{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_24757/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_24757","id":"gutenberg_24757","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24757","summary":null,"tags":["Atonement","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE ATONEMENT\n\nAND\n\nTHE MODERN MIND\n\n\nBY\n\nJAMES DENNEY, D.D.\n\n\nPROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND THEOLOGY\n\nUNITED FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW\n\n\n\n_WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR_\n\n  THE DEATH OF CHRIST\n  STUDIES IN THEOLOGY\n  THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS\n  THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS\n  GOSPEL QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS\n\n\n\n\n\nLONDON\n\nHODDER AND STOUGHTON\n\n27 PATERNOSTER ROW\n\nMCMIII\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nThe three chapters which follow have already appeared in _The\nExpositor_, and may be regarded as a supplement to the writer's work on\n_The Death of Christ: its place and interpretation in the New\nTestament_.  It was no part of his intention in that study to ask or to\nanswer all the questions raised by New Testament teaching on the\nsubject; but, partly from reviews of _The Death of Christ_, and still\nmore from a considerable private correspondence to which the book gave\nrise, he became convinced that something further should be attempted to\ncommend the truth to the mind and conscience of the time.  The\ndifficulties and misunderstandings connected with it spring, as far as\nthey can be considered intellectual, mainly from two sources.  Either\nthe mind is preoccupied with a conception of the world which, whether\nmen are conscious of it or not, forecloses all the questions which are\nraised by any doctrine of atonement, and makes them unmeaning; or it\nlabours under some misconception as to what the New Testament actually\nteaches.  Broadly speaking, the first of these conditions is considered\nin the first two chapters, and the second in the last.  The title--_The\nAtonement and the Modern Mind_--might seem to promise a treatise, or\neven an elaborate system of theology; but though it would cover a work\nof vastly larger scope than the present, it is not inappropriate to any\nattempt, however humble, to help the mind in which we all live and move\nto reach a sympathetic comprehension of the central truth in the\nChristian religion.  The purpose of the writer is evangelic, whatever\nmay be said of his method; it is to commend the Atonement to the human\nmind, as that mind has been determined by the influences and\nexperiences of modern times, and to win the mind for the truth of the\nAtonement.\n\nWith the exception of a few paragraphs, these pages were delivered as\nlectures to a summer school of Theology which met in Aberdeen, in June\nof this year.  The school was organised by a committee of the\nAssociation of Former Students of the United Free Church College,\nGlasgow; and the writer, as a member and former President of the\nAssociation, desires to take the liberty of inscribing his work to his\nfellow-students.\n\n\nGLASGOW, _September_ 1903.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nPRELIMINARY DEFINITION OF THE SUBJECT\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nSIN AND THE DIVINE REACTION AGAINST IT\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nCHRIST AND MAN IN THE ATONEMENT\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nPRELIMINARY DEFINITION OF THE SUBJECT\n\nIt will be admitted by most Christians that if the Atonement, quite\napart from precise definitions of it, is anything to the mind, it is\neverything.  It is the most profound of all truths, and the most\nrecreative.  It determines more than anything else our conceptions of\nGod, of man, of history, and even of nature; it determines them, for we\nmust bring them all in some way into accord with it.  It is the\ninspiration of all thought, the impulse and the law of all action, the\nkey, in the last resort, to all suffering.  Whether we call it a fact\nor a truth, a power or a doctrine, it is that in which the\n_differentia_ of Christianity, its peculiar and exclusive character, is\nspecifically shown; it is the focus of revelation, the point at which\nwe see deepest into the truth of God, and come most completely under\nits power.  For those who recognise it at all it is Christianity in\nbrief; it concentrates in itself, as in a germ of infinite potency, all\nthat the wisdom, power and love of God mean in relation to sinful men.\n\nAccordingly, when we speak of the Atonement and the modern mind, we are\nreally speaking of the modern mind and the Christian religion.  The\nrelation between these two magnitudes may vary.  The modern mind is no\nmore than a modification of the human mind as it exists in all ages,\nand the relation of the modern mind to the Atonement is one phase--it\nmay be a specially interesting or a specially well-defined phase--of\nthe perennial relation of the mind of man to the truth of God.  There\nis always an affinity between the two, for God made man in His own\nimage, and the mind can only rest in truth; but there is always at the\nsame time an antipathy, for man is somehow estranged from God, and\nresents Divine intrusion into his life.  This is the situation at all\ntimes, and therefore in modern times; we only need to remark that when\nthe Atonement is in question, the situation, so to speak, becomes\nacute.  All the elements in it define themselves more sharply.  If\nthere is sympathy between the mind and the truth, it is a profound\nsympathy, which will carry the mind far; if there are lines of\napproach, through which the truth can find access to the mind, they are\nlines laid deep in the nature of things and of men, and the access\nwhich the truth finds by them is one from which it will not easily be\ndislodged.  On the other hand, if it is antagonism which is roused in\nthe mind by the Atonement, it is an antagonism which feels that\neverything is at stake.  The Atonement is a reality of such a sort that\nit can make no compromise.  The man who fights it knows that he is\nfighting for his life, and puts all his strength into the battle.  To\nsurrender is literally to give up himself, to cease to be the man he\nis, and to become another man.  For the modern mind, therefore, as for\nthe ancient, the attraction and the repulsion of Christianity are\nconcentrated at the same point; the cross of Christ is man's only\nglory, or it is his final stumbling-block.\n\nWhat I wish to do in these papers is so to present the facts as to\nmediate, if possible, between the mind of our time and the\nAtonement--so to exhibit the specific truth of Christianity as to bring\nout its affinity for what is deepest in the nature of man and in human\nexperience--so to appreciate the modern mind itself, and the influences\nwhich have given it its constitution and temper, as to discredit what\nis false in it, and enlist on the side of the Atonement that which is\nprofound and true.  And if any one is disposed to marvel at the\nambition or the conceit of such a programme, I would ask him to\nconsider if it is not the programme prescribed to every Christian, or\nat least to every Christian minister, who would do the work of an\nevangelist.  To commend the eternal truth of God, as it is finally\nrevealed in the Atonement, to the mind in which men around us live and\nmove and have their being, is no doubt a difficult and perilous task;\nbut if we approach it in a right spirit, it need not tempt us to any\npresumption; it cannot tempt us, as long as we feel that it is our\nduty.  '_Who is sufficient for these things! . . .  Our sufficiency is\nof God._'\n\nThe Christian religion is a historical religion, and whatever we say\nabout it must rest upon historical ground.  We cannot define it from\nwithin, by reference merely to our individual experience.  Of course it\nis equally impossible to define it apart from experience; the point is\nthat such experience itself must be historically derived; it must come\nthrough something outside of our individual selves.  What is true of\nthe Christian religion as a whole is pre-eminently true of the\nAtonement in which it is concentrated.  The experience which it brings\nto us, and the truth which we teach on the basis of it, are\nhistorically mediated.  They rest ultimately on that testimony to\nChrist which we find in the Scriptures and especially in the New\nTestament.  No one can tell what the Atonement is except on this basis.\nNo one can consciously approach it--no one can be influenced by it to\nthe full extent to which it is capable of influencing human\nnature--except through this medium.  We may hold that just because it\nis Divine, it must be eternally true, omnipresent in its gracious\npower; but even granting this, it is not known as an abstract or\neternal somewhat; it is historically, and not otherwise than\nhistorically, revealed.  It is achieved by Christ, and the testimony to\nChrist, on the strength of which we accept it, is in the last resort\nthe testimony of Scripture.