The Scriptural evidence in support of this great doctrine, as far as it
can well be presented within reasonable limits, has already, in great
measure, been exhibited, in the statement and vindication of the
several elements which it includes.
It has been shown, (1.) That the work of Christ for our salvation, was
a real satisfaction of infinite inherent dignity and worth. (2.) That
it was a satisfaction not to commutative justice (as paying a sum of
money would be), nor to the rectoral justice or benevolence of God, but
to his distributive and vindicatory justice which renders necessary the
punishment of sin; and (3.) That it was a satisfaction to the law of
God, meeting its demands of a perfect righteousness for the
justification of sinners. If these points be admitted, the Church
doctrine concerning the satisfaction, or atonement of Christ, is
admitted in all that is essential to its integrity. It remains,
therefore, only to refer to certain classes of passages and modes of
representation pervading the Scriptures, which assume or assert the
truth of all the principles above stated.
Christ saves us as our Priest.
Christ is said to save men as a priest. It is not by the mere exercise
of power, nor by instruction and mental illumination; nor by any
objective, persuasive, moral influence; nor by any subjective
operation, whether natural or supernatural, whether intelligible or
mystical, but by acting for them the part of a representative,
substitute, propitiator, and intercessor. It was in the Old Testament
foretold that the Messiah was to be both priest and king, that he was
to be a priest after the order of Melchisedec. In the New Testament,
and especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is devoted almost
exclusively to the exhibition of the priestly character and work of
Christ, it is taught, -1. That a priest is a substitute or representative, appointed to do for
sinners what they could not do for themselves. Their guilt and
pollution forbid their access to God. Someone, therefore, must be
authorized to appear before God in their behalf, and effect
reconciliation of God to sinners.
2. That this reconciliation can only be effected by means of an
expiation for sin. The guilt of sin can be removed in no other way.
Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. A priest,
therefore, is one appointed for men (i.e., to act in their behalf), to
offer both gifts and sacrifices for sin.
3. That this expiation was effected by the substitution of a victim in
the place of the sinner, to die in his stead, i.e., in Scriptural
language, "to bear his sins." "Guilt," says Ebrard, in a passage
already quoted, "can be removed only by being actually punished, i.e.
expiated. Either the sinner himself must bear the punishment, or a
substitute must be found, which can assume the guilt, bear the penalty,
and give the freedom from guilt or righteousness thus secured, to the
offender." [424] This he gives as the fundamental idea of the epistle
to the Hebrews.
4. Such being the nature of the priesthood and the way in which a
priest saves those for whom he acts, the Apostle shows, first, with
regard to the priests under the old economy, that such was the method,
ordained by God, by which the remission of ceremonial sins and
restoration to the privileges of the theocracy, were to be secured; and
secondly, that the victims then offered, having no inherent dignity or
worth, could not take away sin; they could not purge the conscience
from the sense of guilt, or bring to the end contemplated (teleiosai)
those for whom they were offended, and hence had to be continually
repeated. In Hebrews ix. 9, it is said dora te kai thusiai . . . . me
dunamenai kata suneidesin teleiosai ton latreuonta, i.e., says
Robinson, "which could never make full expiation for the bringer, so as
to satisfy his conscience."
5. The Aaronic priesthood and sacrifices were, therefore, temporary,
being the mere types and shadows of the true priest and the real
sacrifice, promised from the beginning.
6. Christ, the Eternal Son of God, assumed our nature in order that He
might be a merciful and faithful high priest, to make reconciliation
for the sins of the people. That is, to make expiation for sin. The
word used is hilaskomai, propitium reddere; which in the Septuagint, is
the substitute for kpr (to cover guilt), to hide sin from the sight of
God. In the New Testament, as in the Septuagint, hilaskomai is the
special term for sacerdotal expiation, and is not to be confounded with
apokatallattesthai, to reconcile. The latter is the effect of the
former; reconciliation is secured by expiation.
7. Christ is proved, especially in Hebrews v., to be a real priest;
first, because He has all the qualifications for the office, He was a
man, was a substitute, had a sacrifice, and was able to sympathize with
his people; secondly, because He was called of God to the priesthood,
as was Aaron; thirdly, because He actually discharged all the functions
of the office.
8. The sacrifice which this great high priest offered in our behalf,
was not the blood of irrational animals, but his own most precious
blood.
9. This one sacrifice has perfected forever (teteleioken, made a
perfect expiation for) them that are sanctified. (Hebrews x. 14.)
10. This sacrifice has superseded all others. No other is needed; and
no other is possible.
11. Those who reject this method of salvation certainly perish. To them
there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. (Hebrews x. 26.)
It can hardly be questioned that this is a correct, although feeble
statement of the leading ideas of the Epistle to the Hebrews. With this
agree all other representations of the Scriptures both in the Old
Testament and in the New, and therefore if we adhere to the doctrine of
the Bible we must believe that Christ saves us, not by power, or by
moral influence, but as a priest, by offering Himself as an expiatory
sacrifice for our sins. To deny this; to explain away these express
teachings of the Scriptures, as mere accommodations to the modes of
thought prevalent in the age of the Apostles; or to substitute modern
ideas of the nature of sacrifices, for those of the Bible and of the
whole ancient world; or to attempt to get at the philosophical truth
inclosed in these Scriptural forms, while we reject the forms
themselves, are only different ways of substituting our thoughts for
God's thoughts, our way of salvation for God's way. If the ordinary
authoritative rules of interpretation are to be adhered to, it cannot
be denied that the Scriptures teach that Christ saves us as a priest by
making a full expiation for our sins, bearing the penalty of them in
his own person in our behalf.
Christ saves us as a Sacrifice.
Intimately connected with the argument from the priestly office of
Christ, and inseparable from it, is that which is derived from those
numerous passages in which He is set forth as a sacrifice for sin. Much
as the nature of the Old Testament sacrifices has of late years. been
discussed, and numerous as are the theories which have been advanced
upon this subject, there are some points with regard to which all who
profess faith in the Scriptures, are agreed. In the first place, it is
agreed that Christ was in some sense a sacrifice for the sins of men;
secondly, that the sense in which He was a sacrifice is the same as
that in which the sin offerings of the Old Testament were sacrifices;
and, thirdly, that the true Scriptural idea of sacrifices for sin is a
historical question and not a matter of speculation. According to
Michaelis, they were mere fines; [425] according to Sykes, federal
rites; according to others, expressions of gratitude, offerings to God
in acknowledgment of his goodness; according to others, they were
symbolical of the surrender and devotion of the life of the offerer to
God; [426] according to others, they were confessions of sin and
symbolical exhibitions of penitence; and according to others, their
whole design and effect was in some way to produce a salutary moral
impression. [427] It is admitted that the offerings of the old economy
were of different kinds, not only as bloody and unbloody, but that
among those which involved the shedding of blood some were designed for
one purpose and some for another. The whole question relates to the sin
offerings properly so called, of which the sacrifices on the great day
of atonement were the special illustrative examples. The common
doctrine as to these sin offerings is, (1.) That the design of such
offerings was to propitiate God; to satisfy his justice, and to render
it consistent and proper that the offence for which they were offered
should be forgiven, (2.) That this propitiation of God was secured by
the expiation of guilt; by such an offering as covered sin, so that it
did not appear before Him as demanding punishment; (3.) That this
expiation was effected by vicarious punishment; the victim being
substituted for the offender, bearing his guilt, and suffering the
penalty which he had incurred; (4.) That the effect of such sin
offerings was the pardon of the offender, and his restoration to favour
and to the enjoyment of the privileges which he had forfeited. If this
be the true Scriptural idea of a sacrifice for sin, then do the
Scriptures in declaring that Christ was a sacrifice, intend to teach
that He was the substitute for sinners; that He bore their guilt and
suffered the penalty of the law in their stead; and thereby reconciled
them unto God; i.e., rendered it consistent with his perfections that
they should be pardoned and restored to the divine fellowship and
favour.
Proof of the Common Doctrine concerning Sacrifices for Sin.
That this is the true doctrine concerning sacrifices for sin may be
argued, -1. From the general sentiment of the ancient world. These offerings
arose from a sense of guilt and apprehension of the wrath of God. Under
the pressure of the sense of sin, and when the displeasure of God was
experienced or apprehended, men everywhere resorted to every means in
their power to make expiation for their offences, and to propitiate the
favour of God. Of these means the most natural, as it appears from its
being universally adopted, was the offering of propitiatory sacrifices.
