THE ATONEMENT. Our older standard authors have little to say, in terms, respecting the atonement. The word seldom occurs in their writings, except in reference to the typical atonements of the Old Testament. They merge what is now technically called the atonement in the more general subject of redemption. And since the atonement has come to be separately discussed, there is not an entire agreement among evangelical Christians with regard to its nature and efficiency. The old-school Calvinists consider the atonement of Christ as consisting in his personal obedience and death; the latter availing to the believer as the ground of his forgiveness, the former as the ground of his reward. But Hopkinsian writers, while they attach an indispensable importance to the perfect obedience of Christ as a prerequisite to the atonement, as that without which no atonement could have been made, - still regard the atonement as consisting essentially in his sufferings and death. In proof of this position, several considerations have been urged. -- In the first place, Christ's obedience could not meet the chief necessity of an atonement. That which is needed is something to sustain law; something to stand in place of the threatened penalty of the law; something which will answer all the purposes of moral government as well as the execution of the penalty. An expedient of this nature would be an atonement; anything short of it would not be. Now it is obvious that the perfect holiness of Christ was no substitute for the penalty threatened to transgressors. It was not adapted to be. It could not be. There was need of suffering here. The penalty of the law consists in suffering, and an equivalent, a substitute, must be of the same nature. A like view is presented in the typical atonements of the Old Testament. These all prefigured the atonement of Christ, and may be supposed, so far as they go, to prefigure it accurately. Now it was indispensable to the acceptableness of an offering under the law, that the animal offered should be perfect in its kind. It must be without spot or blemish; thus indicating the necessity of the perfect holiness of Christ. Still, the typical atonement did not consist in the spotlessness of the lamb, but in the shedding of its blood. It was the blood, emphatically, which made the atonement. So the atonement of Christ prefigured by that of the law, must be supposed to consist in the shedding of his blood. The same view is presented in numerous passages of scripture. The utmost stress is everywhere laid in the scriptures upon the cross, the blood, the death of Christ, as that in which the expiation, the atonement, properly consists. To quote passages in proof of this point would be superfluous. Christ is said to have been a sacrifice, an offering, an oblation, a propitiation for sin. He is said to have suffered for our sins, to have died for our sins, to have been delivered for our offences, and to have been made a curse for us in hanging on a tree. The strongest expressions are used in different parts of the Bible to set forth the nature of Christ's atonement, as consisting in his sufferings and death. 66 And while so great stress is laid on the death of Christ, we find his obedience spoken of in only a few instances; and in most of these, if not all (as the connection shows), the reference is to what has been called his passive obedience, or his obedience unto death. "Yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered" (Heb. v. 8). Being found in fashion as a man, he became obedient unto death" (Phil. ii. 8). By the obedience of one, shall many be made righteous" (Rom. v. 19). These are the only passages in the Bible, in which the obedience of Christ is spoken of. The first two refer, certainly, to his obedience in suffering; and by the most judicious commentators, the last passage quoted is interpreted in the same way. There is a difference, also, between Hopkinsians and other Calvinists as to the efficacy of the atonement, or the manner in which it avails to our justification. Some have believed that, by suffering for us, Christ literally paid our debt to divine justice. So taught Auselm, in the twelfth century, and Aquinas in the thirteenth, and many others of later date, in both the Romish and Protestant churches. But to this theory there are insuperable objections. In the first place, the demands of governmental justice against us are not of the nature of a debt, and cannot be cancelled as such. And then if they were so, and the atonement of Christ had cancelled the debt, we should owe nothing to the law. The law would no longer have any demands against us. We should need no forgiveness, nor would forgiveness be possible; as nought would remain to be forgiven. -an Some have said that the death of Christ availed to make an atonement for sinners, not by paying a literal debt, but by his suffering for them the strict and proper penalty of the law. But to this statement there are also serious objections. The first grows out of the very nature of the penalty in question. This is eternal death an eternal separation from God and from all good-the eternal destruction of body and soul in hell. It involves all the agonies of the bottomless pit; not the least part of which are the direct results of present personal sin