\n\nIn saying so, I do not mean that the Atonement is merely a problem of\nexegesis, or that we have simply to accept as authoritative the\nconclusions of scholars as to the meaning of New Testament texts.  The\nmodern mind here is ready with a radical objection.  The writers of the\nNew Testament, it argues, were men like ourselves; they had personal\nlimitations and historical limitations; their forms of thought were\nthose of a particular age and upbringing; the doctrines they preached\nmay have had a relative validity, but we cannot benumb our minds to\naccept them without question.  The intelligence which has learned to be\na law to itself, criticising, rejecting, appropriating, assimilating,\ncannot deny its nature and suspend its functions when it opens the New\nTestament.  It cannot make itself the slave of men, not even though the\nmen are Peter and Paul and John; no, not even though it were the Son of\nMan Himself.  It resents dictation, not wilfully nor wantonly, but\nbecause it must; and it resents it all the more when it claims to be\ninspired.  If, therefore, the Atonement can only be received by those\nwho are prepared from the threshold to acknowledge the inspiration and\nthe consequent authority of Scripture, it can never be received by\nmodern men at all.\n\nThis line of remark is familiar inside the Church as well as outside.\nOften it is expressed in the demand for a historical as opposed to a\ndogmatic interpretation of the New Testament, a historical\ninterpretation being one to which we can sit freely, because the result\nto which it leads us is the mind of a time which we have survived and\npresumably transcended; a dogmatic interpretation, on the other hand,\nbeing one which claims to reach an abiding truth, and therefore to have\na present authority.  A more popular and inconsistent expression of the\nsame mood may be found among those who say petulant things about the\nrabbinising of Paul, but profess the utmost devotion to the words of\nJesus.  Even in a day of overdone distinctions, one might point out\nthat interpretations are not properly to be classified as historical or\ndogmatic, but as true or false.  If they are false, it does not matter\nwhether they are called dogmatic or historical; and if they are true,\nthey may quite well be both.  But this by the way.  For my own part, I\nprefer the objection in its most radical form, and indeed find nothing\nin it to which any Christian, however sincere or profound his reverence\nfor the Bible, should hesitate to assent.  Once the mind has come to\nknow itself, there can be no such thing for it as blank authority.  It\ncannot believe things--the things by which it has to live--simply on\nthe word of Paul or John.  It is not irreverent, it is simply the\nrecognition of a fact, if we add that it can just as little believe\nthem simply on the word of Jesus.[1]  This is not the sin of the mind,\nbut the nature and essence of mind, the being which it owes to God.  If\nwe are to speak of authority at all in this connection, the authority\nmust be conceived as belonging not to the speaker but to that which he\nsays, not to the witness but to the truth.  Truth, in short, is the\nonly thing which has authority for the mind, and the only way in which\ntruth finally evinces its authority is by taking possession of the mind\nfor itself.  It may be that any given truth can only be reached by\ntestimony--that is, can only come to us by some historical channel; but\nif it is a truth of eternal import, if it is part of a revelation of\nGod the reception of which is eternal life, then its authority lies in\nitself and in its power to win the mind, and not in any witness however\ntrustworthy.\n\nHence in speaking of the Atonement, whether in preaching or in\ntheologising, it is quite unnecessary to raise any question about the\ninspiration of Scripture, or to make any claim of 'authority' either\nfor the Apostles or for the Lord.  Belief in the inspiration of\nScripture is neither the beginning of the Christian life nor the\nfoundation of Christian theology; it is the last conclusion--a\nconclusion which becomes every day more sure--to which experience of\nthe truth of Scripture leads.  When we tell, therefore, what the\nAtonement is, we are telling it not on the authority of any person or\npersons whatever, but on the authority of the truth in it by which it\nhas won its place in our minds and hearts.  We find this truth in the\nChristian Scriptures undoubtedly, and therefore we prize them; but the\ntruth does not derive its authority from the Scriptures, or from those\nwho penned them.  On the contrary, the Scriptures are prized by the\nChurch because through them the soul is brought into contact with this\ntruth.  No doubt this leaves it open to any one who does not see in\nScripture what we see, or who is not convinced as we are of its truth,\nto accuse us here of subjectivity, of having no standard of truth but\nwhat appeals to us individually, but I could never feel the charge a\nserious one.  It is like urging that a man does not see at all, or does\nnot see truly, because he only sees with his own eyes.  This is the\nonly authentic kind of seeing yet known to mankind.  We do not judge at\nall those who do not see what we do.  We do not know what hinders them,\nor whether they are at all to blame for it; we do not know how soon the\nhindrance is going to be put out of the way.  To-day, as at the\nbeginning, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness\ncomprehends it not.  But that is the situation which calls for\nevangelists; not a situation in which the evangelist is called to\nrenounce his experience and his vocation.\n\nWhat, then, is the Atonement, as it is presented to us in the\nScriptures, and vindicates for itself in our minds the character of\ntruth, and indeed, as I have said already, the character of the\nultimate truth of God?\n\nThe simplest expression that can be given to it in words is: Christ\ndied for our sins.  Taken by itself, this is too brief to be\nintelligible; it implies many things which need to be made explicit\nboth about Christ's relation to us and about the relation of sin and\ndeath.  But the important thing, to begin with, is not to define these\nrelations, but to look through the words to the broad reality which is\ninterpreted in them.  What they tell us, and tell us on the basis of an\nincontrovertible experience, is that the forgiveness of sins is for the\nChristian mediated through the death of Christ.  In one respect,\ntherefore, there is nothing singular in the forgiveness of sins: it is\nin the same position as every other blessing of which the New Testament\nspeaks.  It is the presence of a Mediator, as Westcott says in one of\nhis letters, which makes the Christian religion what it is; and the\nforgiveness of sins is mediated to us through Christ, just as the\nknowledge of God as the Father is mediated, or the assurance of a life\nbeyond death.  But there is something _specific_ about the mediation of\nforgiveness; the gift and the certainty of it come to us, not simply\nthrough Christ, but through the blood of His Cross.  The sum of His\nrelation to sin is that He died for it.  God forgives, but this is the\nway in which His forgiveness comes.  He forgives freely, but it is at\nthis cost to Himself and to the Son of His love.\n\nThis, it seems to me, is the simplest possible statement of what the\nNew Testament means by the Atonement, and probably there are few who\nwould dispute its correctness.  But it is possible to argue that there\nis a deep cleft in the New Testament itself, and that the teaching of\nJesus on the subject of forgiveness is completely at variance with that\nwhich we find in the Epistles, and which is implied in this description\nof the Atonement.  Indeed there are many who do so argue.  But to\nfollow them would be to forget the place which Jesus has in His own\nteaching.  Even if we grant that the main subject of that teaching is\nthe Kingdom of God, it is as clear as anything can be that the Kingdom\ndepends for its establishment on Jesus, or rather that in Him it is\nalready established in principle; and that all participation in its\nblessings depends on some kind of relation to Him.  All things have\nbeen delivered to Him by the Father, and it is by coming under\nobligation to Him, and by that alone, that men know the Father.  It is\nby coming under obligation to Him that they know the pardoning love of\nthe Father, as well as everything else that enters into Christian\nexperience and constitutes the blessedness of life in the Kingdom of\nGod.  Nor is it open to any one to say that he knows this simply\nbecause Christ has told it.  We are dealing here with things too great\nto be simply told.  If they are ever to be known in their reality, they\nmust be revealed by God, they must rise upon the mind of man\nexperimentally, in their awful and glorious truth, in ways more\nwonderful than words.  They can be spoken about afterwards, but hardly\nbeforehand.  They can be celebrated and preached--that is, declared as\nthe speaker's experience, delivered as his testimony--but not simply\ntold.  It was enough if Jesus made His disciples feel, as surely He did\nmake them feel, not only in every word He spoke, but more emphatically\nstill in His whole attitude toward them, that He was Himself the\nMediator of the new covenant, and that all the blessings of the\nrelation between God and man which we call Christianity were blessings\ndue to Him.  