The more numerous and costly these offerings the greater hope was
cherished of their efficacy. Men did not spare even the fruit of their
bodies for the sin of their souls. It was not that the Deity, to be
propitiated, needed these oblations, or could Himself enjoy them; but
it was that justice demanded satisfaction, and the hope was entertained
that the death of the victims might be taken in lieu of that of the
offender. Even those who repudiate the doctrine of expiation as
belonging to the religion of the Bible, admit that it was the doctrine
of the ancient world. But if it was the doctrine of the ancient world,
two things naturally follow; first, that it has a foundation in the
nature of man, and in the intuitive knowledge of the relation which he
as a sinner bears to God; and, secondly, that when we find exactly the
same rites and ceremonies, the same forms of expression and the same
significant actions in the Scriptures, they cannot fairly be understood
in a sense diametrically opposite to that in which all the rest of the
world understood them.
2. The second argument is that it is beyond doubt that the Hebrews, to
whom the Mosaic institutions were given, understood their sacrifices
for sin to be expiatory offerings and not mere forms of worship or
expressions of their devotion of themselves to God; or as simply
didactic, designed to make a moral impression on the offender and on
the spectators. They were explained as expiations, in which the victim
bore the guilt of the sinner, and died in his stead and for his
deliverance. That such was the doctrine of the Hebrews is proved by
such authors as Outram, in his work "De Sacrificiis;" by Schoettgen,
"Horæ Hebrææ et Talmudicæ;" Eisenmenger, "Endecktes Judenthum," and
other writers on the subject. Outram quotes from the Jewish authorities
forms of confession connected with the imposition of hands on the
victim. One is to the following effect: [428] "I beseech thee, O Lord,
I have sinned, I have done perversely, I have rebelled, I have done
(specifying the offence); but now I repent, and let this victim be my
expiation." The design of the imposition of hands was to signify, say
these authorities, the removal of sin from the offender to the animal.
[429]
3. It is no less certain that the whole Christian world has ever
regarded the sacrifices for sin to be expiatory, designed to teach the
necessity of expiation and to foreshadow the method by which it was to
be accomplished. Such, as has been shown, is the faith of the Latin, of
the Lutheran, and of the Reformed churches, all the great historical
bodies which make up the sum of professing Christians. That this
world-wide belief in the necessity of expiation even among the heathen;
this uniform conviction of the Hebrews that the sacrifices, which they
were commanded to offer for sin, were expiatory; this concurrent
judgment of the Christian Church in all ages and places are, after all,
mere error and delusion; that such is not the teaching either of the
natural conscience, or of the Hebrew Scriptures, or of Christ and his
Apostles, is absolutely incredible. The attempt to overthrow a
conviction thus general and permanent, is chimerical.
4. But these arguments from general conviction and assent, although
perfectly valid in such cases as the present, are not those on which
the faith of Christians rests. They find the doctrine of expiatory
sacrifices clearly taught in Scripture; they see that the sin offerings
under the Old Testament were expiations.
The Old Testament Sacrifices Expiatory.
This is plain from the clear meaning of the language used in reference
to them. They are called sin offerings; trespass offerings, i.e.,
offerings made by sinners on account of sin. They are said to bear the
sins of the offender; to make expiation for sin, i.e., to cover it from
the sight of God's justice; they are declared to be intended to secure
forgiveness, not through repentance or reformation, these are
presupposed before the offering is brought, but by shedding of blood,
by giving soul for soul, life for life. The reason assigned in
Leviticus xvii. 11, why blood should not be used for food, was that it
was set apart to make expiation for sin. The Hebrew is lkpr
tslnphstykm, which the Septuagint renders exilaskesthai peri ton
psuchon humon; and the Vulgate, "Ut super altare in eo expietis pro
animabus vestris." The elder Michaelis expresses clearly the meaning of
the passage and the design of the prohibition, when he says (On
Leviticus xvii. 10), "Ne sanguis res sanctissima, ad expiationem
immundorum a Deo ordinata, communi usu profanaretur." The last clause
of the verse, which in our version is rendered, "For it is the blood
that maketh an atonement for the soul," is more literally and correctly
rendered, "For blood by (its) soul or life makes atonement;" or, as
Bähr and Fairbairn translate it, "The blood atones through the soul."
The latter writer correctly remarks, [430] "This is the only sense of
the passage that can be grammatically justified; for the preposition v
after the verb to atone (kphr) invariably denotes that by which the
atonement is made; while as invariably the person or object for which
is denoted by l or l." -- Aben Ezra, quoted by Bähr, had briefly
indicated the right interpretation. "Sanguis anima, quæ sibi inest,
expiat." It seems impossible that this and similar express declarations
of the Old Testament, that sacrifices for sins were expiations, can be
reconciled with the modern speculation that they were symbolical
expressions of devotion to God, or means of effecting a reformation of
the offender, who because of that reformation was restored to God's
favour.
The argument, therefore, is that the Scriptures expressly declare that
these sacrifices were made for the expiation of sin. This idea is
expressed by the word kpr, to cover, to hide from view, to blot out, to
expiate. Hence the substantive kphr means that which delivers from
punishment or evi. It is the common word for an atonement, but it also
is used for a ransom, because it is rendered to secure deliverance.
Thus the half shekel required to be paid by every male Israelite as a
ransom for his soul was called a kphr (in Greek, lutron, or lutra). See
Exodus xxx. 12-16: "When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel,
. . . . then shall they give every man a ransom (kphr) for his soul
unto the Lord, . . . . half a shekel . . . . the rich shall not give
more, and the poor shall not give less, than half a shekel, when they
give an offering to the Lord, to make an atonement (lkpr, Gr.
exilasasthai) for your souls." Here it is impossible to mistake the
meaning. The half shekel was a ransom, something paid to secure
deliverance from evil. It was not a symbol of devotion, or an
expression of penitence, but a payment of a stipulated ransom. That the
half shekel bore no proportion to the value of a man's life, or the
blood of a victim to the value of the soul, does not alter the case.
The idea is the same. The truth taught is that satisfaction must be
made if sinners are to be saved. The constantly recurring expressions,
"to make atonement for sin;" "to make atonement on the horns of the
altar;" "to make atonement for the sins of the people," etc., which are
correct renderings of the Hebrew phrases which mean "to make
expiation," as understood from the beginning, cannot be reconciled with
any other theory of sacrifices than that of vicarious satisfaction. In
Numbers xxxv. 31, it is said, "Ye shall take no satisfaction (kphr,
lutra, pretium), for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death;
but he shall be surely put to death . . . . the land cannot be cleansed
(ykpr; Septuagint, exilasthesetai; Vulgate, nec aliter expiari potest)
of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed
it." Here again there can be no mistake. To cover sin, kpr, is to
expiate it by a penal satisfaction; that expiation is expressed, as we
have seen, by kkr, which literally magnifies that which covers, and, in
such connections, that which covers sin so that it no longer demands
punishment. When, therefore, a sacrifice is said to cover sin it must
mean that it expiates it, hides it from the eyes of justice by a
satisfaction. A kphr is a satisfaction. This satisfaction must be made
either by the offender or by some one in his stead. In the case of
murder, if the perpetrator could not be discovered, a victim was to be
slain in his stead, and thus satisfaction was to be made. The law in
reference to this case makes the nature and design of sin offerings
perfectly plain. The elders of the nearest city were commanded to take
a heifer which had net borne the yoke, and wash their hands over it in
attestation of their innocence of the blood of the murdered man; the
priests being present. The heifer was to be slain, and thus expiation
made for the offence. The words are, vnkpr lhm hdm; Greek, kai
exilasthesetai autois to haima; Latin, "Et auferetur ab eis reatus
sanguinis." The removal of guilt by a vicarious death is, therefore,
the Scriptural idea of a sin offering. It would, however, require a
volume to present a tithe of the evidence furnished, by the phraseology
of the Old Testament, that the sin offerings, were regarded as
expiations for sin; not designed proximately for the reformation of the
offender, but to secure the remission of the penalty due to his
transgression. The constantly recurring formula is, Let him offer the
sacrifice for "sin, and it shall be forgiven him."
The ceremonies attending the offering of sacrifices for sin show that
they were understood to be expiatory. (1) The victims were selected
from the class of clean animals appropriated for the support of the
life of man. They were to be free from all blemish. This physical
perfection was typical of the freedom from all sin of Him who was to be
the substitute for sinners. (2.) The offender was required himself to
bring the victim to the altar. The service involved an acknowledgment
on the part of the offerer of his just exposure to punishment for his
sin. (3.) The hands of the offender were to be laid on the head of the
victim, to express the ideas of substitution and of transfer of guilt.
The sin of the offerer was laid upon the head of the victim. (4.) The
blood of the victim, slain by the priest, was received by him as the
minister of God, sprinkled on the altar, or, on the great day of
atonement, carried into the Most Holy place where the symbol of God's
presence was, and sprinkled on the top of the ark of the covenant;
showing that the service terminated on God; that it was designed to
appease his wrath (according to Scriptural phraseology), to satisfy his
justice, and to open the way for the free forgiveness of sin. The
significance assigned to these ceremonial acts is that which their
nature demands; which the Scriptures themselves assign to them; and
which they must have either to account for the effects which the sin
offering produced, or to make out the correspondence between the type
and the antitype which the New Testament declares was intended. These
symbolical acts admit of no other explanation without doing violence to
the text, and forcing on antiquity the ideas of modern times, which is
to substitute our speculations for the authoritative teachings of the
Scriptures.
