentiment in the Deity demand the infliction of penalty upon crime, while that of man is opposed to such an infliction? Is there, or is there not, an entire and perfect agreement between the finite faculty and the infinite attribute, upon these points, so that in reference to sin and guilt, what God requires, man's moral nature also insists upon, and what an awakened conscience craves, eternal Justice also demands?
The moral reason, as containing for its substance and inlay the moral law of God, and the conscience as the faculty that testifies with respect to the harmony or the hostility of the will with this law,—this side of human nature is a part of that "image and likeness of God," after which man was originally created. These faculties have to do with what is religious, ethical, eternal; and, notwithstanding the apostasy and corruption of man's heart and will, they still constitute a point of connection and communication between the being of man and the being of God. The moral reason and conscience are the intellectual media whereby, if we may so speak, man and his Maker are put en rapport. When the Eternal Judge addresses the creature upon the subject of religion, upon the duties which he owes, and the liabilities under which he stands, he speaks first of all, not to his imagination, or his taste, or his hostile heart, or his perverse will, but to his moral sense and sentiment. When God begins the work of conviction, and in order to this throws in an influence from his own holy and immaculate Essence, He first shoots a pang through this part of man's complex being. This, like Darien, is the isthmus of volcanic fire that both divides and joins the oceans.
Here, then, if anywhere in the being of man, we are to look for views of the Deity that correspond to his real nature and character. And here, in particular, we are to find the true index of his judicial emotions towards sin, and the clue to what his ethical nature and feeling demands in order to its remission. We must not ask the sinful heart, or the taste, or the mere understanding, what God thinks of sin, and what is his feeling respecting it. Upon these points we must take counsel of the conscience. For the God of the selfish heart is the deity of sentimentalism; the God of the imagination and the taste is the beautiful Grecian Apollo; the God of the understanding merely is the cold and unemotional abstraction of the deist and the pantheist; but the God of the conscience is the living and holy God of Israel,—the God of punishments and atonements. This ethical part of man's being, then, has a closer affinity than any other part with the Divine Essence, and consequently its phenomena, its pangs and its pacification, have a more intimate connection than those of any other of his powers, with the processes of the Eternal Mind. This is the finite contacting point in man that corresponds with the infinite surface in God. The moral reason and conscience, thus having their counterpart and antithesis in the Deity, must, therefore, be regarded as indexes of him, and particularly of what goes on in his being in relation to human sin and guilt. The calm condemnation of man's ethical nature, and the unselfish organic remorse of his conscience, which are consequent upon his transgression of law, are effluences from that Being whose eyes "devour all iniquity." The righteous indignation into which the judicial part of the human soul is stirred by sin, is the finite but homogeneous expression of that anger against moral evil which burns with an eternal intensity in the purity of the Divine Essence.
Hence it follows that a careful examination of what we find in the workings of this part of the human constitution, instead of deterring, will compel us to transfer in the same species to God, what exists in man in only a finite degree. In other words, the emotion of the human conscience towards sin will be found to be the same in kind with the emotion of God towards sin. The analysis must, indeed, be very careful. We must eliminate from the indignation of the moral sense all elements of selfish passion that have become mixed with it, owing to that corruption of human nature which prevents even as serious a power as conscience from working with a perfectly normal action.* We must clarify remorse until the residuum left is pure spiritual wrath against pure wickedness. We must do our utmost, under the illumination of divine truth and the actuation of the Holy Spirit, to have conscience do its perfect, unmixed work; and then we need not shrink from asserting, that this righteous displacency of the moral sense, against the voluntary wickedness, is precisely the same emotion in specie with the wrath of God.*
It will aid us if at this point we direct attention to the distinction between the human conscience and the human heart; and particularly to the difference between emotion in conscience and emotion in the heart. The feelings and passions of the corrupt human heart we cannot, in any form, attribute to God. Envy, pride, malice, shame, selfish love, and selfish hatred, cannot possibly exist in that pure and blessed Nature. Hence it is that we are so apt to shrink from those portions of scripture which clothe the Deity with indignant and condemnatory feelings, because this class of emotions are those in and by which the depravity of the human heart is most wont to display itself. But the emotion of which we are speaking is not a passion of the human heart. The heart of man loves sin; but we are describing remorse, which is the wrath of the conscience against sin. We are delineating the operations and processes of a very different part of the human constitution from that which is the source and seat of earthly passions and sinful emotions. We have passed beyond the hot and passionate heart of man to the cool and silent judicial centre of his being; and here we find feelings and processes of an altogether different and higher order. Indignation in conscience is a totally different emotion from indignation in the heart. A man's moral displeasure at his own sin is an entirely different mental exercise from his selfish displeasure towards his neighbor. The former is an ethical and impartial emotion, totally independent of the will and affections, and called out involuntarily from the conscience by the mere sheer contact between it and the heart's iniquity. Hence a man never condemns himself for the existence of such a species of displeasure within his breast. He may be angry in this style and sin not.* The sun may go down upon this kind of wrath. And yet it is not a virtue for which he can take credit to himself; for it is no product of his. It is not an emotion of his heart or his will, but is simply an involuntary and irrepressible efflux from his rational nature. He may only give glory to his Creator for it, as the only relic left him, in his total alienation of heart and will from God, of his primitive and constitutional kindredness with the First Perfect and the First Fair.