If men knew the Father, it was through Him.  If they knew\nthe Father's heart to the lost, it was through Him.  Through Him, be it\nremembered, not merely through the words that He spoke.  There was more\nin Christ than even His own wonderful words expressed, and all that He\nwas and did and suffered, as well as what He said, entered into the\nconvictions He inspired.  But He knew this as well as His disciples,\nand for this very reason it is beside the mark to point to what He\nsaid, or rather to what He did not say, in confutation of their\nexperience.  For it is their experience--the experience that the\nforgiveness of sins was mediated to them through His cross--that is\nexpressed in the doctrine of Atonement: He died for our sins.\n\nThe objection which is here in view is most frequently pointed by\nreference to the parable of the prodigal son.  There is no Atonement\nhere, we are told, no mediation of forgiveness at all.  There is love\non the one side and penitence on the other, and it is treason to the\npure truth of this teaching to cloud and confuse it with the thoughts\nof men whose Master was over their heads often, but most of all here.\nSuch a statement of the case is plausible, and judging from the\nfrequency with which it occurs must to some minds be very convincing,\nbut nothing could be more superficial, or more unjust both to Jesus and\nthe apostles.  A parable is a comparison, and there is a point of\ncomparison in it on which everything turns.  The more perfect the\nparable is, the more conspicuous and dominating will the point of\ncomparison be.  The parable of the prodigal illustrates this.  It\nbrings out, through a human parallel, with incomparable force and\nbeauty, the one truth of the freeness of forgiveness.  God waits to be\ngracious.  His pardoning love rushes out to welcome the penitent.  But\nno one who speaks of the Atonement ever dreams of questioning this.\nThe Atonement is concerned with a different point--not the freeness of\npardon, about which all are agreed, but the cost of it; not the\nspontaneity of God's love, which no one questions, but the necessity\nunder which it lay to manifest itself in a particular way if God was to\nbe true to Himself, and to win the heart of sinners for the holiness\nwhich they had offended.  The Atonement is not the denial that God's\nlove is free; it is that specific manifestation or demonstration of\nGod's free love which is demanded by the situation of men.  One can\nhardly help wondering whether those who tell us so confidently that\nthere is no Atonement in the parable of the prodigal have ever noticed\nthat there is no Christ in it either--no elder brother who goes out to\nseek and to save the lost son, and to give his life a ransom for him.\nSurely we are not to put the Good Shepherd out of the Christian\nreligion.  Yet if we leave Him His place, we cannot make the parable of\nthe prodigal the measure of Christ's mind about the forgiveness of\nsins.  One part of His teaching it certainly contains--one part of the\ntruth about the relation of God the Father to His sinful children; but\nanother part of the truth was present, though not on that occasion\nrendered in words, in the presence of the Speaker, when 'all the\npublicans and sinners drew near to Him for to hear Him.' The love of\nGod to the sinful was apprehended in Christ Himself, and not in what He\nsaid as something apart from Himself; on the contrary, it was in the\nidentity of the speaker and the word that the power of the word lay;\nGod's love evinced itself to men as a reality in Him, in His presence\nin the world, and in His attitude to its sin; it so evinced itself,\nfinally and supremely, in His death.  It is not the idiosyncrasy of one\napostle, it is the testimony of the Church, a testimony in keeping with\nthe whole claim made by Christ in His teaching and life and death: '_in\nHim_ we have our redemption, _through His blood_, even the forgiveness\nof our trespasses.'  And this is what the Atonement means: it means the\nmediation of forgiveness through Christ, and specifically through His\ndeath.  Forgiveness, in the Christian sense of the term, is only\nrealised as we believe in the Atonement: in other words, as we come to\nfeel the cost at which alone the love of God could assert itself as\nDivine and holy love in the souls of sinful men.  We may say, if we\nplease, that forgiveness is bestowed freely upon repentance; but we\nmust add, if we would do justice to the Christian position, that\nrepentance in its ultimate character is the fruit of the Atonement.\nRepentance is not possible apart from the apprehension of the mercy of\nGod _in Christ_.  It is the experience of the regenerate--_poenitentiam\ninterpretor regenerationem_, as Calvin says--and it is the Atonement\nwhich regenerates.\n\nThis, then, in the broadest sense, is the truth which we wish to\ncommend to the modern mind: the truth that there is forgiveness with\nGod, and that this forgiveness comes to us only through Christ, and\nsignally or specifically through His death.  Unless it becomes true to\nus that _Christ died for our sins_ we cannot appreciate forgiveness at\nits specifically Christian value.  It cannot be for us that kind of\nreality, it cannot have for us that kind of inspiration, which it\nunquestionably is and has in the New Testament.\n\nBut what, we must now ask, is the modern mind to which this primary\ntruth of Christianity has to be commended?  Can we diagnose it in any\ngeneral yet recognisable fashion, so as to find guidance in seeking\naccess to it for the gospel of the Atonement?  There may seem to be\nsomething presumptuous in the very idea, as though any one making the\nattempt assumed a superiority to the mind of his time, an exemption\nfrom its limitations and prejudices, a power to see over it and round\nabout it.  All such presumption is of course disclaimed here; but even\nwhile we disclaim it, the attempt to appreciate the mind of our time is\nforced upon us.  Whoever has tried to preach the gospel, and to\npersuade men of truth as truth is in Jesus, and especially of the truth\nof God's forgiveness as it is in the death of Jesus for sin, knows that\nthere is a state of mind which is somehow inaccessible to this truth,\nand to which the truth consequently appeals in vain.  I do not speak of\nunambiguous moral antipathy to the ideas of forgiveness and atonement,\nalthough antipathy to these ideas in general, as distinct from any\ngiven presentation of them, cannot but have a moral character, just as\na moral character always attaches to the refusal to acknowledge Christ\nor to become His debtor; but of something which, though vaguer and less\ndeterminate, puts the mind wrong, so to speak, with Christianity from\nthe start.  It is clear, for instance, in all that has been said about\nforgiveness, that certain relations are presupposed as subsisting\nbetween God and man, relations which make it possible for man to sin,\nand possible for God, not indeed to ignore his sin, but in the very act\nof recognising it as all that it is to forgive it, to liberate man from\nit, and to restore him to Himself and righteousness.  Now if the latent\npresuppositions of the modern mind are to any extent inconsistent with\nsuch relations, there will be something to overcome before the\nconceptions of forgiveness or atonement can get a hearing.  These\nconceptions have their place in a certain view of the world as a whole,\nand if the mind is preoccupied with a different view, it will have an\ninstinctive consciousness that it cannot accommodate them, and a\ndisposition therefore to reject them _ab initio_.  This is, in point of\nfact, the difficulty with which we have to deal.  And let no one say\nthat it is transparently absurd to suggest that we must get men to\naccept a true philosophy before we can begin to preach the gospel to\nthem, as though that settled the matter or got over the difficulty.  We\nhave to take men as we find them; we have to preach the gospel to the\nmind which is around us; and if that mind is rooted in a view of the\nworld which leaves no room for Christ and His work as Christian\nexperience has realised them, then that view of the world must be\nappreciated by the evangelist, it must be undermined at its weak\nplaces, its inadequacy to interpret all that is present even in the\nmind which has accepted it--in other words, its inherent\ninconsistency--must be demonstrated; the attempt must be made to\nliberate the mind, so that it may be open to the impression of\nrealities which under the conditions supposed it could only encounter\nwith instinctive antipathy.  It is necessary, therefore, at this point\nto advert to the various influences which have contributed to form the\nmind of our time, and to give it its instinctive bias in one direction\nor another.  Powerful and legitimate as these influences have been,\nthey have nevertheless been in various ways partial, and because of\ntheir very partiality they have, when they absorbed the mind, as new\nmodes of thought are apt to do, prejudiced it against the consideration\nof other, possibly of deeper and more far-reaching, truths.