The imposition of the hands of the offender upon the head of the victim
was essential to this service. The general import of the imposition of
hands was that of communication. Hence this ceremony was practiced on
various occasions: (1.) In appointing to office, to signify the
transfer of authority. (2.) In imparting any spiritual gift or
blessing. (3.) In substituting one for another, and transferring the
responsibility of one to another. This was the import of the imposition
of hands upon the head of the victim. It was substituted in the place
of the offerer, and the guilt of the one was symbolically transferred
from the one to the other. Hence the victim was said to bear the sins
of the people; their sins were said to be laid upon it. In the solemn
services of the great day of atonement, the import of this rite is
rendered especially clear It was commanded that two goats should be
selected, one for a sin-offering and the other for a scape-goat. The
two constituted one sacrifice, as it was impossible that one could
signify all that was intended to be taught. Of the scape-goat it is
said, "Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat,
and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and
all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head
of the goat, . . . . and the goat shall bear upon him all their
iniquities unto a land not inhabited." This renders it plain that the
design of the imposition of hands was to signify the transfer of the
guilt of the offender to the victim. The nature of these offerings is
still further evident from the fact that the victim was said "to bear
the sin" of the offender. For example, in Isaiah liii. that the servant
of the Lord made "his soul an offering for sin," is explained by saying
that "He bare the sin of many;" that "the chastisement of our peace was
upon him;" and that "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."
These and similar expressions do not admit of being understood of the
removal of sin by reformation or spiritual renovation. They have a
fixed and definite meaning throughout the Scriptures. To bear sin is to
bear the guilt and punishment of sin. It may be admitted that the
Hebrew word ns' may mean to remove, or bear away, as in 1 Samuel xvii.
34 and Judges xvi. 31, although even in these cases the ordinary sense
is admissible. The question, however, is not what a word may mean, but
what it does mean in a given formula and connection. The word signifies
to raise, or lift up; to lift up the eyes, the hand, the voice, the
head, the heart. Then it means to lift up in the sense of bearing, as a
tree bears its fruit; or in the sense of enduring, as sorrow,
suffering; or, of bearing as a burden, and especially the burden of
guilt or punishment. And finally it may have the necessary meaning of
bearing away, or of removing. If this should be insisted upon in those
cases where sin is spoken of, then it remains to be asked what is the
Scriptural sense of removing sin, or bearing sin away. That formula
means two things; first, to remove the guilt of sin by expiation, and
secondly, to remove its defilement and power by spiritual renovation.
One or the other of these ideas is expressed by all the corresponding
terms used in the Bible; kathairein, to purify, or katharismon poiein;
hagiazein, to cleanse; and others, as to wash, to blot out, etc. All
these terms are used to express either sacrificial purification by
blood, or spiritual purification by the renewing of the Holy Ghost.
Which, in any particular case, is intended, is determined by the
context. Therefore, even if the words ns'tsyv; be rendered to remove
iniquity or sin, the question would still be, Does it mean the removal
of guilt by expiation; or the removal of pollution by moral renovation?
In point of fact the words in question always refer to bearing the
punishment and thus removing the guilt of sin, and never to the removal
of moral pollution. This is plain, (1.) Because ns' is interchanged
with svl which never means to remove, but only to sustain, or bear as a
burden. (2.) Because usage determines the meaning of the phrase and is
uniform. In Numbers xiv. 34, it is said, "Ye shall bear your iniquities
forty years." Leviticus v. 1, "If a soul . . . . hear the voice of
swearing, and is a witness; . . . . if he do not utter it, he shall
bear his iniquity." Leviticus v. 17, "He is guilty, and shall bear his
iniquity." Leviticus vii. 18, "The soul that eateth of it shall bear
his iniquity." Leviticus xvii. 16, "If he wash not . . . . then he
shall bear his iniquity." Leviticus xix. 8; xx. 17; xxii. 9, "They
shall keep my ordinance, lest they bear sin for it." Numbers ix. 13, If
a man forbear to keep the passover, he shall be cut off from the
people, "he shall bear his sin." See also Numbers xviii. 22, 32.
Ezekiel iv. 4, 5, it is said to the prophet enduring penance, "So shalt
thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel." "Thou shalt bear the
iniquity of the house of Judah forty days." "Lie thou upon thy left
side . . . . according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie
upon it, thou shalt bear their iniquity." Ezekiel xviii. 20, "The son
shall not bear the iniquity of the father; neither shall the father
bear the iniquity of the son." In all these, and in other like cases,
it is simply impossible that "bearing sin" should mean the removal of
sin by moral renovation. The expression occurs some forty times in the
Bible, and always in the sense of bearing the guilt or punishment of
sin. It is hardly an exception to this remark that there are a few
cases in which ns' cht't means to pardon; as in Exodus x. 17; xxxii.
32; xxxiv. 7; Psalms xxxii. 5 (and lxxxv. 3); for pardon is not the
removal of sin morally, but the lifting up, or removal of its guilt.
This being the fact, it determines the nature of the sin offerings
under the law. The victim bore the sin of the offerer, and died in his
stead. An expiation was thereby effected by the suffering of a
vicarious punishment. This also determines the nature of the work of
Christ. If He was an offering for sin, if He saves us from the penalty
of the law of God, in the same way in which the sin offering saved the
Israelite from the penalty of the law of Moses, then He bore the guilt
of our sins and endured the penalty in our stead. We may not approve of
this method of salvation. The idea of the innocent bearing the sins of
the guilty and being punished in his stead, may not be agreeable to our
feelings or to our modes of thinking, but it can hardly be denied that
such is the representation and doctrine of the Scriptures. Our only
alternative is to accept that doctrine, or reject the authority of
Scripture directly or indirectly. That is, either to deny their divine
origin, or to explain away their explicit statements. In either case
their plain meaning remains untouched. The German rationalists in
general take the former of these two courses. They admit that the Bible
teaches the doctrine of vicarious punishment, but they deny the truth
of the doctrine because they deny the Bible to be the Word of God.
The passages in which Christ is represented as a sacrifice for sin, are
too numerous to be here specially considered. The New Testament, and
particularly the Epistle to the Hebrews, as before remarked, declares
and teaches, that the priesthood of the old economy was a type of the
priesthood of Christ; that the sacrifices of that dispensation were
types of his sacrifice; that as the blood of bulls and of goats
purified the flesh, so the blood of Christ cleanses the soul from
guilt; and that as they were expiations effected by vicarious
punishment, in their sphere, so was the sacrifice of Christ in the
infinitely higher sphere to which his work belongs. Such being the
relation between the Old Economy and the New, the whole sacrificial
service of the Mosaic institutions, becomes to the Christian an
extended and irresistible proof and exhibition of the work of Christ as
an expiation for the sins of the world, and a satisfaction to the
justice of God.
The Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah.
It is not however only in the typical services of the old economy that
this great doctrine was set forth in the Hebrew Scriptures. In the
fifty-third chapter of Isaiah this doctrine is presented with a
clearness and copiousness which have extorted assent from the most
unwilling minds. The prophet in that chapter not only foretells that
the Messiah was to be a man of sorrows; not only that He was to suffer
the greatest indignities and be put to a violent death; not only that
these sufferings were endured for the benefit of others; but that they
were truly vicarious, i.e., that He suffered, in our stead, the penalty
which we had incurred, in order to our deliverance. This is done not
only in those forms of expression which most naturally admit of this
interpretation, but in others which can, consistently with usage and
the analogy of Scripture, be understood in no other way. To the former
class belong such expressions as the following, "He hath borne our
griefs, and carried our sorrows." Our griefs and our sorrows are the
griefs and sorrows which we deserved. These Christ bore in the sense of
enduring, for He carried them as a burden. "He was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities." "With his stripes
we are healed." "For the transgression of my people was he stricken."
These phrases might be used of the sufferings of a patriot for his
country, of a philanthropist for his fellow-men, or of a friend for
those dear to him. That they however are most naturally understood of
vicarious suffering, can hardly be denied, And that they were intended
by the Spirit of God to be so understood, is plain by their being
intermingled with expressions which admit of no other interpretation.