Again, this judicial emotion, this conscientious wrath of which we are speaking, differs from the selfish and partial emotions of the human heart, in that it is not intrinsically an unhappy feeling. It does not, like the latter, of necessity render the being in whom it exists miserable. Envy, hatred, malice, shame, pride, are each and all of them unhappy exercises in themselves, as well as in their consequences. They cannot exist in any being without mental suffering. But it is not so with the moral displeasure of the moral sense. Whether this just and legitimate emotion be a torment or not, depends altogether upon the state of the heart and will, upon the moral character. It is indeed true that it causes unhappiness in a sinful being, because in this instance the emotions of the heart are in antagonism with the emotion of conscience; because the executive faculty is not in harmony with the judicial faculty. But where there is no personal sin, both the wrath of conscience and the wrath of God are as innocuous as fire upon asbestos. Hence this very same emotion of moral indignation and abhorrence exists in an intense degree in the angels and the seraphim, but is productive of no disquietude in them, because there is nothing evil in their own character upon which it can wreak its force. There is a perfect harmony within them, between the emotions of the heart and the judicial emotion, between the character and the conscience. And, in like manner, this same feeling of ethical displeasure exists in an infinite degree in the being of God, without disturbing, in the least, the ineffable peace and blessedness of that pure nature which is the paradise and elysium of all who are conformed to it. For this judicial sentiment is a legitimate one, and nothing that is legitimate can be intrinsically miserable. And therefore it is that the saints and the seraphim, as they look down from the crystal battlements with holy abhorrence and indignation upon the sorceries and murders and uncleanness of the fallen Babylon, are not distressed by their emotion, but, on the contrary, rejoice with a holy joy at the final triumph of justice in the universe of God, and say, Alleluia, as the smoke of that just torment rises up for ever and ever.* And therefore it is that God himself carries eternally, in his own blessed nature, a righteous indignation against moral evil, that is no source of disquietude to him, because there is no moral evil in him, nor to the angels and saints and seraphim, because there is none in them; but only to those rebellious and wicked spirits into whom it does fall like lightning from the sky.
For if the emotion of moral indignation were intrinsically one of unhappiness, then the existence of evil would be the destruction of the Divine blessedness; because God "cannot look upon evil with allowance," and yet he is constantly looking upon it. But it is not so. On the contrary, the Deity is blessed in his displacency at that which is vile and hateful. For pleasure is the coincidence between a feeling and its correlated object. It implies intrinsic congruity and fitness. It would therefore be unhappiness in any being to hate what is lovely, or to love what is hateful; to be pleased with what is wrong, and displeased with what is right; because the proper coincidence between the emotion and the object would not obtain. But when God, or any being, hates what is hateful, and is angry at that which merits wrath, the true nature and fitness of things is observed, and that inward harmony which is the substance of mental happiness is maintained. Anger and hatred are almost indissolubly connected in our minds with mental wretchedness, because we behold their exercise only in an abnormal and sinful sphere. In an apostate world, as such, there is no proper and fitting coincidence between emotions and their objects. A sinner hates holiness, which he ought to love; and loves sin, which he ought to hate. The anger of his heart is not legitimate, but passionate and selfish. The love of his heart is illicit; and therefore, as it is styled in the scripture, is mere lust or evil concupiscence (ἐπιθυμία). In a sinful world, as such, all the true relations and correlations are reversed. Love and hatred are expended upon exactly the wrong objects. But when these emotions are contemplated within the sphere of the Holy and the Eternal; when they are beheld in God, exercised only upon their appropriate and deserving objects; when the wrath falls only upon the sin and uncleanness of hell, and burns up nothing but filth in its pure celestial flame; the emotion is not merely legitimate, but beautiful with an august beauty, and is no source of pain either to the Divine Mind or to any minds in sympathy with it. It is only upon this principle that we can explain the blessedness of the Deity, in connection with his omniscience and omnipresence. We know that sin and the punishment of sin are ever before him. The smoke of torment is perpetually rolling up in the presence of the Omnipresent. And yet he is supremely blessed. Bat he can be so only because there is a just and proper correlationship between his wrath and the object upon which it falls; only because he condemns that which is intrinsically damnable.* The least disturbance of this coincidence, the slightest love for the hateful, or hatred for the lovely, would indeed render God a wretched being. Bat the perfect harmony of it makes him "God over all," hell as well as heaven, "blessed forever." Were this ethical feeling once to be outraged by the final triumph of iniquity over righteousness; were the smoke of torment to ascend eternally from pure and innocent spirits, and were the revelry of joy to steam up everlastingly from the souls of the vile and the worthless; were the great relations of right and wrong, sin and penalty, happiness and misery, once to be reversed in the universe, and under the government of God, then indeed this quick sense of justice, and this holy indignation at sin, would be a grief and a sorrow to its possessor. And therefore it is, that, in all the Divine administration, and in the entire plan of redemption, the utmost possible pains is taken to justify, and legitimate, and satisfy this judicial sentiment, and to see that its demands are fully met.
There must be this correspondence between the judicial nature of man and the judicial nature of God, or religion is impossible. How can man even know what is meant by justice in the Deity, if there is absolutely nothing of the same species in his own rational constitution, which if realized in his own character as it is in that of God, would make him just as God is just? How can he know what is meant by moral perfection in God, if in his own rational spirit there is absolutely no ideal of moral excellence, which if realized in himself as it is in the Creator, would make him excellent as he is excellent? Without some mental correspondent, to which to appeal and commend, themselves, the teachings of revelation could not be apprehended. A body of knowledge alone is not the whole; there must be an inlet for it, an organ of apprehension. But if there is no such particular part of the human constitution as has been described, and these calm judgments of the moral sense, and this righteous displeasure of the conscience, are to be put upon a level with the workings of the fancy and imagination, or the selfish passions of the human heart, then there is no point of contact and communication between the nature of man and the being of God. There is no part of his own complex being upon which man may fall back, with the certainty of not being mistaken in judgments of ethics and religion. Both anchor and anchoring-ground are gone, and he is afloat upon the boundless, starless ocean of ignorance and scepticism. Even if revelations are made, they cannot enter his mind. There is no contacting surface through which they can approach and take hold of his being. They cannot be seen to be what they really are, the absolute truth of God, because there is no eye with which to see them.
Assuming, then, that there is this correspondence and correlationship between the moral constitution of man and the Divine Nature, we proceed, in the light of the fact, to evince the doctrine, taught in the scripture texts which we have cited, that the atonement of Christ is a real satisfaction both on the part of God and man. The death of incarnate Deity has always been regarded, by those who have believed that the Deity became incarnate in Jesus Christ, as expiatory. As such, it relates immediately to the attribute of justice in the Creator, and to the faculty of conscience in the creature. And the position taken here, is that it sustains the same relation to both. It satisfies that which would be dissatisfied both in God and man if the penalty of sin were merely set aside and abolished by an act of will. It placates an ethical feeling which is manifesting itself in the form of remorse in the conscience of the transgressor, only because it has first existed in the nature of God in the form of a judicial displeasure towards moral evil.