\n\nFirst, there is the enormous development of physical science.  This has\nengrossed human intelligence in our own times to an extent which can\nhardly be over-estimated.  Far more mind has been employed in\nconstructing the great fabric of knowledge, which we call science, than\nin any other pursuit of men.  Far more mind has had its characteristic\nqualities and temper imparted to it by scientific study than by study\nin any other field.  It is of science--which to all intents and\npurposes means physical science--of science and its methods and results\nthat the modern mind is most confident, and speaks with the most\nnatural and legitimate pride.  Now science, even in this restricted\nsense, covers a great range of subjects; it may be physics in the\nnarrowest meaning of the word, or chemistry, or biological science.\nThe characteristic of our own age has been the development of the last,\nand in particular its extension to man.  It is impossible to dispute\nthe legitimacy of this extension.  Man has his place in nature; the\nphenomena of life have one of their signal illustrations in him, and he\nis as proper a subject of biological study as any other living being.\nBut the intense preoccupation of much of the most vigorous intelligence\nof our time with the biological study of man is not without effects\nupon the mind itself, which we need to consider.  It tends to produce a\nhabit of mind to which certain assumptions are natural and inevitable,\ncertain other assumptions incredible from the first.  This habit of\nmind is in some ways favourable to the acceptance of the Atonement.\nFor example, the biologist's invincible conviction of the unity of\nlife, and of the certainty and power with which whatever touches it at\none point touches it through and through, is in one way entirely\nfavourable.  Many of the most telling popular objections to the idea of\nAtonement rest on an atomic conception of personality--a conception\naccording to which every human being is a closed system, incapable in\nthe last resort of helping or being helped, of injuring or being\ninjured, by another.  This conception has been finally discredited by\nbiology, and so far the evangelist must be grateful.  The Atonement\npresupposes the unity of human life, and its solidarity; it presupposes\na common and universal responsibility.  I believe it presupposes also\nsuch a conception of the unity of man and nature as biology proceeds\nupon; and in all these respects its physical presuppositions, if we may\nso express ourselves, are present to the mind of to-day, thanks to\nbiology, as they were not even so lately as a hundred years ago.\n\nBut this is not all that we have to consider.  The mind has been\ninfluenced by the movement of physical and even of biological science,\nnot only in a way which is favourable, but in ways which are\nprejudicial to the acceptance of the Atonement.  Every physical science\nseems to have a boundless ambition; it wants to reduce everything to\nits own level, to explain everything in the terms and by the categories\nwith which it itself works.  The higher has always to fight for its\nlife against the lower.  The physicist would like to reduce chemistry\nto physics; the chemist has an ambition to simplify biology into\nchemistry; the biologist in turn looks with suspicion on anything in\nman which cannot be interpreted biologically.  He would like to give,\nand is sometimes ready to offer, a biological explanation of\nself-consciousness, of freedom, of religion, morality, sin.  Now a\nbiological explanation, when all is done, is a physical explanation,\nand a physical explanation of self-consciousness or the moral life is\none in which the very essence of the thing to be explained is either\nignored or explained away.  Man's life is certainly rooted in nature,\nand therefore a proper subject for biological study; but unless it\nsomehow transcended nature, and so demanded other than physical\ncategories for its complete interpretation, there could not be any\nstudy or any science at all.  If there were nothing but matter, as M.\nNaville has said, there would be no materialism; and if there were\nnothing but life, there would be no biology.  Now it is in the higher\nregion of human experience, to which all physical categories are\nunequal, that we encounter those realities to which the Atonement is\nrelated, and in relation to which it is real; and we must insist upon\nthese _higher_ realities, in their specific character, against a strong\ntendency in the scientifically trained modern mind, and still more in\nthe general mind as influenced by it, to reduce them to the merely\nphysical level.\n\nTake, for instance, the consciousness of sin.  Evidently the Atonement\nbecomes incredible if the consciousness of sin is extinguished or\nexplained away.  There is nothing for the Atonement to do; there is\nnothing to relate it to; it is as unreal as a rock in the sky.  But\nmany minds at the present time, under the influence of current\nconceptions in biology, do explain it away.  All life is one, they\nargue.  It rises from the same spring, it runs the same course, it\ncomes to the same end.  The life of man is rooted in nature, and that\nwhich beats in my veins is an inheritance from an immeasurable past.\nIt is absurd to speak of my responsibility for it, or of my guilt\nbecause it manifests itself in me, as it inevitably does, in such and\nsuch forms.  There is no doubt that this mode of thought is widely\nprevalent, and that it is one of the most serious hindrances to the\nacceptance of the gospel, and especially of the Atonement.  How are we\nto appreciate it?  We must point out, I think, the consequence to which\nit leads.  If a man denies that he is responsible for the nature which\nhe has inherited--denies responsibility for it on the ground that it\n_is_ inherited--it is a fair question to ask him for what he _does_\naccept responsibility.  When he has divested himself of the inherited\nnature, what is left?  The real meaning of such disowning of\nresponsibility is that a man asserts that his life is a part of the\nphysical phenomena of the universe, and nothing else; and he forgets,\nin the very act of making the assertion, that if it were true, it could\nnot be so much as made.  The merely physical is transcended in every\nsuch assertion; and the man who has transcended it, rooted though his\nlife be in nature, and one with the life of the whole and of all the\npast, must take the responsibility of living that life out on the high\nlevel of self-consciousness and morality which his very disclaimer\ninvolves.  The sense of sin which wakes spontaneously with the\nperception that he is not what he ought to have been must not be\nexplained away; at the level which life has reached in him, this is\nunscientific as well as immoral; his sin--for I do not know another\nword for it--must be realised as all that it is in the moral world if\nhe is ever to be true to himself, not to say if he is ever to welcome\nthe Atonement, and leave his sin behind.  We have no need of words like\nsin and atonement--we could not have the experiences which they\ndesignate--unless we had a higher than merely natural life; and one of\nthe tendencies of the modern mind which has to be counteracted by the\nevangelist is the tendency induced by physical and especially by\nbiological science to explain the realities of personal experience by\nsub-personal categories.  In conscience, in the sense of personal\ndignity, in the ultimate inability of man to deny the self which he is,\nwe have always an appeal against such tendencies, which cannot fail;\nbut it needs to be made resolutely when conscience is lethargic and the\nwhole bias of the mind is to the other side.\n\nPassing from physical science, the modern mind has perhaps been\ninfluenced most by the great idealist movement in philosophy--the\nmovement which in Germany began with Kant and culminated in Hegel.\nThis idealism, just like physical science, gives a certain stamp to the\nmind; when it takes possession of intelligence it casts it, so to\nspeak, into a certain mould; even more than physical science it\ndominates it so that it becomes incapable of self-criticism, and very\ndifficult to teach.  Its importance to the preacher of Christianity is\nthat it assumes certain relations between the human and the divine,\nrelations which foreclose the very questions which the Atonement\ncompels us to raise.  To be brief, it teaches the essential unity of\nGod and man.  God and man, to speak of them as distinct, are necessary\nto each other, but man is as necessary to God as God is to man.  God is\nthe truth of man, but man is the reality of God.  God comes to\nconsciousness of Himself in man, and man in being conscious of himself\nis at the same time conscious of God.  Though many writers of this\nschool make a copious use of Christian phraseology, it seems to me\nobvious that it is not in an adequate Christian sense.  Sin is not\nregarded as that which ought not to be, it is that which is to be\ntranscended.  It is as inevitable as anything in nature; and the sense\nof it, the bad conscience which accompanies it, is no more than the\ngrowing pains of the soul.  