To this class belong the following clauses: First, "the chastisement
(or punishment) of our peace was upon him." That is, the punishment by
which our peace was secured. Of this clause Delitzsch, one of the very
first of living Hebraists, says, [431] "Der Begriff der poena vicaria
kann hebräisch gar nicht schärfer ausgedrückt werden als in jenen
Worten." "The idea of vicarious punishment cannot be more precisely
expressed in Hebrew than by those words." Secondly, it is said, "The
Lord hath laid on him (caused to fall, or, cast on him) the iniquity of
us all." We have already seen that this is the language used in the Old
Testament to express the transfer of the guilt of the offender to the
victim slain in his stead. They have a definite Scriptural meaning,
which cannot be denied in this case without doing open violence to
admitted rules of interpretation. "If," says Dr. J. Addison Alexander,
[432] "vicarious suffering can be described in words, it is so
described in these two verses;" i.e., the verses in which this clause
occurs. Thirdly, it is said of the Messiah that He made, or was to make
"his soul an offering for sin." The Hebrew word is 'sm, guilt, debt;
and then an offering which bears guilt and expiates it. It is the
common word in the Levitical law for "trespass offering." Michaelis in
his marginal annotations, remarks on this word (Isaiah liii. 10),
"Delictum significat, ut notet etiam sacrificium, cui delictum
imputatum est. Vide passim, inprimis Lev. iv. 3; v. 6, 7, 16; vii. 1,
etc., etc. . . . . Recte etiam Raschi ad h. 1. Ascham,' inquit,
significat satisfactionem, seu lytron, quod quis alteri exsolvit, in
quem deliquit, Gallice, Amande, i.e. mulcta.'" The literal meaning of
the words, therefore, is, His soul was made a satisfaction for sin.
Fourthly, it is said, "My righteous servant shall justify many; for he
shall bear their iniquities." "He was numbered with the transgressors,
and he bare the sin of many." It has already been shown that to "bear
sin" never means to sanctify, to effect a moral change by removing the
power and pollution of sin, but uniformly, in the sacrificial language
of the Bible, to bear the guilt or penalty for sin.
Passages of the Hew Testament in which the Work of Christ is set forth
as Sacrifice.
In Romans iii. 25, it is said, He was set forth as "a propitiation
through faith in his blood." The word here used is hilasterion, the
neuter form of the adjective hilasterios ("propitiatory, expiatory")
used substantively. It therefore means, as Robinson and other
lexicographers define it, and as the great body of interpreters explain
it, "an expiatory sacrifice." The meaning of the word is determined by
the context and confirmed by parallel passages. The design of setting
forth Christ as a hilasterion was precisely that which an expiatory
sacrifice was intended to accomplish, namely, to satisfy justice, that
God might be just in the forgiveness of sin. And the dikaiosune of God
manifested in the sacrifice of Christ, was not his benevolence, but
that form of justice which demands the punishment of sin. "It is a
fundamental idea of Scripture," says Delitzsch, "that sin is expiated
(ykpr) by punishment, as murder by the death of the murderer." [433]
Again, "Where there is shedding of blood and of life, there is violent
death, and where a violent death is (judicially) inflicted, there there
is manifestation of vindicatory justice, der strafenden Gerechtigkeit."
[434] In like manner, in Romans viii. 3, the Apostle says, God sent his
Son as a sin offering (peri hamartias, which in Hellenistic Greek means
an offering for sin, Hebrews x. 6), and thereby condemned sin in the
flesh, that is, in the flesh or person of Christ. And thus it is that
we are justified, or the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us.
The same Apostle, in Galatians i. 4, says that Christ "gave himself for
our sins." That is, He gave Himself unto death as a sacrifice for our
sins that He might effect our redemption. Such is the plain meaning of
this passage, if understood according to the established usage of the
Scripture. "The idea of satisfaction," says Meyer, on this passage,
"lies not in the force of the preposition [huper] but in the nature of
the transaction, in dem ganzen Sachverhältniss." In Ephesians v. 2, it
is said Christ gave "himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God
for a sweet-smelling savour." His offering was a sacrifice (thusian).
His blood was shed as an expiation. The question, says Meyer, whether
Christ is here represented as a sin offering, "is decided not so much
by huper hemon as by the constant New Testament, and specially the
Pauline, conception of the death of Christ as a hilasterion." Hebrews
ix. 14, is especially important and decisive. The Apostle, in the
context, contrasts the sacrifices of the law with that of Christ. If
the former, consisting of the blood of irrational animals, nothing but
the principle of animal life, could avail to effect external or
ceremonial purification, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who
was possessed of an eternal spirit, or divine nature, and offered
Himself without spot unto God, avail to the purification of the
conscience, i.e., effect the real expiation of sin. The purification
spoken of in both members of this comparison, is purification from
guilt, and not spiritual renovation. The Old Testament sacrifices were
expiatory and not reformatory, and so was the sacrifice of Christ. The
certain result and ultimate design in both cases was reconciliation to
the favour and fellowship of God; but the necessary preliminary
condition of such reconciliation was the expiation of guilt. Again,
toward the end of the same chapter, the Apostle says that Christ was
not called upon to "offer himself often, . . . for then must he often
have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the
end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself." The offering which He made was Himself. Its design and effect
were to put away sin; i.e., to put away sin as was done by expiatory
sacrifices. This is confirmed by what follows. Christ came the first
time "to bear the sins of many;" He is to come the second time "without
sin," without that burden which, on his first advent, He had
voluntarily assumed. He was then burdened with our sins in the sense in
which the ancient sacrifices bore the sins of the people. He bore their
guilt; that is, he assumed the responsibility of making satisfaction
for them to the justice of God. When He comes the second time, it will
not be as a sin offering, but to consummate the salvation of his
people. The parallel passage to this is found in 2 Corinthians v. 21:
"He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin," The design of the
Apostle is to explain how it is that God is reconciled unto the world,
not imputing unto men their trespasses. He is free thus to pardon and
treat as righteous those who in themselves are unrighteous, because for
us and in our stead He who was without sin was treated as a sinner. The
sense in which Christ was treated as a sinner is, says Meyer, in loco
"in dem er nämlich die Todesstrafe erlitt, in that he suffered the
punishment of death." Here again the idea of the poena vicaria is
clearly expressed.
In Hebrews x. 10, we are said to be "sanctified through the offering of
the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The word hagiazein, here
rendered sanctify, means to cleanse. Sin is, in Scripture, always
regarded as a defilement in both its aspects of guilt and moral
turpitude. As guilt, it is cleansed by blood, by sacrificial expiation,
as defilement, by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Which kind of
purification is intended is determined in each case by the context. If
the purification is effected by sacrifice, by the blood or death of
Christ, then the removal of guilt is intended. Hence, all the passages
in which we are said to be saved, or reconciled unto God, or purified,
or sanctified by the blood or death of Christ, must be regarded as so
many assertions that He was an expiatory sacrifice for sin. In this
passage the meaning of the Apostle cannot be mistaken. He is again
contrasting the sacrifices of the Old Testament with that of Christ.
They were ineffectual, the latter was of sovereign efficacy. "Sacrifice
and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. Lo, I
come to do thy will." By which will, i.e., by the execution of this
purpose of sending his incarnate Son, we are cleansed by the one
offering up of his body. The ancient sacrifices, he says (verse 11),
had to be constantly repeated. "But this man, after he had offered one
sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God." "For by
one offering he hath perfected forever (teteleioken, brought to the end
contemplated by a sacrifice) them that are sanctified," i.e., cleansed
from guilt. That sacrificial cleansing is here intended is plain, for
the effect of it is pardon. "Their sins and iniquities will I remember
no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for
sin." And in verse 26, we are taught that for those who reject the
sacrifice of Christ there remains "no more sacrifice for sins; but a
certain fearful looking for of judgment." It was pardon, therefore,
founded upon the expiation of sin, that was secured by the sacrifice of
Christ. And this is declared to be the only possible means by which our
guilt can be removed, or the justice of God satisfied. It is to be
always borne in mind, however, that the end of expiation is
reconciliation with God, and that reconciliation with God involves or
secures conformity to his image and intimate fellowship with Him. The
ultimate design of the work of Christ is, therefore, declared to be to
"bring us to God;" to "purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of
good works." The removal of guilt by expiation is, however, constantly
set forth as the absolutely essential preliminary to this inward
subjective reconciliation with God. This is a necessity, as the
Scriptures teach, arising out of the nature of God as a holy and just
Being.
What Paul teaches so abundantly of the sacrificial death of Christ is
taught by the Apostle John (First Epistle, ii. 2). Jesus Christ "is the
propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins
of the whole world." The word here used is hilasmos, propitiation,
expiation; from "hilaskomai, to reconcile one's self to any one by
expiation, to appease, to propitiate." And in chapter iv. 10, it is
said, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and
sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." The inconsistency
between love, and expiation or satisfaction for sin, which modern
writers so much insist upon, was not perceived by men who spoke as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost. In chapter i. 7, this same Apostle says,
"The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." To
cleanse, katharizein, kathairein, katharismon poiein, hagiazein, louein
(Revelation i. 5) are established sacrificial terms to express the
removal of the guilt of sin by expiation.