and guilt;- the indulgence of the most hateful, painful passions; the stings and reproaches of conscience; dissatisfaction with God and his government; and a perpetual, burning sense of his displeasure. Did our Saviour suffer all these, or any of them? Being perfectly holy, was it possible that he should? How could such a being endure the pangs of unsated malice, envy and revenge? How could he suffer from the stings and reproaches of conscience? In other words, how could he suffer the pains and agonies of the bottomless pit, which go to constitute the proper penalty of the law? But suppose that Christ did suffer all this. Suppose him. to have suffered, not only as much as all his elect would suffer in hell forever, but the very same," agony for agony, and groan for groan;" would he even then have suffered the proper penalty of the law? Manifestly not; and for the very sufficient reason that he was not the transgressor of the law. The penalty of the law is denounced upon the "In the day that thou "The soul that sinneth transgressor, and upon no one else. eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." it shall die." Such is the language which the law uses, in setting forth its penalty; and we see, from the very terms employed, that the penalty can fall upon none but the transgressor. Another may step in and endure a full equivalent, and so make a full expiation; but the proper penalty be cannot endure, even though he should suffer in kind and amount the same. . There is yet another objection to the theory in question the same as that before considered. If Christ has suffered the full penalty of the law for us, then the law has no further demands against us. We need no forgiveness, nor is forgiveness possible. There is nothing left to be forgiven. Forgiveness is a remission of the incurred penalty of the law. But the penalty, on the supposition, has all been endured. It no longer remains to be remitted. God will not exact it twice; nor can he remit it, when it is no longer due. But if the death of Christ did not avail to make an atonement, either by paying our debt to justice, or by his suffering for us the proper penalty of the law, how did it avail? In what does its atoning virtue or efficacy consist? Hopkinsians answer these questions by saying that, although Christ did not suffer the proper penalty of the law, he suffered a full equivalent for the penalty- a complete governmental substitute for it. His sufferings and death in our room and stead as fully sustain the authority of law, as fully meet the demands of justice, as fully answer all the purposes of the divine government, as would the infliction of the penalty itself; and consequently they are a complete substitute for the penalty, or in other words, a complete atonement. It is believed by all evangelical Christians, that Christ's death was vicarious, or that he died as a substitute. But a substitute how, and for what? Not that he endured the proper penalty of the law for us, but an adequate substitute for that penalty; so that the penalty itself may now be safely and consistently remitted. Were the penalty all borne, nothing would be left to be remitted. But as it has not been borne, but only a governmental substitute for it, as it has not been removed, but only a way opened in which it may be; there is as much need of forgiveness, and as much to be forgiven, as though the Saviour had not died. It is claimed as an advantage of this view of the atonement, that it makes it, as to its sufficiency, universal. The other view goes to limit the atonement; and so it is understood by those in general who advocate it. Christ would not endure the full penalty of the law for those whom it was not his purpose to save; and who, of course, would not be benefitted by his death. And yet the scriptures assure us that, as to its nature and sufficiency, the atonement of Christ is universal. It was made for all men. He "died for all;" he "gave himself a ransom for all;" he "tasted death for every man ;" he "is the propitiation, not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” 1 Christ's atonement is as sufficient for one as for another. It is sufficient for all who will embrace it, and rest upon it. Accordingly, the invitations of the gospel are sounded forth indiscriminately to all men. "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters;" "look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth;" "whosoever will, let him come, and take the water of life freely." Such, clearly, is the scriptural view, as to the extent and sufficiency of the atonement; and such is the view presented in the Hopkinsian or governmental theory. This makes the atonement. universal in its very nature. There is nothing to limit it but the sovereign pleasure of him who made it, or to whom it was made. Another advantage of this theory is, that it harmonizes entirely the idea of a full and complete atonement, with that of free grace in forgiveness or justification. On the other theories noticed, these ideas can never be reconciled. If Christ paid our whole debt to justice, or suffered for us the full penalty of the law, then, supposing forgiveness possible (which it is not), certainly there could be no grace in 12 Cor. v. 14; 1 Tim. ii. 6; Heb. ii. 9; 1 John ii. 2. VOL. XIX. No. 75. 55 |