On such a system there is no room for\natonement in the sense of the mediation of God's forgiveness through\nJesus Christ.  We may consistently speak in it of a man being\nreconciled to himself, or even reconciled to his sins, but not, so far\nas I can understand, of his being reconciled to God, and still less,\nreconciled to God through the death of His Son.  The penetration of\nKant saw from the first all that could be made of atonement on the\nbasis of any such system.  What it means to the speculative mind is\nthat the new man bears the sin of the old.  When the sinner repents and\nis converted, the weight of what he has done comes home to him; the new\nman in him--the Son of God in him--accepts the responsibility of the\nold man, and so he has peace with God.  Many whose minds are under the\ninfluence of this mode of thought do not see clearly to what it leads,\nand resent criticism of it as if it were a sort of impiety.  Their\nphilosophy is to them a surrogate for religion, but they should not be\nallowed to suppose (if they do suppose) that it is the equivalent of\nChristianity.  There can be no Christianity without Christ; it is the\npresence of the Mediator which makes Christianity what it is.  But a\nunique Christ, without Whom our religion disappears, is frankly\ndisavowed by the more candid and outspoken of our idealist\nphilosophers.  Christ, they tell us, was certainly a man who had an\nearly and a magnificently strong faith in the unity of the human and\nthe Divine; but it was faith in a fact which enters into the\nconstitution of every human consciousness, and it is absurd to suppose\nthat the recognition of the fact, or the realisation of it, is\nessentially dependent on Him.  He was not sinless--which is an\nexpression without meaning, when we think of a human being which has to\nrise by conflict and self-suppression out of nature into the world of\nself-consciousness and right and wrong; He was not in any sense unique\nor exceptional; He was only what we all are in our degree; at best, He\nwas only one among many great men who have contributed in their place\nand time to the spiritual elevation of the race.  Such, I say, is the\nissue of this mode of thought as it is frankly avowed by some of its\nrepresentative men; but the peculiarity of it, when it is obscurely\nfermenting as a leaven in the mind, is, that it appeals to men as\nhaving special affinities to Christianity.  In our own country it is\nwidely prevalent among those who have had a university education, and\nindeed in a much wider circle, and it is a serious question how we are\nto address our gospel to those who confront it in such a mental mood.\n\nI have no wish to be unsympathetic, but I must frankly express my\nconviction that this philosophy only lives by ignoring the greatest\nreality of the spiritual world.  There is something in that\nworld--something with which we can come into intelligible and vital\nrelations--something which can evince to our minds its truth and\nreality, for which this philosophy can make no room: Christ's\nconsciousness of Himself.  It is a theory of the universe which (on\nprinciple) cannot allow Christ to be anything else than an additional\nunit in the world's population; but if this were the truth about Him,\nno language could be strong enough to express the self-delusion in\nwhich He lived and died.  That He was thus self-deluded is a hypothesis\nI do not feel called to discuss.  One may be accused of subjectivity\nagain, of course, though a subjective opinion which has the consent of\nthe Christian centuries behind it need not tremble at hard names; but I\nventure to say that there is no reality in the world which more\ninevitably and uncompromisingly takes hold of the mind as a reality\nthan our Lord's consciousness of Himself as it is attested to us in the\nGospels.  But when we have taken this reality for all that it is worth,\nthe idealism just described is shaken to the foundation.  What seemed\nto us so profound a truth--the essential unity of the human and the\ndivine--may come to seem a formal and delusive platitude; in what we\nonce regarded as the formula of the perfect religion--the divinity of\nman and the humanity of God--we may find quite as truly the formula of\nthe first, not to say the final, sin.  To see Christ not in the light\nof this speculative theorem, but in the light of His own consciousness\nof Himself, is to realise not only our kinship to God, but our\nremoteness from Him; it is to realise our incapacity for\nself-realisation when we are left to ourselves; it is to realise the\nneed of the Mediator if we would come to the Father; it is to realise,\nin principle, the need of the Atonement, the need, and eventually the\nfact.  When the modern mind therefore presents itself to us in this\nmood of philosophical competence, judging Christ from the point of view\nof the whole, and showing Him His place, we can only insist that the\nplace is unequal to His greatness, and that His greatness cannot be\nexplained away.  The mind which is closed to the fact of His unique\nclaims, and the unique relation to God on which they rest, is closed\ninevitably to the mediation of God's forgiveness through His death.\n\nThere is one other modification of mind, characteristic of modern\ntimes, of which we have yet to take account--I mean that which is\nproduced by devotion to historical study.  History is, as much as\nscience, one of the achievements of our age; and the historical temper\nis as characteristic of the men we meet as the philosophical or the\nscientific.  The historical temper, too, is just as apt as these\nothers, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps quite consciously, but under the\nengaging plea of modesty, to pronounce absolute sentences which strike\nat the life of the Christian religion, and especially, therefore, at\nthe idea of the Atonement.  Sometimes this is done broadly, so that\nevery one sees what it means.  If we are told, for example, that\neverything historical is relative, that it belongs of necessity to a\ntime, and is conditioned in ways so intricate that no knowledge can\never completely trace them; if we are told, further, that for this very\nreason nothing historical can have absolute significance, or can\ncondition the eternal life of man, it is obvious that the Christian\nreligion is being cut at the root.  It is no use speaking about the\nAtonement--about the mediation of God's forgiveness to the soul through\na historical person and work--if this is true.  The only thing to be\ndone is to raise the question whether it _is_ true.  It is no more for\nhistorical than for physical science to exalt itself into a theory of\nthe universe, or to lay down the law with speculative absoluteness as\nto the significance and value which shall attach to facts.  When we\nface the fact with which we are here concerned--the fact of Christ's\nconsciousness of Himself and His vocation, to which reference has\nalready been made--are we not forced to the conclusion that here a new\nspiritual magnitude has appeared in history, the very _differentia_ of\nwhich is that it _has_ eternal significance, and that it is eternal\nlife to know it?  If we are to preach the Atonement, we cannot allow\neither history or philosophy to proceed on assumptions which ignore or\ndegrade the fact of Christ.  Only a person in whom the eternal has\nbecome historical can be the bearer of the Atonement, and it must be\nour first concern to show, against all assumptions whether made in the\nname of history or of philosophy, that in point of fact there is such a\nperson here.\n\nThis consideration requires to be kept in view even when we are dealing\nwith the modern mind inside the Church.  Nothing is commoner than to\nhear those who dissent from any given construction of the Atonement\nplead for a historical as opposed to a dogmatic interpretation of\nChrist.  It is not always clear what is meant by this distinction, nor\nis it clear that those who use it are always conscious of what it would\nlead to if it were made absolute.  Sometimes a dogmatic interpretation\nof the New Testament means an interpretation vitiated by dogmatic\nprejudice, an interpretation in which the meaning of the writers is\nmissed because the mind is blinded by prepossessions of its own: in\nthis sense a dogmatic interpretation is a thing which no one would\ndefend.  Sometimes, however, a dogmatic interpretation is one which\nreveals or discovers in the New Testament truths of eternal and divine\nsignificance, and to discredit such interpretation in the name of the\nhistorical is another matter.  The distinction in this case, as has\nbeen already pointed out, is not absolute.  It is analogous to the\ndistinction between fact and theory, or between thing and meaning, or\nbetween efficient cause and final cause.  None of these distinctions is\nabsolute, and no intelligent mind would urge either side in them to the\ndisparagement of the other.  If we are to apprehend the whole reality\npresented to us, we must apprehend the theory as well as the fact, the\nmeaning as well as the thing, the final as well as the efficient cause.\nIn the subject with which we are dealing, this truth is frequently\nignored.  