The above are only a part of the passages in which our blessed Lord is,
in the New Testament, set forth as a sin offering, in the Scriptural
sense of that term. What is thus taught is taught by other forms of
expression which imply the expiatory character of his death, or his
priestly function of making satisfaction for sin. Thus in Hebrews ix.
28, it is said, "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many."
This is a quotation from Isaiah liii. 12, where the same word is used
in the Septuagint that the Apostle here employs. The meaning of the
Scriptural phrase "to bear sin" has already been sufficiently
discussed. Robinson, who will not be suspected of theological bias,
defines, in his "Greek Lexicon," the word in question (anaphero) in the
formula anenenkein tas hamartias hemon, "to bear up our sins, to take
upon oneself and bear our sins, i.e., to bear the penalty of sin, to
make expiation for sin." This is the sense in which the sacrifices of
old were said to bear the sins of the people, and in which it was said
that one man, in God's dealings with his theocratic people, should not
bear the sins of another. Delitzsch, on Hebrews ix. 28, says, [435]
"This assumption of the sufferings which the sins of men had caused,
into fellowship with whom He had entered, this bearing as a substitute
the punishment of sins not his own, this expiatory suffering for the
sins of others, is precisely what anenenkein amartias pollon in this
passage means, and is the sense intended in the Italic and Vulgate
versions; ad multorum exhaurienda peccata.'" He quotes with approbation
the comment of Seb. Schmidt: "Quia mors in hominibus poena est,
Christus oblatus est moriendo, ut morte sua portaret omnium hominum
peccata h. e. omnes peccatorum poenas exæquaret satisfaciendo." [436]
Nearly the same language is used by the Apostle Peter (First Epistle,
ii. 24). "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree."
Whether anaphero here means sufferre, to bear or endure, or sursum
ferre, to carry up, the sense is the same. Only the figure is altered.
Christ bore the guilt of our sins. This is the burden which He
sustained; or which He carried up with Him when He ascended the cross.
In the parallel passage in Isaiah liii. 11, evidently in the Apostle's
mind, the words are in the Septuagint, tas hamartias auton autos
anoisei, where in Hebrew ysbl is used, which appears decisive in favour
of the rendering in our version, He "bare our sins," as svl always
means to bear as a burden. As to the doctrinal meaning of this passage
commentators of almost all classes agree. Wahl, in his "Lexicon," on
the word anaphero referring to this place, makes it mean "peccatorum
poenam et reatum ultro in se suscipit." Bretschneider (Rationalist)
thus defines the word, "attollo et mihi impono, i.e., impositum mihi
porto, tropice de poenis: poenam susceptam luo; Heb. ix. 28. . . . .
Vide etiam Num. xiv. 33, anoisousi ten porneian humon, poena vestræ
perfidiæ illis persolvenda est." Wegscheider, the chief of the
systematic theologians among the Rationalists, [437] referring to this
passage, 1 Peter ii. 24, says that almost all the New Testament writers
regard the death of Christ "tanquam [mortem] expiatoriam, eandemque
vicariam, velut poenam peccatorum hominum omnium ab ipso susceptam,
etc." Calvin does not go beyond these Rationalists; his comment is,
"Sicuti sub lege peccator, ut reatu solveretur, victimam substituebat
suo loco: ita Christus maledictionem peccatis nostris debitam in se
suscepit, ut ea coram Deo expiaret. Hoc beneficium sophistæ in suis
scholis, quantum possunt, obscurant."
Another form of expression used by the sacred writers clearly teaches
the expiatory character of Christ's work. Under the old economy, the
great function of the high priest was to make expiation for sin, and
thereby restore the people to the favour of God, and secure for them
the blessings of the covenant under which they lived. All this was
typical of Christ and of his work. He came to save his people from
their sins, to restore them to the favour of God, and to secure for
them the enjoyment of the blessings of the new and better covenant of
which He is the mediator. He, therefore, assumed our nature in order
that He might die, and by death effect our reconciliation with God. For
as He did not undertake the redemption of angels, but the redemption of
man, it was the nature of man that He assumed. He was made in all
things like unto his brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful
high priest in things pertaining to God, eis to hilaskesthai tas
hamartias tou laou, to make expiation for the sins of the people. The
word hilaskomai (or exilaskomai) is the technical word in Hellenistic
Greek to express the idea of expiation. In common Greek, the word means
propitium reddere, and in the passive form it is used in this sense in
the Septuagint as in Psalm lxxix. 9. But in the middle and deponent
form followed by the word sins in the accusative, it always expresses
the act by which that in sin is removed which hinders God from being
propitious. This is the precise idea of expiation. Hence the word is so
constantly rendered in the Vulgate by expiare, and is in Greek the
rendering of kpr. Hence Christ as He who renders God propitious to us
is called the hilasmos peri ton hamartion hemon in 1 John ii. 2, and
hilasterion in Romans iii. 25.
Still another form in which the doctrine of expiation is taught is
found in those passages which refer our reconciliation to God to the
death of Christ. The Greek word used to express this idea in Romans v.
10; 2 Corinthians v. 18, 19, 20, is katallassein, to exchange, or to
change the relation of one person to another, from enmity to
friendship. In Ephesians ii. 16; Colossians i. 20, 21, the word used is
apokatallattein, only an intensive form, to reconcile fully. When two
parties are at enmity a reconciliation may be effected by a change in
either or in both. When, therefore, it is said that we are reconciled
to God, it only means that peace is restored between Him and us.
Whether this is effected by our enmity towards Him being removed, or by
his justice in regard to us being satisfied, or whether both ideas are
in any case included, depends on the context where the word occurs, and
on the analogy of Scripture. In the chief passage, Romans v. 10, the
obvious meaning is that the reconciliation is effected by God's justice
being satisfied, so that He can be favourable to us in consistency with
his own nature. This is plain, -1. Because the means by which the reconciliation is effected is "the
death of his Son." The design of sacrificial death is expiation. It
would be to do violence to all Scriptural usage to make the proximate
design and effect of a sacrifice the removal of the sinner's enmity to
God.
2. "Being reconciled by the death of his Son," in verse 10, is parallel
to the clause "being justified by his blood" in verse 9. The one is
exchanged for the other, as different forms of expressing the same
idea. But justification is not sanctification. It does not express a
subjective change in the sinner. And, therefore, the reconciliation
here spoken of cannot express any such change.
3. Those reconciled are declared to be echthroi, in the passive sense
of the word, "those who are the objects of God's just displeasure."
They are guilty. Justice demands their punishment. The death of Christ,
as satisfying justice, reconciles God to us; effects peace, so that we
can be received into favour.
4. What is here taught is explained by all those passages which teach
the method by which the reconciliation of God and man is effected,
namely, by the expiation of sin. Meyer, on this passage, says,
"katellagemen and katallagentes must of necessity be understood
passively: ausgesöhnt mit Gott, atoned for in the sight of God, so that
he no longer is hostile to us; he has said aside his anger, and we are
made partakers of his grace and favour." The same doctrine is taught in
Ephesians ii. 16. "That he might reconcile both unto God in one body by
the cross." Here again the reconciliation of God with man is effected
by the cross or death of Christ, which, removing the necessity for the
punishment of sinners, renders it possible for God to manifest towards
them his love. The change is not in man, but, humanly speaking, in God;
a change from the purpose to punish to a purpose to pardon and save.
There is, so to speak, a reconciliation of God's justice and of his
love effected by Christ's bearing the penalty in our stead. In 2
Corinthians v. 18, it is said, God "hath reconciled us to himself by
Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation."
This does not mean that God changed our heart, and made us love Him,
and appointed the Apostle to announce that fact. It can only mean that
through Christ, through what He did and suffered for us, peace is
restored between God and man, who is able and willing to be gracious.
This is the gospel which Paul was commissioned to announce, namely, as
follows in the next verse, God is bringing about peace; He was in
Christ effecting this peace, and now is ready to forgive sin, i.e., not
to impute unto men their trespasses; and therefore the Apostle urges
his readers to embrace this offer of mercy, to be reconciled unto God;
i.e., to accept his overture of reconciliation. For it has a sure
foundation. It rests on the substitution and vicarious death of Christ.
He was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him. It is impossible, therefore, that the reconciliation of which
the Apostles speak as effected by the cross or death of Christ, should,
in its primary and main aspect, be a subjective change in us from
enmity to the love of God. It is such a reconciliation as makes God our
friend; a reconciliation which enables Him to pardon and save sinners,
and which they are called upon most gratefully to embrace.