A fundamental attribute of Deity is justice. This comes first into view, and continues in sight to the very last, in all inquiries into the Divine Nature. No attribute can be conceived of that is more ultimate and central than this one. This is proved by the fact that the operation of all the other Divine attributes, love itself not excepted, is conditioned and limited by justice. For whatever else God may be, or may not be, he must be just. It is not optional with him to exercise this attribute, or not to exercise it, as it is in the instance of that class of attributes which are antithetic to it. We can say: "God may be merciful or not, as he pleases;" but we cannot say: "God may be just or not, as he pleases." It cannot be asserted that God is inexorably obligated to show pity; but it can be categorically affirmed that God is inexorably obligated to do justly.* For the characteristic of justice is necessary exaction; while, if we may accommodate a Shaksperean phrase, "the quality of mercy is not strained." Hence the exercise of justice can be demonstrated upon à priori grounds, while that of mercy is known only by a declaration or promise upon the part of God. It is for this reason that man can have no certainty that the Deity is a merciful being, except as he obtains it from a special revelation. When the thoughtful pagan looked up into the pure heavens above him, or into the deep recesses within him, he had no doubt that the Infinite One is just, and a punisher of evil doing, because he must be such. Hence he trembled; and hence he offered a propitiatory sacrifice. But neither from the heavens, nor from anything in his own moral constitution, could he obtain certainty in regard to the attribute of mercy; because there is nothing of a necessary nature in the exercise of this attribute. God might or might not be merciful to him. Man may dare to hope that there is pity in the Deity; but whether there actually is, he cannot know with certainty until the heavens are opened, and a voice issues from the lips of the Supreme himself, saying: "I will show mercy, and this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." The light of nature is sufficient for man's damnation; but it casts not a ray in the direction of his salvation. There is ample evidence from natural religion that the Deity is holy and impartial; but it is only from revealed religion that the human mind obtains its warrant for believing in the Divine clemency. From the position of natural ethics alone, man is merely condemned to retribution; and, as matter of fact, while standing only upon this position, his conscience accuses him, and fills him with fears and forebodings of judgment. Nothing but a promise of forgiveness, from the mouth of God, can remove these fears; but a promise to pardon is not à priori, and necessary, like a threatening to punish.
The absolute and indefeasible nature of justice is seen, again, by considering the nature of law. If we regard the moral law as the efflux of the Divine Nature, and not, as in the Grotian theory, a positive statute which may be relaxed in part, or wholly abrogated, by the law-making power,* we find this same stark necessity existing. The law is obligated to punish the transgressor, as much as the transgressor is obligated to obey the law. Human society, for instance, has claim upon law for penalty, as really as law has claim upon human society for obedience. Law has no option. Justice has but one function. The necessity of penalty is as great as the necessity of obligation. The law itself is under law; that is, it is under the necessity of its own nature; and therefore the only possible way whereby a transgressor can escape the penalty of law, is for a substitute to endure it for him. The language of Milton respecting the transgressor is metaphysically true:
"He, with all his posterity, must die:
Die he, or justice must; unless for him
Some other able, and as willing, pay
The rigid satisfaction, death for death."*
And the mercy of God consists in substituting Himself incarnate for his creature, for purposes of atonement. Analyzed to its ultimate elements, God's pity towards the soul of man is God's satisfying his own eternal attribute of justice for it. It does not consist in outraging his own law, and the guilt-smitten conscience itself, by simply snatching the criminal away from their retributions, in the exercise of an unprincipled and an unbridled almightiness, or in substituting a partial for a complete atonement; but in enduring the full and entire penal infliction by which both are satisfied.
Still another proof of the primary nature of justice is found in the fact of human accountability. The most distinguishing characteristic of man is evidence of the most distinguishing characteristic of God; and thus the correspondence between the Divine and the human meets us again. Man is not a link in the necessary chain of material nature. He is by creation a free creature; capable of continuing holy as he was created, or of turning to sin. Now, over against this freedom and responsibility on the part of man, there stands justice on the part of God. This great divine attribute presupposes the hazardous human endowment of will, and holds the possessor of it accountable for its use or abuse. Without such a characteristic, man could not stand in any sort of relationship to such solemn realities as law and justice. There would be nothing in his constitution that could feel the tremendous swing and blow of penal infliction. For justice smites a transgressor as one who has illegitimately assumed a centre of his own, and who is wickedly standing upon that centre, in hostility to the being and government of God. In a certain sense, though not that which excludes the permissive decree and the preventive power of the Supreme Being, justice supposes the sinner to be sustaining something of the isolated and self-asserting relation to God that the principle of evil in the system of dualism sustains to the principle of good; and when the accountable self-will of a creature attempts to set itself up as an independent and hostile agent in the doing of evil, it then feels the full force of the avenging, vindicating stroke of law, as if it were a single disconnected atom, all alone and by itself, in the middle of creation.
Any just view of sin as guilt, as the product of will, is, consequently, corroborative of the position that the attribute of which we are speaking is an immanent and necessary one in the Divine Nature. We might conceive of the same amount of evil consequences as those which flow from human transgression; but if this latter were not the real work and agency of a responsible creature, Eternal Justice could take no cognizance of it. Unless sin is crime, penalty has no more relation to it than it has to the disease and corruption in the material world about us; and the fall of man could no more be visited by the infliction of judicial suffering, than could that process of decay which is continually going on in the forests, by means of which a more luxuriant vegetation springs up, and a more glorious forest waves in the breeze.