It is assumed, for example, that because Christ was put to\ndeath by His enemies, or because He died in the faithful discharge of\nHis calling, therefore He did not die, in the sense of the Atonement,\nfor our sins: the historical causes which brought about His death are\nsupposed to preclude that interpretation of it according to which it\nmediates to us the divine forgiveness.  But there is no incompatibility\nbetween the two things.  To set aside an interpretation of Christ's\ndeath as dogmatic, on the ground that there is another which is\nhistorical, is like setting aside the idea that a watch is made to\nmeasure time because you know it was made by a watchmaker.  It was both\nmade by a watchmaker and made to measure time.  Similarly it may be\nquite true both that Christ was crucified and slain by wicked men, and\nthat He died for our sins.  But without entering into the questions\nwhich this raises as to the relation between the wisdom of God and the\ncourse of human history, it is enough to be conscious of the prejudice\nwhich the historical temper is apt to generate against the recognition\nof the eternal in time.  Surely it is a significant fact that the New\nTestament contains a whole series of books--the Johannine books--which\nhave as their very burden the eternal significance of the historical:\neternal life in Jesus Christ, come in flesh, the propitiation for the\nwhole world.  Surely also it is a significant fact of a different and\neven an ominous kind that we have at present in the Church a whole\nschool of critics which is so far from appreciating the truth in this\nthat it is hardly an exaggeration to say that it has devoted itself to\na paltry and peddling criticism of these books in which the impression\nof the eternal is lost.  But whether we are to be indebted to John's\neyes, or to none but our own, if the eternal is not to be seen in\nJesus, He can have no place in our religion; if the historical has no\ndogmatic content, it cannot be essential to eternal life.  Hence if we\nbelieve and know that we have eternal life in Jesus, we must assert the\ntruth which is implied in this against any conception of history which\ndenies it.  Nor is it really difficult to do so.  With the experience\nof nineteen centuries behind us, we have only to confront this\nparticular historical reality, Jesus Christ, without prejudice; in\nevangelising, we have only to confront others with Him; and we shall\nfind it still possible to see God in Him, the Holy Father who through\nthe Passion of His Son ministers to sinners the forgiveness of their\nsins.\n\nIn what has been said thus far by way of explaining the modern mind,\nemphasis may seem to have fallen mainly on those characteristics which\nmake it less accessible than it might be to Christian truth, and\nespecially to the Atonement.  I have tried to point out the assailable\nside of its prepossessions, and to indicate the fundamental truths\nwhich must be asserted if our intellectual world is to be one in which\nthe gospel may find room.  But the modern mind has other\ncharacteristics.  Some of these may have been exhibited hitherto mainly\nin criticising current representations of the Atonement; but in\nthemselves they are entirely legitimate, and the claims they put\nforward are such as we cannot disown.  Before proceeding to a further\nstatement of the Atonement, I shall briefly refer to one or two of\nthem: a doctrine of Atonement which did not satisfy them would\nundoubtedly stand condemned.\n\n(1) The modern mind requires that everything shall be based on\nexperience.  Nothing is true or real to it which cannot be\nexperimentally verified.  This we shall all concede.  But there is an\ninference sometimes drawn from it at which we may look with caution.\nIt is the inference that, because everything must be based on\nexperience, no appeal to Scripture has any authority.  I have already\nexplained in what sense it is possible to speak of the authority of\nScripture, and here it is only necessary to make the simple remark that\nthere is no proper contrast between Scripture and experience.\nScripture, so far as it concerns us here, is a record of experience or\nan interpretation of it.  It was the Church's experience that it had\nits redemption in Christ; it was the interpretation of that experience\nthat Christ died for our sins.  Yet in emphasising experience the\nmodern mind is right, and Scripture would lose its authority if the\nexperience it describes were not perpetually verified anew.\n\n(2) The modern mind desires to have everything in religion ethically\nconstrued.  As a general principle this must command our unreserved\nassent.  Anything which violates ethical standards, anything which is\nimmoral or less than moral, must be excluded from religion.  It may be,\nindeed, that ethical has sometimes been too narrowly defined.  Ideas\nhave been objected to as unethical which are really at variance not\nwith a true perception of the constitution of humanity, and of the laws\nwhich regulate moral life, but with an atomic theory of personality\nunder which moral life would be impossible.  Persons are not atoms; in\na sense they interpenetrate, though individuality has been called the\ntrue impenetrability.  The world has been so constituted that we do not\nstand absolutely outside of each other; we can do things for each\nother.  We can bear each other's burdens, and it is not unethical to\nsay so, but the reverse.  And again, it need not be unethical, though\nit transcends the ordinary sphere and range of ethical action, if we\nsay that God in Christ is able to do for us what we cannot do for one\nanother.  With reference to the Atonement, the demand for ethical\ntreatment is usually expressed in two ways.  (_a_) There is the demand\nfor analogies to it in human life.  The demand is justifiable, in so\nfar as God has made man in His own image; but, as has been suggested\nabove, it has a limit, in so far as God is God and not man, and must\nhave relations to the human race which its members do not and cannot\nhave to each other.  (_b_) There is the demand that the Atonement shall\nbe exhibited in vital relation to a new life in which sin is overcome.\nThis demand also is entirely legitimate, and it touches a weak point in\nthe traditional Protestant doctrine.  Dr. Chalmers tells us that he was\nbrought up--such was the effect of the current orthodoxy upon him--in a\ncertain distrust of good works.  Some were certainly wanted, but not as\nbeing themselves salvation; only, as he puts it, as tokens of\njustification.  It was a distinct stage in his religious progress when\nhe realised that true justification sanctifies, and that the soul can\nand ought to abandon itself spontaneously and joyfully to do the good\nthat it delights in.  The modern mind assumes what Dr. Chalmers\npainfully discovered.  An atonement that does not regenerate, it truly\nholds, is not an atonement in which men can be asked to believe.  Such\nthen, in its prejudices good and bad, is the mind to which the great\ntruth of the Christian religion has to be presented.\n\n\n\n[1] Of course this does not touch the fact that the whole 'authority'\nof the Christian religion is in Jesus Himself--in His historical\npresence in the world, His words and works, His life and death and\nresurrection.  He _is_ the truth, the acceptance of which by man is\nlife eternal.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nSIN AND THE DIVINE REACTION AGAINST IT\n\nWe have now seen in a general way what is meant by the Atonement, and\nwhat are the characteristics of the mind to which the Atonement has to\nmake its appeal.  In that mind there is, as I believe, much which falls\nin with the Atonement, and prepares a welcome for it; but much also which\ncreates prejudice against it, and makes it as possible still as in the\nfirst century to speak of the offence of the cross.  No doubt the\nAtonement has sometimes been presented in forms which provoke antagonism,\nwhich challenge by an ostentation of unreason, or by a defiance of\nmorality, the reason and conscience of man; but this alone does not\nexplain the resentment which it often encounters.  There is such a thing\nto be found in the world as the man who will have nothing to do with\nChrist on any terms, and who will least of all have anything to do with\nHim when Christ presents Himself in the character which makes man His\ndebtor for ever.  All men, as St. Paul says, have not faith: it is a\nmelancholy fact, whether we can make anything of it or not.  Discounting,\nhowever, this irrational or inexplicable opposition, which is not\nexpressed in the mind but in the will, how are we to present the\nAtonement so that it shall excite the least prejudice, and find the most\nunimpeded access to the mind of our own generation?  This is the question\nto which we have now to address ourselves.\n\nTo conceive the Atonement, that is, the fact that forgiveness is mediated\nto us through Christ, and specifically through His death, as clearly and\ntruly as possible, it is necessary for us to realise the situation to\nwhich it is related.  We cannot think of it except as related to a given\nsituation.  It is determined or conditioned by certain relations\nsubsisting between God and man, as these relations have been affected by\nsin.  