It is clearly, therefore, the doctrine of the New Testament, that Jesus
Christ our Lord saves his people by acting for them the part of a
priest. For this office He had all the requisite qualifications; He was
thereto duly appointed, and He performed all its functions. He was an
expiatory sacrifice for the sins of men. He is not only repeatedly
declared to be a sin offering in the Old Testament sense of that term;
but He is said to have borne our sins; to have made expiation for the
sins of the people; and to have reconciled us, who were the just
objects of the divine wrath, to God by his death, by his cross, by the
sacrifice of Himself. These representations are so frequent; they are
so formally stated, so illustrated, and so applied, as to render them
characteristic. They constitute the essential element of the Scriptural
doctrine concerning the method of salvation.
Christ our Redeemer.
There is a third class of passages equally numerous and equally
important. Christ is not only set forth as a Priest and as a sacrifice,
but also as a Redeemer, and his work as a Redemption. Redemption is
deliverance from evil by the payment of a ransom. This idea is
expressed by the words apolutrosis, from lutron, and the verbs lutros,
agorazo (to purchase), and exagorazo (to buy from, or deliver out of
the possession or power of any one by purchase). The price or ransom
paid for our redemption is always said to be Christ himself, his blood,
his death. As the evils consequent on our apostasy from God are
manifold, Christ's work as a Redeemer is presented in manifold
relations in the word of God.
Redemption from the Penalty of the Law.
1. The first and most obvious consequence of sin, is subjection to the
penalty of the law. The wages of sin is death. Every sin of necessity
subjects the sinner to the wrath and curse of God. The first step,
therefore, in the salvation of sinners, is their redemption from that
curse. Until this is done they are of necessity separated from God. But
alienation from Him of necessity involves both misery and subjection to
the power of sin. So long as men are under the curse, they are cut off
from the only source of holiness and life. Such is the doctrine taught
throughout the Bible, and elaborately in Romans, chapters vi. and vii.
In effecting the salvation of his people, Christ "redeemed them from
the curse of the law," not by a mere act of sovereignty, or power; not
by moral influence restoring them to virtue, but by being "made a curse
for them." No language can be plainer than this. The curse is the
penalty of the law. We were subject to that penalty. Christ has
redeemed us from that subjection by being made a curse for us.
(Galatians iii. 13.) That the infinitely exalted and holy Son of God
should be "accursed" (epikataratos), is so awful an idea, that the
Apostle justifies the use of such language by quoting the declaration
of Scripture, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." Suffering,
and especially the suffering of death, judicially inflicted on account
of sin, is penal. Those who thus suffer bear the curse or penalty of
the law. The sufferings of Christ, and especially his death upon the
cross, were neither calamities, nor chastisements designed for his own
good, nor symbolical or didactic exhibitions, designed to illustrate
and enforce truth, and exert a moral influence on others; these are all
subordinate and collateral ends. Nor were they the mere natural
consequences of his becoming a man and subjecting Himself to the common
lot of humanity. They were divine inflictions. It pleased the Lord to
bruise Him. He was smitten of God and afflicted. These sufferings were
declared to be on account of sin, not his own, but ours. He bore our
sins. The chastisement of our peace was on Him. And they were designed
as an expiation, or for the satisfaction of justice. They had,
therefore, all the elements of punishment, and consequently it was in a
strict and proper sense that He was made a curse for us. All this is
included in what the Apostle teaches in this passage (Gal. iii. 13),
and its immediate context.
Redemption from the Law.
2. Nearly allied to this mode of representation are those passages in
which Christ is said to have delivered us from the law. Redemption from
bondage to the law includes not only deliverance from its penalty, but
also from the obligation to satisfy its demands. This is the
fundamental idea of Paul's doctrine of justification. The law demands,
and from the nature of God, must demand perfect obedience. It says, Do
this and live; and, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all
things which are written in the book of the law to do them." No man
since the fall is able to fulfil these demands, yet He must fulfil them
or perish. The only possible method, according to the Scriptures, by
which men can be saved, is that they should be delivered from this
obligation of perfect obedience. This, the Apostle teaches, has been
effected by Christ. He was "made under the law to redeem them that were
under the law." (Gal. iv. 4, 5.) Therefore, in Romans vi. 14, he says
to believers, "Ye are not under the law, but under grace." And this
redemption from the law in Romans vii. 4, is said to be "by the body of
Christ." Hence we are justified not by our own obedience, but "by the
obedience" of Christ. (Rom. v. 18, 19.) Redemption in this case is not
mere deliverance, but a true redemption, i. e., a deliverance effected
by satisfying all the just claims which are against us. The Apostle
says, in Galatians iv. 5, that we are thus redeemed from the law, in
order "that we might receive the adoption of sons"; that is, be
introduced into the state and relation of sons to God. Subjection to
the law, in our case, was a state of bondage. Those under the law are,
therefore, called slaves, douloi. From this state of bondage they are
redeemed, and introduced into the liberty of the sons of God. This
redemption includes freedom from a slavish spirit, which is supplanted
by a spirit of adoption, filling the heart with reverence, love, and
confidence in God as our reconciled Father.
Redemption from the Power of Sin.
3. As deliverance from the curse of the law secures restoration to the
favour of God, and as the love of God is the life of the soul, and
restores us to his image, therefore in redeeming us from the curse of
the law, Christ redeems us also from the power of sin. "Whosoever
committeth sin," saith our Lord, "is the servant (the slave) of sin."
This is a bondage from which no man can deliver himself. To effect this
deliverance was the great object of the mission of Christ. He gave
Himself that He might purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of
good works. He died, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us
unto God. He loved the Church and gave Himself for it, that He might
present it unto Himself a glorious Church, without spot or wrinkle or
any such thing. This deliverance from sin is a true redemption. A
deliverance effected by a ransom, or satisfaction to justice, was the
necessary condition of restoration to the favour of God; and
restoration to his favour was the necessary condition of holiness.
Therefore, it is said, Galatians i. 8, Christ "gave Himself for our
sins, that He might deliver us (exeletai) from this present evil
world." Titus ii. 14, "Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us
from all iniquity." 1 Peter i. 18, 19, "Ye were not redeemed with
corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation
received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of
Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." Deliverance by
sacrifice was deliverance by ransom. Therefore, here as elsewhere, the
two modes of statement are combined. Thus our Lord in Matthew xx. 28,
Mark x. 45, says, "The Son of Man came . . . . to give his life a
ransom for many (anti, not merely huper, pollon)." The idea of
substitution cannot be more definitely expressed. In these passages our
deliverance is said to be effected by a ransom. In Matthew xxvi. 28,
our Lord says that his blood was "shed for many for the remission of
sins." Here his death is presented in the light of a sacrifice. The two
modes of deliverance are therefore identical. A ransom was a
satisfaction to justice, and a sacrifice is a satisfaction to justice.
Redemption from the Power of Satan.
4. The Scriptures teach that Christ redeems us from the power of Satan.
Satan is said to be the prince and god of this world. His kingdom is
the kingdom of darkness, in which all men, since Adam, are born, and in
which they remain, until translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son.
They are his subjects "taken captive by him at his will." (2 Tim. ii.
26.) The first promise was that the seed of the woman should bruise the
serpent's head. Christ came to destroy the works of the devil; to cast
him down from his place of usurped power, to deliver those who are
subject to his dominion. (2 Cor. iv. 4; Col. ii. 16.) The fact of this
redemption of his people from the power of Satan, and the mode of its
accomplishment, are clearly stated in Hebrews ii. 15. The eternal Son
of God, who in the first chapter of that epistle, is proved to be God,
the object of the worship of angels, the creator of heaven and earth,
eternal and immutable, in verse 14 of the second chapter, is said to
have become man, in order "that through death He might destroy him that
had the power of death, and deliver them who through fear of death were
all their lifetime subject to bondage." It is here taught, (1.) That
men are in a state of bondage through fear of the wrath of God on
account of sin. (2.) That in this state they are in subjection to Satan
who has the power of death over them; i.e., the ability and opportunity
of inflicting on them the sufferings due to them as sinners. (3.) That
from this state of bondage and of subjection to the power of Satan,
they are delivered by the death of Christ. His death, by satisfying the
justice of God, frees them from the penalty of the law; and freedom
from the curse of the law involves freedom from the power of Satan to
inflict its penalty. "The strength of sin is the law." (1 Cor. xv. 56.)
What satisfies the law deprives sin of the power to subject us to the
wrath of God. And thus redemption from the law, is redemption from the
curse, and consequently redemption from the power of Satan. This
Scriptural representation took such hold of the imagination of many of
the early fathers, that they dwelt upon it, almost to the exclusion of
other and more important aspects of the work of Christ. They dallied
with it and wrought it out into many fanciful theories. These theories
have passed away; the Scriptural truth which underlay them, remains.