It has been a query among those who have speculated upon the nature of the Deity: What is the base or substrate of His being? The inquiry has too often been so answered as to bring in a subtle pantheism, because there was more reference to the natural than the ethical attributes of the Godhead. Whether the question in such a reference can be answered by the finite mind, we do not pretend to decide here; but with reference to God's moral constitution, with reference to that congeries of ethical attributes which belongs to him as a personal being, it is as certain as anything can be, that the deep substrate and base of them all, is eternal law and impartial justice. This pervades all the rest, keeps them in equilibrium, and constitutes, as it were, the very divinity of the Deity. And this view of the primary nature of justice coincides with the convictions of men in all ages. In all time, justice has been the one particular divine attribute that has pressed most heavily upon the human race. This always comes first into man's mind, when the idea of the Deity overshadows him. He trembles when he remembers that God is just; and he remembers this when he remembers nothing else. Nor let it be objected that this is owing to the fact that man is sinful, and that this quality in the Supreme Being would not be so prominent in the mind of an unfallen creature who has nothing to fear from it. The utterance of the pure burning seraphim is: Holy, Holy, Holy. That which comes first into the minds of the spotless and unfearing worshippers in God's immediate presence,—they whose spirits, in the phrase of Jeremy Taylor, "are becalmed, and made even as the brow of Jesus, and smooth like the heart of God,"—is that particular characteristic in the Divine Being, by virtue of which he has a right to sit on the eternal throne; that specific attribute upon which the moral administration of the universe must be established.
Now, if this be a correct statement of the necessary nature and the capital position of Divine Justice, it is plain that any plan or method that has to do with sin and guilt, must have primary reference to it, and must give plenary satisfaction to it as it exists in God himself. Inasmuch as justice, and not mercy, is the limiting and conditioning attribute, its demands must be acknowledged and met in order that mercy may make even the first advances towards the transgressor. Compassion cannot, by mere arbitrary will and might, stride forward to reach its own private ends, and trample down justice by sheer force; but must come forth, as she does in the bleeding Lamb of God, as the voluntary servant and victim of Law, doing all its behests, and bearing all its burdens, and enduring its sharp, inexorable pains, in the place of (vice, vicarie) the helpless object whom vengeance suffereth not to live. The cup must be put to the lips of him who has volunteered to be the Atoner, and he must drink it to the bottom, for the guilty transgressor whose law-place he has taken. The God-man having, out of his own free will and affection, become the sinner's Substitute, must now receive a sinner's treatment, and be "numbered with the transgressors" (Isa. 53:12). He cannot therefore escape the agony and passion, the hour and the power of darkness. He may give expression to his spontaneous shrinking from the awful self-oblation, as the hour darkens and draws on, in the utterance: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;" but having taken the place of the guilty, it is not possible, and he must sweat the bloody sweat, he must cry: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" that his voice may then ring through the universe and down the ages: "It is finished,—the atonement is made."*
For the Deity cannot, by an arbitrary and unprincipled procedure, release the transgressor's Substitute from the penal suffering, and inflict a wound upon that holy judicial nature, which is vital in every part with the breath of law and the life of justice. By reason of an immanent necessity, he cannot disturb his own eternal sense of righteousness and ethical tranquillity, by doing damage to one whole side of his Godhead.
He has not. In the voluntary, the cordially offered, sacrifice of the incarnate Son, the judicial nature of God, which by a constitutional necessity requires the punishment of sin, finds its righteous requirement fully met. Plenary punishment is inflicted upon One who is infinite, and therefore competent; upon One who is finite, and therefore passible; upon One who is innocent, and therefore can suffer for others; upon One who is voluntary, and therefore uncompelled. By this theanthropic oblation, the ethical feeling, the organic emotion of displeasure in the Deity is, in the scripture phrase, made "propitious" towards the guilty, because it has been placated by it. Thus God is immutably just while he justifies (Rom. 3:26), and his mercy is, in the last analysis, one with his truth and his law.
We turn, now, to the other half of the proposition derived from the scripture texts that have been cited, and proceed to show that the atonement of Christ effects a real satisfaction upon the part of man. We have seen that the propitiatory death of the God-man meets the immanent ethical necessities of the Divine Nature. We have now the easier task of evincing that it meets the moral wants of human nature.
In discussing the fact of a divinely-established correspondence between the judicial nature of man and that of God, we have already observed that the attribute of justice naturally selects this judicial part of man as the inlet of approach to him. Eternal law has, in all ages, poured itself down through the human conscience, like a fountain through the channel it has worn for itself, and in this instance like hot lava down a mountain gorge. Hence by watching its workings within this particular faculty, we are enabled to determine what man's judicial nature requires, and also incidentally to throw back some more light upon the relations of the atonement to the Divine Nature. It is indeed true that Divine Justice manifests itself in other modes than this. There are revelations of it in the written word, and in the course of providence and human history. But we are endeavoring to establish the position that the atonement has an internal necessity grounded in the very moral being of man. It is necessary, therefore, to look at the principle of law in its vital and felt manifestation within the soul of the criminal himself. By the analysis of the contents of a remorseful conscience, especially if it has been made unusually living and poignant by the truth and Spirit of God, we may discover much of the real quality of Eternal Justice. As this august attribute acts and reacts within the breast of man upon his violation of law, we may obtain some clear and conscious knowledge of its nature and operations; and also of what the human conscience itself demands, and with what it is satisfied.
The commission of sin is either attended or succeeded by the sensation of guilt,—one of the most distinct and unique of all the sensations that emerge within the horizon of self-consciousness. Provided conscience does its unmixed work, the transgressor is conscious, not merely of unhappiness, which is a very low form of feeling, but of criminality, which is a very high form. Nay, the more profound and thorough the operation of the moral faculty becomes, the more does the sense of mere wretchedness retreat into the background, and the sense of ill-desert come forth into the foreground of consciousness. It is possible for this latter element to drive out, for a time, the particular feeling of misery, and to absorb the mind in the sense of horror and amazement at the past transgression. The guilty, in the final day, are represented as calling upon the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them, as inviting new forms of suffering, in the vain hope that the awful consciousness of crime may be drowned thereby.