What we must do, therefore, in the first instance, is to make clear\nto ourselves what these relations are, and how sin affects them.\n\nTo begin with, they are personal relations; they are relations the truth\nof which cannot be expressed except by the use of personal pronouns.  We\nneed not ask whether the personality of God can be proved antecedent to\nreligion, or as a basis for a religion yet to be established; in the only\nsense in which we can be concerned with it, religion is an experience of\nthe personality of God, and of our own personality in relation to it.  'O\nLord, _Thou_ hast searched _me_ and known _me_.'  '_I_ am continually\nwith _Thee_!  No human experience can be more vital or more normal than\nthat which is expressed in these words, and no argument, be it ever so\nsubtle or so baffling, can weigh a feather's-weight against such\nexperience.  The same conception of the relations of God and man is\nexpressed again as unmistakably in every word of Jesus about the Father\nand the Son and the nature of their communion with each other.  It is\nonly in such personal relations that the kind of situation can emerge,\nand the kind of experience be had, with which the Atonement deals; and\nantecedent to such experience, or in independence of it, the Atonement\nmust remain an incredible because an unrealisable thing.\n\nBut to say that the relations of God and man are personal is not enough.\nThey are not only personal, but universal.  _Personal_ is habitually used\nin a certain contrast with _legal_, and it is very easy to lapse into the\nidea that personal relations, because distinct from legal ones, are\nindependent of law; but to say the least of it, that is an ambiguous and\nmisleading way of describing the facts.  The relations of God and man are\nnot lawless, they are not capricious, incalculable, incapable of moral\nmeaning; they are personal, but determined by something of universal\nimport; in other words, they are not merely personal but ethical.  That\nis ethical which is at once personal and universal.  Perhaps the simplest\nway to make this evident is to notice that the relations of man to God\nare the relations to God not of atoms, or of self-contained individuals,\neach of which is a world in itself, but of individuals which are\nessentially related to each other, and bound up in the unity of a race.\nThe relations of God to man, therefore, are not capricious though they\nare personal: they are reflected or expressed in a moral constitution to\nwhich all personal beings are equally bound, a moral constitution of\neternal and universal validity, which neither God nor man can ultimately\ntreat as anything else than what it is.\n\nThis is a point at which some prejudice has been raised against the\nAtonement by theologians, and more, perhaps, by persons protesting\nagainst what they supposed theologians to mean.  If one may be excused a\npersonal reference, few things have astonished me more than to be charged\nwith teaching a 'forensic' or 'legal' or 'judicial' doctrine of\nAtonement, resting, as such a doctrine must do, on a 'forensic' or\n'legal' or 'judicial' conception of man's relation to God.  It is all the\nmore astonishing when the charge is combined with what one can only\ndecline as in the circumstances totally unmerited compliments to the\nclearness with which he has expressed himself.  There is nothing which I\nshould wish to reprobate more whole-heartedly than the conception which\nis expressed by these words.  To say that the relations of God and man\nare forensic is to say that they are regulated by statute--that sin is a\nbreach of statute--that the sinner is a criminal--and that God\nadjudicates on him by interpreting the statute in its application to his\ncase.  Everybody knows that this is a travesty of the truth, and it is\nsurprising that any one should be charged with teaching it, or that any\none should applaud himself, as though he were in the foremost files of\ntime, for not believing it.  It is superfluously apparent that the\nrelations of God and man are not those of a magistrate on the bench\npronouncing according to the act on the criminal at the bar.  To say\nthis, however, does not make these relations more intelligible.  In\nparticular, to say that they are personal, as opposed to forensic, does\nnot make them more intelligible.  If they are to be rational, if they are\nto be moral, if they are to be relations in which an ethical life can be\nlived, and ethical responsibilities realised, they must be not only\npersonal, but universal; they must be relations that in some sense are\ndetermined by law.  Even to say that they are the relations, not of judge\nand criminal, but of Father and child, does not get us past this point.\nThe relations of father and child are undoubtedly more adequate to the\ntruth than those of judge and criminal; they are more adequate, but so\nfar as our experience of them goes, they are not equal to it.  If the\nsinner is not a criminal before his judge, neither is he a naughty child\nbefore a parent whose own weakness or affinity to evil introduces an\nincalculable element into his dealing with his child's fault.  I should\nnot think of saying that it is the desire to escape from the\ninexorableness of law to a God capable of indulgent human tenderness that\ninspires the violent protests so often heard against 'forensic' and\n'legal' ideas: but that is the impression which one sometimes\ninvoluntarily receives from them.  It ought to be apparent to every one\nthat even the relation of parent and child, if it is to be a moral\nrelation, must be determined in a way which has universal and final\nvalidity.  It must be a relation in which--ethically speaking--some\nthings are for ever obligatory, and some things for ever impossible; in\nother words, it must be a relation determined by law, and law which\ncannot deny itself.  But law in this sense is not 'legal.'  It is not\n'judicial,' or 'forensic,' or 'statutory.'  None the less it is real and\nvital, and the whole moral value of the relation depends upon it.  When a\nman says--as some one has said--'There are many to whom the conception of\nforgiveness resting on a judicial transaction does not appeal at all,' I\nentirely agree with him; it does not appeal at all to me.  But what would\nbe the value of a forgiveness which did not recognise in its eternal\ntruth and worth that universal law in which the relations of God and man\nare constituted?  Without the recognition of that law--that moral order\nor constitution in which we have our life in relation to God and each\nother--righteousness and sin, atonement and forgiveness, would all alike\nbe words without meaning.\n\nIn connection with this, reference may be made to an important point in\nthe interpretation of the New Testament.  The responsibility for what is\ncalled the forensic conception of the Atonement is often traced to St.\nPaul, and the greatest of all the ministers of grace is not infrequently\nspoken of as though he had deliberately laid the most insuperable of\nstumbling-blocks in the way to the gospel.  Most people, of course, are\nconscious that they do not look well talking down to St.  Paul, and\noccasionally one can detect a note of misgiving in the brave words in\nwhich his doctrine is renounced, a note of misgiving which suggests that\nthe charitable course is to hear such protests in silence, and to let\nthose who utter them think over the matter again.  But there is what\nclaims to be a scientific way of expressing dissent from the apostle, a\nway which, equally with the petulant one, rests, I am convinced, on\nmisapprehension of his teaching.  This it would not be fair to ignore.\nIt interprets what the apostle says about law solely by reference to the\ngreat question at issue between the Jewish and the Christian religions,\nmaking the word law mean the statutory system under which the Jews lived,\nand nothing else.  No one will deny that Paul does use the word in this\nsense; the law often means for him specifically the law of Moses.  The\nlaw of Moses, however, never means for him anything less than the law of\nGod; it is one specific form in which the universal relations subsisting\nbetween God and man, and making religion and morality possible, have\nfound historical expression.  But Paul's mind does not rest in this one\nhistorical expression.  He generalises it.  He has the conception of a\nuniversal law, to which he can appeal in Gentile as well as in Jew--a law\nin the presence of which sin is revealed, and by the reaction of which\nsin is judged--a law which God could not deny without denying Himself,\nand to which justice is done (in other words, which is maintained in its\nintegrity), even when God justifies the ungodly.  But when law is thus\nuniversalised, it ceases to be legal; it is not a statute, but the moral\nconstitution of the world.  Paul preached the same gospel to the Gentiles\nas he did to the Jews; he preached in it the same relation of the\nAtonement and of Christ's death to divine law.  