Christ is our Redeemer from the power of Satan, as well as from the
curse of the law, and from the dominion of sin. And if a Redeemer, the
deliverance which He effected was by means of a ransom. Hence He is
often said to have purchased his people. They are his because He bought
them. "Know ye not that . . . . ye are not your own?" says the Apostle,
"For ye are bought with a price." (1 Cor. vi. 20.) God, in Acts xx. 28,
is said to have purchased the Church "with his own blood." "Ye were
redeemed (delivered by purchase) . . . . with the precious blood of
Christ." (1 Pet. i. 18, 19.) "Thou art worthy . . . . for thou has
purchased us (hegorasas) for God by thy blood." (Rev. v. 9.)
Final Redemption from all Evil.
5. Christ redeems us not only from the curse of the law, from the law
itself as a covenant of works, from the power of sin, and from the
dominion of Satan, but also from all evil. This evil is the consequence
of the curse of the law, and being redeemed from that we are delivered
from all evil. Hence the word redemption is often used for the sum of
all the benefits of Christ's work, or for the consummation of the great
scheme of salvation. Thus our Lord says, Luke xxi. 28, that when the
Son of Man shall appear in his glory, then his disciples may be sure
that their "redemption draweth nigh." They are sealed unto the day of
redemption. (Eph. i. 14.) Christ has "obtained eternal redemption."
(Heb. ix. 12.) Believers are represented as waiting for their
redemption. (Rom. viii. 23.)
It is therefore the plain doctrine of Scripture that, as before said,
Christ saves us neither by the mere exercise of power, nor by his
doctrine, nor by his example, nor by the moral influence which He
exerted, nor by any subjective influence on his people, whether natural
or mystical, but as a satisfaction to divine justice, as an expiation
for sin and as a ransom from the curse and authority of the law, thus
reconciling us to God, by making it consistent with his perfections to
exercise mercy toward sinners, and then renewing them after his own
image, and finally exalting them to all the dignity, excellence, and
blessedness of the sons of God.
Argument from Related Doctrines.
All the doctrines of grace are intimately connected. They stand in such
relation to each other, that one of necessity supposes the truth of the
others. The common Church doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ,
therefore, is not an isolated doctrine. It is assumed in all that the
Scriptures teach of the relation between Christ and his people; of the
condition on which our interest in his redemption is suspended; and of
the nature of the benefits of that redemption.
1. No doctrine of the Bible, relating to the plan of salvation, is more
plainly taught or more wide reaching than that which concerns the union
between Christ and his people. That union in one aspect, was from
eternity, we were in Him before the foundation of the world; given to
Him of the Father, to redeem from the estate of sin and misery, into
which it was foreseen our race would by transgression fall. It was for
the accomplishment of this purpose of mercy that He assumed our nature,
was born of a woman, and did and suffered all that He was called upon
to do and to endure in working out our salvation. He did not,
therefore, come into the world for Himself. It was not to work out a
righteousness of his own to entitle Him to the exaltation and power
which in our nature He now enjoys. In virtue of the Godhead of his
personality, He was of necessity infinitely exalted above all
creatures. He came for us. He came as a representative. He came in the
same relation to his people, which Adam, in the original covenant, bore
to the whole race. He came to take their place; to be their substitute,
to do for them, and in their name, what they could not do for
themselves. All He did, therefore, was vicarious; his obedience and his
sufferings. The parallel between Adam and Christ, the two great
representatives of man, the two federal heads, the one of all his
natural descendants, the other of all given Him by the Father, is
carried out into its details in Romans v. 12-21. It is assumed or
implied, however, everywhere else in the sacred volume. What Adam did,
in his federal capacity, was in law and justice regarded as done by all
whom he represented. And so all that Christ did and suffered as a
federal head, was in law and justice done or suffered by his people.
Therefore, as we were condemned for the disobedience of Adam, so we are
justified for the obedience of Christ. As in Adam all died, so in
Christ are all made alive. Hence Christ's death is said to be our
death, and we are said to rise with Him, to live with Him, and to be
exalted, in our measure, in his exaltation. He is the head and we are
the body. The acts of the head, are the acts of the whole mystical
person. The ideas, therefore, of legal substitution, of vicarious
obedience and punishment, of the satisfaction of justice by one for
all, underlie and pervade the whole scheme of redemption. They can no
more be separated from that scheme than the warp can be separated from
the woof without destroying the whole texture.
2. In like manner these same truths are implied in what sinners are
required to do in order to become the subjects of the redemption of
Christ. It is not enough that we should receive his doctrines; or
endeavour to regulate our lives by his moral precepts; or that we
confide in his protection, or submit to his control as one into whose
hands all power in heaven and earth has been committed. It is not
enough that we should open our hearts to all the influences for good
which flow from his person or his work. We must trust in Him. We must
renounce our own righteousness, and confide in his for our acceptance
with God. We must give up the idea that we can satisfy the demands of
God's justice and law, by anything we can do, suffer, or experience,
and rely exclusively on what He, as our representative, substitute, and
surety, has done and suffered in our stead. This is what the gospel
demands. And this, the world over, is precisely what every true
believer, no matter what his theological theories may be, actually
does. But this act of self-renunciation and of faith in Christ as the
ground of our forgiveness and acceptance with God, supposes Him to be
our substitute, who has satisfied all the demands of law and justice in
our stead.
3. If we turn to the Scriptural account of the benefits which we
receive from Christ, we find that this view of the nature of his work,
is therein necessarily implied. We are justified through Him. He is our
righteousness. We are made the righteousness of God in Him. But
justification is not a subjective work. It is not sanctification. It is
not a change wrought in us either naturally or supernaturally. It is
not the mere executive act of a sovereign, suspending the action of the
law, or granting pardon to the guilty. It is the opposite of
condemnation. It is a declaration that the claims of justice are
satisfied. This is the uniform meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words
employed in Scripture, and of the corresponding words in all other
languages, as far as those languages are cultivated to express what
passes in the consciousness of men. But if God, in justifying sinners,
declares that with regard to them the claims of justice are satisfied,
it confessedly is not on the ground that the sinner himself has made
that satisfaction, but that Christ has made it in his behalf.
The doctrine of sanctification also, as presented in the Scriptures, is
founded on the substitution of Christ. Sanctification is not a work of
nature, but a work of grace. It is a transformation of character
effected not by moral influences, but supernaturally by the Holy
Spirit; although on that account only the more rationally. The first
step in the process is deliverance from the curse of the law by the
body, or death of Christ. Then God being reconciled, He admits us into
fellowship with Himself. But as the sinner is only imperfectly
sanctified, he is still in his state and acts far from being in himself
an object of the divine complacency. It is only as united to Christ and
represented by Him, that he enjoys the continuance of the divine
favour, which is his life, and constantly receives from Him the gift of
the Holy Spirit. So that the life that the believer lives, is Christ
living in him. Thus in the whole process of salvation the ideas of
substitution, of representation, of Christ's being and doing for us,
all that we are required to be and to do, are of necessity involved.
And even to the last we are saved only in Him. It is in virtue of this
union that believers are raised from the dead, admitted into heaven,
and receive the crown of eternal life. It is not for what they have
done, nor for what they have been made, but solely for what has been
done in their stead that they are made partakers of his life, and,
ultimately, of his glory.
Argument from the Religious Experience of Believers.
By the religious experience of Christians is meant those states and
acts of the mind produced by "the things of the Spirit," or by the
truths of God's Word as revealed and applied by the Holy Ghost. We are
clearly taught in Scripture that the truth is not only objectively
presented in the Word, but that it is the gracious office of the
Spirit, as a teacher and guide, to lead the people of God properly to
understand the truths thus outwardly revealed, and to cause them to
produce their proper effect on the reason, the feelings, the
conscience, and the life. What the Holy Spirit thus leads the people of
God to believe must be true. No man however is authorized to appeal to
his own inward experience as a test of truth for others. His experience
may be, and in most cases is, determined more or less by his peculiar
training, his own modes of thinking, and diverse other modifying
influences. But this does not destroy the value of religious experience
as a guide to the knowledge of the truth. It has an authority second
only to that of the Word of God. One great source of error in theology
has always been the neglect of this inward guide. Men have formed their
opinions, or framed their doctrines on philosophical principles, or
moral axioms, and thus have been led to adopt conclusions which
contradict the inward teachings of the Spirit, and even their own
religious consciousness. The only question is, How can we distinguish
the human from the divine? How can we determine what in our experience
is due to the teaching of the Spirit, and what to other influences? The
answer to these questions is, (1.) That what is conformed to the
infallible standard in the Scriptures, is genuine, and what is not thus
conformed is spurious. The Bible contains not only the truths
themselves, but a record of the effects produced on the mind when they
are applied by the Holy Spirit. (2.) Another test is universality. What
all true Christians experience must be referred to a cause common to
all. It cannot be accounted for by what is peculiar to individuals or
to denominations. (3.) A subordinate test, but one of great value to
the individual, is to be found in the nature of the experience itself,
and its effects upon the heart and life. A religious experience which
makes a man self-complacent, self-righteous, proud, censorious, and
persecuting, is certainly not to be referred to the Spirit of holiness
and love. But if a man's experience renders him humble, meek, contrite,
forgiving, and long-suffering; if it leads him to believe all things
and hope all things; if it renders him spiritually and heavenly minded;
if it makes it Christ for him to live; in short, if it produces the
same effect on him that the truth produced on the prophets and
apostles, there can be little doubt that it is due to the teaching and
influence of the Holy Ghost.