Now, seizing and holding the experience of the transgressor at this point, let us examine it more closely. Notice that this consciousness of guilt, pure and simple, is wholly involuntary. It comes in upon the criminal, not only without his will, but in spite of it. He would keep it out, if he could. He would drive it out, if he could. His experience at this stage, then, is the result of no voluntary effort upon his part, but of the simple reaction of law, the most dispassionate and unselfish of all realities, against its violator. In the conscience, that part of the human constitution which we have seen to be the proper seat and organ for such an operation, the commandment is making itself felt again, not as at first in the form of command, but of condemnation. The free agent has responsibly disobeyed the holy, just, and good statute, and is now feeling the tremendous reaction of it in his own moral being. This remorse, or damnatory emotion, therefore, is the work of God's law, and not of man's will. There is, consequently, very little of the selfish and the earthly, but much of the unearthly and the eternal, in the transgressor's experience held at this point. He can take no merit to himself, because it is of such an intensely ethical and spiritual character, since the entire process, so far as he is concerned, is involuntary and organic. It is provided for in his judicial constitution, and as an operation within himself it is to be regarded, not as the working of his corrupt heart, but as the infliction of Divine retribution and justice, in and through the judicial faculty. Man can take no merit to himself because he possesses a power that condemns evil, and distresses therefor. For this is the workmanship of the Creator, and it exists in hell as well as heaven. The workings of conscience are as much beyond the control of the will, are as truly organic, as those of the sympathetic nerve, and therefore are worthy of neither praise nor blame. Given conscience and sin, within one and the same soul, and remorse must follow as a matter of necessity. Hence remorse is never made the subject of a command. Man is commanded to melt down in godly sorrow, but never to be filled with remorse; for this is provided for in the moral constitution given by Him who makes it the fiery chariot by which he himself rides into man's being, in majesty, to judgment.
Hence this sense of ill-desert, though its sensorium is the human conscience, must be traced back for its first cause, to a yet deeper ground, and a yet higher origin. For if it were a fact, that remorse had nothing but a human source, though that source were the highest and most venerable of the human faculties, and the transgressor should know it, he could overcome and suppress it. Nothing that has a merely finite origin can be a permanent source of misery; and if the victim of remorse could but be certain that the just and holy God has had nothing to do with the origin of the distress within him, he could ultimately expel it from his breast. If he could be assured that the terrible emotion which follows the commission of evil, though welling up from the lowest springs of his own nature, yet has no connection with the nether fountains of the Divine Essence, he could put an end to his torment. For no man is afraid of himself alone, and irrespective of his Maker and Judge. That which renders a portion of our common and finite humanity terrible to us, is the fact, that it is grounded in and supported by that which is more than human. In the instance before us, the highest part of the human constitution supports itself by striking its deep roots into the holiness and justice of the Godhead; and therefore it is that conscience makes cowards of us all, and its remorse is a feeling that is invincible by the strongest finite will, and requires, in order to its extinction, the blood of atonement.
We are, therefore, compelled back into the being and character of God, for the ultimate origin of this sense of guilt, and this "fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation." And why should we not be? If Justice is living and sensitive anywhere, it must be so in its eternal seat and home. If law is jealous for its own authority and maintenance anywhere, it must be in that Being to whom all eyes in the universe are turned with the inquiry: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" What, therefore, conscience affirms, in the transgressor's case, God affirms, and is the first to affirm. What, therefore, conscience feels in respect to the sinner's transgression, God feels, and is the first to feel. What, therefore, conscience requires in order that it may cease to punish the guilty spirit, God requires and is the first to require. In fine, all that is requisite in order to the satisfaction and pacification of conscience towards the sinful soul in which it dwells, is also requisite in order to the satisfaction and "propitiation" of God the Just; and it is requisite in the former case only because it is first requisite in the latter. The subjective in man is shaped by the objective in God, and not the objective in God by the subjective in man. The consciousness of the conscience is the reflex of the consciousness of God.
But what, now, does conscience require, in order that it may become pacified with respect to past transgression? We answer, simply and solely an atonement for that past transgression; simply and solely that just infliction which is due to guilt. That is a powerful, because profoundly truthful, passage in Coleridge's play of "Remorse," in which the guilty and guilt-smitten Ordonio is stabbed by Alhadra, the wife of the murdered Isidore. As the steel drinks his own heart's blood, he utters the one single word "Atonement!" His self-accusing spirit, which is wrung with its remorseful recollections, and which the warm and hearty forgiveness of his injured brother has not been able to soothe in the least, actually feels its first gush of relief only as the avenging knife enters, and crime meets penalty.* And how often, in the annals of guilt, is this principle illustrated! The criminal has wandered up and down the earth, vainly seeking repose of conscience, but finds none until he surrenders himself to the penalty of law. Those are the only hopeful executions, in which the guilty goes to his death justifying the judicial sentence that condemns him, and, as a completing act of the solemn mental process, appropriating that yet more august and transcendent expiation which has been made for man by a higher Being than man. A guilty conscience, when it has come to a clear consciousness, wants its guilt expiated by the infliction of punishment. It feels that strange unearthly thirst of which Christ speaks, and for which he asserts that his blood of atonement is "drink indeed." It cannot be made peaceful except through the medium of a judicial infliction; that is to say, of a particular species of suffering that will expiate its guilt. The mere offer of kindness, or good-humor, to remit the sin without any regard to that eternal law of retribution which is now distressing the soul by its righteous claim, does not meet the ethical wants. The moral sense, when in normal action, feels the necessity that crime be punished. Hence the human conscience is a faculty that is unappeased, and gnaws like a blind worm, until it hears of the Lamb, the Atonement, of God, that taketh away the guilt of the world. Hence, however much the selfish heart may desire to escape at the expense of right and justice, the impartial conscience can do no such thing. Before this judicial faculty can be pacified, crime must incur penalty, transgression must receive an exact recompense of reward. When this is done, there is entire pacification; there is great peace, such as death, and Satan the accuser, and the day of judgment, and the bar of justice, and the final doom, cannot disturb with a single ripple.
For the correlate to guilt is punishment; and nothing but the correlate itself can perform the function of a correlate. A liquid, for example, is the correlative to thirst, and nothing that is not liquid, however nutritious, and necessary to human life in other relations, it may be, can be a substitute for it. There may be the "fat kidneys of wheat," in superabundance, but if there be not also the "brook in the way," the human body must die of thirst. In like manner, a judicial infliction, or suffering for purposes of justice, is the only means by which culpability can be extinguished. Sanctification, or holiness, in this reference, is powerless, because there is nothing penal, nothing correlated to guilt, in it. The Tridentine method of justification by sanctification, is not an adaptation of means to ends. So far as the guilt of an act,—in other words, its obligation to punishment,—is concerned, if the transgressor, or his accepted substitute,* has endured the infliction that is set over against it, the law is satisfied, and the obligation to punishment is discharged. And so far as guilt, or obligation to punishment is concerned, until the affixed penalty has been endured, by himself or his accepted substitute, he is a guilty man, do what else he may. Even if he should be renewed and sanctified by the Spirit of God, this sanctification has in it nothing expiatory, or correlative to guilt, and therefore could not remove his remorse. Food is good and necessary, but it cannot slake thirst. Personal holiness is excellent and indispensable, but it cannot perform the function of atonement. Hence sanctification is wrought by spiritual influences, but justification by expiating blood. The former is the work of the third Person in the Trinity; the latter is that of the second. Hence, when the convicted man is distressed because of what the Psalmist denominates the "iniquity of sin," its intrinsic guilty quality, in distinction from its miserable consequences, he craves expiation sometimes with a hunger like that of famine. And hence his desperate endeavor to atone for the past, until he discovers that it is impossible. Then he cries with David: "Thou desirest not sacrifice"—such atonement as I can render is inadequate—"else would I give it."* Taking him at this point in his experience, his desire is for justification. He wants, first of all, to be pardoned; and, be it observed, to be pardoned upon those just and eternal principles that will not give way in the great judicial emergencies of this life and the life to come. Then he will commence the good fight of faith. Then he will run in the way of obedience with an exulting heart, because he is no longer under condemnation. "Whom he justifies, them he glorifies."
Such, it is conceived, is the general doctrine of atonement, to be deduced from the sharp and pointed texts of scripture cited in the outset of this discussion. The Christian atonement possesses both an objective and a subjective validity; it is a satisfaction for the ethical nature of both God and man.
Having thus contemplated the inward and metaphysical nature of that atoning work of incarnate Deity, which is the most stupendous fact in the history of the world, and one upon which all its religious hopes and welfare hang, we naturally turn, in conclusion, to the more external and practical aspects of the great theme. And the application of the doctrine will be found to be all the more acceptable to the Christian heart, and profitable for Christian edification, if the principles and theory from which it flows are profound and thorough. The cup of cold water is all the more grateful to the thirsty soul, if it has been drawn up from the deep wells; and it is certain that divine truth gains, rather than loses, in popular and practical efficiency, upon both the mind and heart, if it be sought for in its purest and most central sources. That view of the work of Christ which represents it as meeting all the ethical necessities of both the divine and the human natures, is well fitted to inspire belief and trust in it, and to draw out the heart towards its Blessed Author.
1. One of the first and obvious inferences, then, from the subject as it has been unfolded, is, that an atonement for sin is no arbitrary requirement on the part of God. If the positions taken in this discussion are correct, the doctrine of expiation contains a metaphysique, and is defensible at the bar of philosophic reason.
One great obstacle to the reception of the evangelical system lies in the fact, that very many are of opinion that the scripture method of forgiving sin is needlessly embarrassed by a sacrificial expiation. "Why should not God," they ask, "forgive the creature of his footstool in the same manner that an earthly father does his child? Why does he not, at once, and without any of this apparatus of atonement, bid the erring one go his way, with the assurance that the past is forgotten? Is not this expiation, even though made by the Deity himself, after all, a hinderance rather than an encouragement to an approach to the eternal throne? Is it not, at least, something that is not strictly necessary, and might have been dispensed with?" This lurking or open doubt, with regard to the rationality and intrinsic necessity of an atonement for sin, cuts the root of all evangelical faith in a large class of men.
Indeed, it may be a question whether the preacher in Christian lands has not a more difficult task to perform for a certain class of minds, in reference to the doctrine of Christ crucified, than the missionary in pagan lands has; and whether Christian theology itself would not have an easier labor than it now has, to vindicate the ways of God to man, in the respect of which we are speaking, if the Old-Ethnic, or what is far better, the Old-Jewish ideas respecting guilt and retribution were more current than they are in a certain class in nominal Christendom. Taking a portion of men in the modern civilized world as a sample, it would seem as if the unregenerate Christian world does not possess such a spontaneous and irrepressible conviction that guilt must be punished, as did the old unsophisticated Pagan world.* The system of bloody sacrifices, an emphatic acknowledgment of this great truth, was almost universal among them; and the doctrine that mere sorrow for transgression is a sufficient ground for its forgiveness, had little force. The Grecian Nemesis, or personification of vindicative justice, was a divinity to whom even Jove himself was subject. The ancient religious institutions and ceremonials, fanciful and irrational as they were in most of their elements, yet distinctly recognized, through their sacrificial cultus, the amenability of man to law, and his culpability. Add to this, the workings of natural conscience, and we have, even in the midst of polytheism, quite at strong influence at work to keep the pagan mind healthy and sound upon the relations of guilt to justice. Men could not Well deny the need of sin-expiation before whose eyes the blood of the piacular victim was constantly smoking, in accordance with a custom that had come down from their ancestors, and which fell in so accordantly with the workings of a remorseful conscience.
But a portion of the modern world have made use of Christianity itself to undermine the very foundations of Christianity. The Christian religion, by furnishing that one great sacrifice and real atonement, to which all other sacrifices look and point, has of course abolished the system of external sacrifices, and now that class of minds who live under its outward and civilizing influences without appropriating its inward and spiritual blessings, reject the legal and judicial elements which it contains, and deny the necessity of satisfying justice in the plan of redemption. There is nothing in the religious rites and customs under which they live to elicit the sense of guilt; and hence, from an inadequate knowledge of their own consciences and a defective apprehension of Christianity, they strenuously combat that fundamental truth, "without the shedding of blood there is no remission," upon which Christianity itself is founded, and in reference to which alone it has any worth or preciousness for a guilt-smitten soul.
The same tendency to underestimate the fact of human criminality, and the value of the piacular provision for it in the gospel, is seen also in the individual. How difficult it is to bring the person, for whose spiritual interests we are anxious, to see himself in the light of law and condemnation! How we ourselves shrink from the clear, solemn assertion of his culpability, and turn aside to enlarge upon the unworthiness or the unhappiness of his sin! When we make the attempt to charge home guilt upon him, how lacking we are in that tender solemnity, and earnest truthfulness of tone, which make the impression! And, even if we have succeeded in wakening his conscience to a somewhat normal action in this respect, how swiftly does he elude the terrible but righteous feeling, which alone can prepare him for the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus!