It is certainly an unanswerable argument in favour of the divinity of
Christ, for example, as a doctrine of the Bible, that all true
Christians look up to Christ as God; that they render Him the
adoration, the love, the confidence, the submission, and the devotion
which are due to God alone, and which the apprehension of divine
perfection only can produce. It is certainly a proof that the
Scriptures teach that man is a fallen being, that he is guilty and
defiled by sin, that he is utterly unable to free himself from the
burden and power of sin, that he is dependent on the grace of God and
the power of the Spirit, if these truths are inwrought into the
experience of all true believers. In like manner, if all Christians
trust in Christ for their salvation; if they look to Him as their
substitute, obeying and suffering in their stead, bearing their sins,
sustaining the curse of the law in their place; if they regard Him as
the expiatory sacrifice to take away their guilt and satisfy the
justice of God in their behalf; if they thank and bless Him for having
given Himself as a ransom for their redemption from the penalty and
obligation of the law as prescribing the condition of salvation, and
from the dominion of Satan, from the power of sin and from all its evil
consequences; then, beyond doubt, these are the truths of God, revealed
by the Spirit in the word, and taught by the Spirit to all who submit
to his guidance. That such is the experience of true believers in
relation to the work of Christ, is plain, (1.) Because this is the form
and manner in which holy men of old whose experience is recorded in the
Scriptures, expressed their relation to Christ and their obligations to
Him. He was to them an expiatory sacrifice; a ransom; an hilasmos or
propitiation. They regarded Him as made a curse for them; as bearing
their punishment, or "the chastisement of their peace." They received
the "sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ," as the only means of
being cleansed from the guilt of their sins, and of restoration to the
favour of God and holiness of heart and life. This was undoubtedly
their experience as it is recorded in the Bible. (2.) In the second
place, from the times of the Apostle to the present day, the people of
God have had the same inward convictions and feelings. This is clear
from their confessions of faith, from their liturgies and prayers, from
their hymns, and from all the records of their inward religious life.
Let any one look over the hymns of the Latin Church, of the Moravians,
the Lutherans, the Reformed, of Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists,
Methodists, Independents, and Congregationalists, and see what truths
on this subject constituted and now constitute the, food and atmosphere
of their religious life: -"Jesus, my God, Thy blood alone hath power sufficient to atone."
"To the dear fountain of Thy blood, incarnate God, I fly"
"My soul looks back to see the burdens Thou didst bear, When hanging on
the cursed tree, and hopes her sins were there."
"Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld,
Der Welt unnd ihren Kinder."
"Geh hin, nimm dich der Sünder an,
Die auch kein Engel retten kann
Von meines Zornes Ruthen!
Die Straf' ist schwer, der Zorn ist gross;
Du kannst und sollst sie machen los
Durch Sterben und durch Bluten."
Does any Christian object to such hymns? Do they not express his inmost
religious convictions? If they do not agree with the speculations of
his understanding, do they not express the feelings of his heart and
the necessities of his fallen nature? The speculations of the
understanding are what man teaches; the truths which call forth these
feelings of the heart are what the Holy Ghost teaches.
This argument may be presented in another light. It may be shown that
no other theory of the work of Christ does correspond with the inward
experience of God's people. The theory that the work of Christ was
didactic; that it was exemplary; that its proximate design was to
produce a subjective change in the sinner or a moral impression on the
minds of all intelligent creatures; these and other theories, contrary
to the common Church doctrine, fail especially in two points. First,
they do not account for the intimate personal relation between Christ
and the believer which is everywhere recognized in Scripture, and which
is so precious in the view of all true Christians. Secondly, they make
no provision for the expiation of sin, or for satisfying the demands of
a guilty conscience, which mere pardon never can appease.
Throughout the New Testament, Christ is represented not only as the
object of worship and of supreme love and devotion, but also as being
to his people the immediate and constant source of life and of all
good. Not Christ as God, but Christ as our Saviour. He is the head, we
are his members. He is the vine, we are the branches. It is not we that
live, but Christ that liveth in us. He is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. His blood cleanses us
from all sins. He redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a
curse for us. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. He is our
great High Priest who ever lives to make intercession for us. It would
be easy to show from the records of the religious life of the Church
that believers have ever regarded Christ in the light in which He is
here presented. The argument is that these representations are not
consistent with any moral or governmental theory of the atonement.
There are two hymns which, perhaps, beyond all others, are dear to the
hearts of all Christians who speak the English language. The one
written by Charles Wesley, an Arminian; the other by Toplady, a
Calvinist. It is hard to see what meaning can be attached to these
hymns by those who hold that Christ died simply to teach us something,
or to make a moral impression on us or others. How can they say, -"Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly"?
Why should they fly to Him if He be only a teacher or moral reformer?
What do they mean when they say, -"Hide me, O my Saviour hide"?
Hide from what? Not from the vindicatory justice of God, for they admit
no such attribute.
"Other refuge have I none;"
refuge from what?
"All my trust on Thee is laid."
For what do we trust Him? According to their theory He is not the
ground of our confidence. It is not for his righteousness, but For our
own that we are to be accepted by God. It would seem that those only
who hold the common Church doctrine can say, -"Thou, O Christ, art all I need."
All I need as a creature, as a sinner, as guilty, as polluted, as
miserable and helpless; all I need for time or for eternity. So of
Toplady's precious hymn, -"Rock of ages, cleft for me;"
for me personally and individually; as Paul said he lived "by faith of
the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me."
"Let the water and the blood,
From Thy wounded side that flowed;
Be of sin the double cure;
Cleanse me from its guilt and power."
How can such language be used by those who deny the necessity of
expiation; who hold that guilt need not be washed away, that all that
is necessary is that we should be made morally good? No one can say, -"Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling,"
who does not believe that Christ "bore our sins in his own body on the
tree."
It is a historical fact that where false theories of the atonement
prevail, Christ and his work are put in the background. We hear from
the pulpits much about God as a moral governor; much about the law and
obligation, and of the duty of submission; but little about Christ, of
the duty of fleeing to Him, of receiving Him, of trusting in Him, of
renouncing our own righteousness that we may put on the righteousness
of God; and little of our union with Him, of his living in us, and of
our duty to live by faith in Him Thus new theories introduce a new
religion.
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[424] Dogmatik, II. iii. 1, § 401. Königsberg, 1852, vol. ii. p. 159.
[425] This also is the doctrine of Hofmann in his Schriftbeweis. It is
one of the principal objects of Delitzsch in his Commentary on the
Epistle to the Hebrews and in the long Excursus attached to that
admirable work, to contest the doctrine of Hofmann on the nature of the
work of Christ.
[426] This is the theory by Dr. Bähr, in his Symbolik.
[427] Keil in his Biblische Archäologie, and many others, give
substantially this moral view. According to Keil, sacrifices were
designed to teach the translation of the sinner from a state of
alienation from God to a state of grace. Dr. Young, in his Light and
Life of Men, represents them as Bähr does, as indicating the surrender
of the soul to God, and as intended to give a divine sanction to the
use of animal food. Notwithstanding these conflicting speculations of
individual writers, it remains true that the great body of Biblical
scholars of all ages and of all classes regard the sin offering of the
Old Testament as real piacular sacrifices. This is done by the highest
class of the modern German theologians, who for themselves reject the
Church doctrine of the atonement.
[428] "Obsecro Domine, peccavi, rebellis fui, perverse egi, hoc et
illud feci, nunc autem me peccasse poenitet; hæc sit itaque expiato
mea." De Sacrificiis, I. xxii. 9, edit. London, 1677, p. 273.
[429] Lib. I. xv. 8, p. 166 ff.
[430] Typology, edit. Philadelphia, 1857, vol. ii. p. 288, note.
[431] Commentar zum Briefe an die Hebräer, Leipzig, 1857, p. 716.
[432] The Later Prophecies of Isaiah, New York, 1847, p. 264.
[433] Commentar zum Briefe an die Hebräer, p. 720.
[434] Ibid. p. 719.
[435] Page 442.
[436] Commentary on Hebrews, Leipzig, 1722.
[437] Institutiones Theologiæ, § 136, 5th edit. Halle, 1826, p. 424.
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