When we pass up into the Christian experience, we discover the same fact in a different form and degree. How difficult does the believer find it to obtain such a clear and transparent conception of his own guiltiness, that the atoning work of his Redeemer becomes all luminous before his eyes, and he knows instantaneously that he needs it, and that it is all he needs! Usually, this crystal clearness of vision is reserved for certain critical moments in his religious history, when he must have it or die. Usually it is the hour of affliction, or sickness, or death, that affords this rare and unutterably tranquillizing view of the guilty self and the dying Lord. "We have the blood of Christ," said the dying Schleiermacher, as, in his last moments, he began to count up the grounds of his confidence on the brink of the invisible world. Here was a mind uncommonly contemplative and profound; that had made the spiritual world its home, as it were, for many long years of theological study and reflection; that, in its tone and temper, seemed to be prepared to pass over into the supernatural realm without any misgivings or apprehensions; that had mused long and speculated subtly upon the nature of moral evil; that had sounded the depths of reason and revelation with no short plummet-line,—here was a man who, now that death had actually come, and the responsible human will must now encounter Holy Justice face to face, found that nothing but the blood, the atonement, of Jesus Christ could calm the perturbations of his planet-like spirit. The errors and inadequate statements of his theological system, which cluster mostly about this very doctrine of expiation, are tacitly renounced in the implied confession of guiltiness and need of atonement, contained these few simple words: "We have the BLOOD of Christ."
It is related that bishop Butler, in his last days drawing nearer to that dread tribunal where the highest and the lowest must alike stand in judgment, trembled in spirit, and turned this way and that for tranquillity of conscience. One of his clergy, among other texts, quoted to him the words: "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." A flush of peace and joy passed, like the bland west wind, through his fevered conscience, as he made answer: "I have read those words a thousand times, but I never felt their meaning as now." And who does not remember that the final hours of the remarkably earnest, but too legal, life of the great English Moralist were lighted up with a peace that he had never been able to attain in the days of his health, by the evangelism of a humble curate?
Such facts and phenomena as these, evince that it is difficult for man to know sin as guilt, and thoroughly to apprehend Christ as a Priest and a Sacrifice. But one of the best correctives of this tendency to underestimate both guilt and expiation, is found in the clear perception that the two are necessarily related to each other, and that consequently the death of the Redeemer has nothing arbitrary in it. When one is convinced that Christ "must needs have suffered," he is relieved from the doubts respecting the meaning and efficacy of the atonement, and surrenders his conscience directly to its pacifying influence and power. He that doubteth is damned, in this respect also. The least shaking of belief that this great gospel provision is absolutely necessary, if sinners are to be saved; the faintest querying whether it may not, in the nature of things, have been a superfluity; so far as it tends at all, tends to dull the edge of man's contrition, and destroy the keenness of his sense of the Divine pity.
It has often been remarked, that the Passion of the Redeemer performs two functions. It not merely removes the sense of guilt, but it also elicits it. The experience of the Moravian missionaries is frequently cited to prove that a contemplation of the sufferings and death of Christ sometimes accomplishes what the naked exhibition of the law fails to accomplish, in bringing men to a sense of their sinfulness. The stern commandment had been applied to the hardened conscience of the savage, and iron met iron. The pity of a dying, atoning High Priest was shown, and the rock gushed out water. And such, undoubtedly, is often the case in the history of conversions. But shall we not find in this instance, also, that the force and energy of the impression made, results from a perception, more or less clear, that this death of the Substitute was inexorably necessary, in order to the criminal's release? The operations of the human mind are wonderfully swift, and difficult to follow or trace. Though the Esquimaux passed through no long process of reasoning, he felt in his conscience the unavoidableness of that mysterious Passion of that mysterious Person, in case his own wicked soul was to be spared the just inflictions of the future. By a very rapid but perfectly legitimate conclusion, he inferred the magnitude of his guilt from the greatness and necessity of the expiation. For suppose the lurking query, to which we have alluded, had sprung up in his mind just at this moment, and instead of the felt necessity of an atoning sacrifice, the faint querying had arisen whether his sin were not venial without the satisfaction of justice, would he have instantaneously melted down in contrition? So long as men are possessed with the feeling that the New Testament method of salvation is an abitrary one, containing elements and provisions that might have been different, or that are superfluous, they will receive little or no moral impression from it. But when they see plainly, that in all its parts and particles it refers directly to what is ethical in both themselves and the Eternal Judge, and is necessitated by the best portion of their own constitution, and by the perfect nature of the Godhead, they will then draw a very quick and accurate inference with respect to the intrinsic nature of that transgression which has introduced such a dire and stark necessity. When a man realizes that the great and eternal God cannot pardon his individual sins except through a passion that wrings great drops of blood from every pore of incarnate Deity, he realizes what is involved in the transgression of moral law.
2. A second obvious inference from the doctrine, that the sacrifice of Christ is a satisfaction for both the Divine and the human nature, is, that such an atonement is thorough and complete. It leaves nothing unsatisfied, or dissatisfied, either in God's holy nature or in man's moral sense. The work is ample and reliable.
This is a feature of the utmost value and importance in a scheme of Redemption. For no method will be put to a more fiery trial, ultimately, than the gospel method of salvation. It undergoes some severe tests here in time. The dying-bed draped with the recollection of past sins and transgressions, the pangs of remorse shooting through the conscience, and the fears for the future undulating through the whole being,—all this solemn experience before the soul shoots the gulf between time and eternity, calls for a most "sovereign remedy." And we may be certain that the disclosures and revelations that are to be made in the other world, and particularly upon the day of judgment, will subject the atoning work of the Redeemer to tests and trials such as no other work, and especially no "dead work" of a moralist, can endure for an instant. The energy of justice, and the energy of conscience, and the power of memory, and the searchings of God the Holy Ghost, will at that bar reach their height and combination; and any provision that shall legitimately countervail that energy, and enable the human soul to stand tranquil under such revelations, and beneath such claims, will be infinite and omnipotent indeed. But the believer need never fear lest the work of the Eternal Word, who was made flesh, the co-equal Son of the Eternal Father, prove inadequate under even such crucial tests. He needs only fear lest his feeble, wavering faith grasp it too insecurely. If he does but set his feet upon it, he will find it the Rock of Ages. All judicial claims are cancelled, because the oblation to justice is an infinite one. "There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."*
For we have seen that the very mercy of God, in the last analysis, consists in the entire satisfaction of God's justice by God himself, for the helpless criminal. What method of Redemption can be conceived of, more perfectly sure and trustworthy than this? "What compassion," says Anselm, "can equal the words of God the Father addressed to the sinner condemned to eternal punishment, and having no means of redeeming himself: 'Take my only-begotten Son, and make him an offering for thyself;' or the words of the Son: 'Take me and ransom thy soul?' For this is what both say, when they invite and draw us to faith in the gospel. And can anything be more just than for God to remit all debt, when in this way he receives a satisfaction greater than all the debt, provided only it be offered with the right feeling?"* "The pardon of sin," says an old English divine, "is not merely an act of mercy, but also an act of justice in God." By this he means that mercy and justice are concurrent in the gospel method of Redemption,—mercy satisfies justice, and justice acknowledges the satisfaction. "What abundant cause of comfort," he adds, "may this be to all believers, that God's justice as well as his mercy shall acquit them! that that attribute of God, at the apprehension of which they are wont to tremble, should interpose on their behalf, and plead for them! And yet through the all-sufficient expiation and atonement that Christ hath made for our sins, this mystery is effected, and justice itself brought over, from being a formidable adversary, to be our party, and to plead for us. Therefore the apostle tells us that God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins."*
Consonant with this is the well-known language of the elder Edwards: "It is," he says, "so ordered now, that the glory of the attribute of Divine justice requires the salvation of those that believe. The justice of God that [irrespective of the atonement] required man's damnation, and seemed inconsistent with his salvation, now [having respect to the atonement] as much requires the salvation of those that believe in Christ [and thereby appropriate the atonement], as ever before it required their damnation. Salvation is an absolute debt to the believer from God, so that he may in justice demand it on the ground of what his Surety has done." Do these last words sound rash? But scrutinize them. "Salvation is an absolute debt to the believer on the ground of what his Surety has done;" not on the ground, therefore, of anything that the believer has done. It is merely saying, that the soul which feels its own desert of damnation, may plead the merit of Christ with entire confidence that it cancels all legal claims, and that there is nothing outstanding and uncovered by that Divine atonement upon which it relies for justification. It is simply asserting that God incarnate, the redeeming Deity, can demand, upon principles of justice, the release of a soul that trusts solely in his atoning death; because by that death he has completely, and not partially, satisfied eternal justice for it, and in its stead.* They are the bold words of a very cautious and accurate thinker; but are they any bolder than that challenging jubilant shout of St. Paul: "Who is he that condemeth? It is CHRIST that died." As if, flinging his voice out into all world, and all universes, he asked: "What claims are those which the blood of the Eternal Son of God has not been able to satisfy? Is the atonement of the great God Himself not equal to the demands of his law? Is the Deity feebler upon the side of his expiation, than upon the side of his retribution?"
It is a false humility, and not unmingled with a legal spirit, that would prevent the believer from joining in these bold and confident statements respecting the amplitude and completeness of the work of his atoning Lord and God. He need be under no concern lest he underestimate the attribute of justice, if he make this hearty and salient evangelical feeling his own. He disparages no attribute of God, when he magnifies and makes his boast in the atonement of God. Christ was equal to all he undertook; and he undertook to satisfy the claims of the Divine law for the sin of the world, down to the least jot and little; to pay the immense debt to the uttermost farthing. "Think not," he says, "that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." And the incarnate Deity did what he undertook. He had a view of the extent and spirituality of law, and of the demerit of sin, such as no finite mind is capable of entertaining, and he knew whereof he affirmed when, at the close of his life of sorrow and his death of passion and agony, he bowed his head and gave up the ghost, with the words, significant beyond all conception: "It is finished,—the oblation is complete." Jesus Christ, the God-Man, in the garden of Gethsemane and on the middle cross of Calvary, had a conception of the rigor of justice and the exaction of law, such as no human or angelic mind can ever have in equal degree; and the believer may be certain that when HE invites him to rest his complete justification, and the entire satisfaction of all judicial claims, before that law, upon what HE has wrought in reference to it, he is not invited to a procedure that will be a disparagement, or dishonor, either to law or to justice.
Man is not straitened in the atoning work of incarnate Deity. He is straitened in his own blind and unbelieving soul. He only needs to take a profound view of justice, a profound view of sin, and a profound view of God's atonement for it, to come out into a region of peace, liberty, and joy unspeakable. Feeble views upon any one of these subjects debilitate his Christianity. He should distinctly see how sacred is the nature of justice, and how indefeasible are its claims. He should distinctly feel the full impression mod energy of this attribute. Then he should as distinctly see how complete and perfect is the liquidation of these holy claims, by the death of the incarnate Son of God,—that august Personage denominated by the prophet "the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."
That very interesting mystic of the Middle Ages, Henry Von Suso, enlarging in his poetic manner upon the compassion of God towards a sinful world, tells us that the "blood of Christ is full of love and red as a rose."* This roseate conception of the atonement is not the one that will meet the necessities of man's conscience, in the solemn hour of his mental anguish and his moral fear. There is love unutterable in that blood, but it was wrung from a heart to which all merely sentimental affection was as alien as it is to the vengeance of eternal fire. He only can appreciate and understand that love of principle, that love of self-immolation, who sympathizes thoroughly with that regard for the holiness and justice of God, united with compassion for lost souls, that led the Redeemer to undertake the full expiation of human guilt.
Whoever is granted this clear crystalline vision of the atonement, will die in peace, and pass through all the unknown transport and terror of the day of doom with serenity and joy. It ought to be the toil and study of the believer to render his conceptions of the work of Christ more vivid, simple, and vital. For whatever may be the extent of his religious knowledge in other directions; whatever may be the worth of his religious experience in other phases; there is no knowledge and no experience that will stand him in such stead, in those moments that try the soul, as the experience of the pure sense of guilt quenched by the pure blood of Christ.
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