But he did not do this by\nextending to all mankind a Pharisaic, legal, forensic relation to God: he\ndid it by rising above such conceptions, even though as a Pharisee he may\nhave had to start from them, to the conception of a relation of all men\nto God expressing itself in a moral constitution--or, as he would have\nsaid, but in an entirely unforensic sense, in a law--of divine and\nunchanging validity.  The maintenance of this law, or of this moral\nconstitution, in its inviolable integrity was the signature of the\nforgiveness Paul preached.  The Atonement meant to him that forgiveness\nwas mediated through One in whose life and death the most signal homage\nwas paid to this law: the very glory of the Atonement was that it\nmanifested the righteousness of God; it demonstrated God's consistency\nwith His own character, which would have been violated alike by\nindifference to sinners and by indifference to that universal moral\norder--that law of God--in which alone eternal life is possible.\n\nHence it is a mistake to say--though this also has been said--that\n'Paul's problem was not that of the possibility of forgiveness; it was\nthe Jewish law, the Old Testament dispensation: how to justify his breach\nwith it, how to demonstrate that the old order had been annulled and a\nnew order inaugurated.'  There is a false contrast in all such\npropositions.  Paul's problem was that of the Jewish law, and it was also\nthat of the possibility of forgiveness; it was that of the Jewish law,\nand it was also that of a revelation of grace, in which God should\njustify the ungodly, Jew or Gentile, and yet maintain inviolate those\nuniversal moral relations between Himself and man for which law is the\ncompendious expression.  It does not matter whether we suppose him to\nstart from the concrete instance of the Jewish law, and to generalise on\nthe basis of it; or to start from the universal conception of law, and to\nrecognise in existing Jewish institutions the most available and definite\nillustration of it: in either case, the only Paul whose mind is known to\nus has completely transcended the forensic point of view.  The same false\ncontrast is repeated when we are told that, 'That doctrine (Paul's\n\"juristic doctrine\") had its origin, not so much in his religious\nexperience, as in apologetic necessities.'  The only apologetic\nnecessities which give rise to fundamental doctrines are those created by\nreligious experience.  The apologetic of any religious experience is just\nthe definition of it as real in relation to other acknowledged realities.\nPaul had undoubtedly an apologetic of forgiveness--namely, his doctrine\nof atonement.  But the acknowledged reality in relation to which he\ndefined forgiveness--the reality with which, by means of his doctrine of\natonement, he showed forgiveness to be consistent--was not the law of the\nJews (though that was included in it, or might be pointed to in\nillustration of it): it was the law of God, the universal and inviolable\norder in which alone eternal life is possible, and in which all men, and\nnot the Jews only, live and move and have their being.  It was the\nperception of this which made Paul an apostle to the Gentiles, and it is\nthis very thing itself, which some would degrade into an awkward,\nunintelligent, and outworn rag of Pharisaic apologetic, which is the very\nheart and soul of Paul's Gentile gospel.  Paul himself was perfectly\nconscious of this; he could not have preached to the Gentiles at all\nunless he had been.  But there is nothing in it which can be\ncharacterised as 'legal,' 'judicial,' or 'forensic'; and of this also, I\nhave no doubt, the apostle was well aware.  Of course he occupied a\ncertain historical position, had certain historical questions to answer,\nwas subject to historical limitations of different kinds; but I have not\nthe courage to treat him, nor do his words entitle any one to do so, as a\nman who in the region of ideas could not put two and two together.\n\nBut to return to the point from which this digression on St. Paul\nstarted.  We have seen that the relations of God and man are personal,\nand also that they are universal, that is, there is a law of them, or, if\nwe like to say so, a law in them, on the maintenance of which their whole\nethical value depends.  The next point to be noticed is that these\nrelations are deranged or disordered by sin.  Sin is, in fact, nothing\nelse than this derangement or disturbance: it is that in which wrong is\ndone to the moral constitution under which we live.  And let no one say\nthat in such an expression we are turning our back on the personal world,\nand lapsing, or incurring the risk of lapsing, into mere legalism again.\nIt cannot be too often repeated that if the universal element, or law, be\neliminated from personal relations, there is nothing intelligible left:\nno reason, no morality, no religion, no sin or righteousness or\nforgiveness, nothing to appeal to mind or conscience.  In the widest\nsense of the word, sin, as a disturbance of the personal relations\nbetween God and man, is a violence done to the constitution under which\nGod and man form one moral community, share, as we may reverently express\nit, one life, have in view the same moral ends.\n\nIt is no more necessary in connection with the Atonement than in any\nother connection that we should have a doctrine of the origin of sin.  We\ndo not know its origin, we only know that it is here.  We cannot observe\nthe genesis of the bad conscience any more than we can observe the\ngenesis of consciousness in general.  We see that consciousness does\nstand in relief against the background of natural life; but though we\nbelieve that, as it exists in us, it has emerged from that background, we\ncannot see it emerge; it is an ultimate fact, and is assumed in all that\nwe can ever regard as its physical antecedents and presuppositions.  In\nthe same way, the moral consciousness is an ultimate fact, and\nirreducible.  The physical theory of evolution must not be allowed to\nmislead us here, and in particular it must not be allowed to discredit\nthe conception of moral responsibility for sin which is embodied in the\nstory of the Fall.  Each of us individually has risen into moral life\nfrom a mode of being which was purely natural; in other words, each of\nus, individually, has been a subject of evolution; but each of us also\nhas fallen--fallen, presumably, in ways determined by his natural\nconstitution, yet certainly, as conscience assures us, in ways for which\nwe are morally answerable, and to which, in the moral constitution of the\nworld, consequences attach which we must recognise as our due.  They are\nnot only results of our action, but results which that action has\nmerited, and there is no moral hope for us unless we accept them as such.\nNow what is true of any, or rather of all, of us, without compromise of\nthe moral consciousness, may be true of the race, or of the first man, if\nthere was a first man.  Evolution and a Fall cannot be inconsistent, for\nboth enter into every moral experience of which we know anything; and no\nopinion we hold about the origin of sin can make it anything else than it\nis in conscience, or give its results any character other than that which\nthey have to conscience.  Of course when one tries to interpret sin\noutside of conscience, as though it were purely physical, and did not\nhave its being in personality, consciousness, and will, it disappears;\nand the laborious sophistries of such interpretations must be left to\nthemselves.  The point for us is that no matter how sin originated, in\nthe moral consciousness in which it has its being it is recognised as a\nderangement of the vital relations of man, a violation of that universal\norder outside of which he has no true good.\n\nIn what way, now, let us ask, does the reality of sin come home to the\nsinner?  How does he recognise it as what it is?  What is the reaction\nagainst the sinner, in the moral order under which he lives, which\nreveals to him the meaning of his sinful act or state?\n\nIn the first place, there is that instantaneous but abiding reaction\nwhich is called the bad conscience--the sense of guilt, of being\nanswerable to God for sin.  The sin may be an act which is committed in a\nmoment, but in this aspect of it, at least, it does not fade into the\npast.  An animal may have a past, for anything we can tell, and\nnaturalistic interpreters of sin may believe that sin dies a natural\ndeath with time, and need not trouble us permanently; but this is not the\nvoice of conscience, in which alone sin exists, and which alone can tell\nus the truth about it.  The truth is that the spiritual being has no\npast.  Just as he is continually with God, his sin is continually with\nhim.  He cannot escape it by not thinking.  When he keeps silence, as the\nPsalmist says--and that is always his first resource, as though, if he\nwere to say nothing about it, God might say nothing about it, and the\nwhole thing blow over--it devours him like a fever within: his bones wax\nold with his moaning all day long.  This sense of being wrong with God,\nunder His displeasure, excluded from His fellowship, afraid to meet Him\nyet bound to meet Him, is the sense of guilt.  Conscience confesses in it\nits liability to God, a liability which in the very nature of the case it\ncan do nothing to meet, and which therefore is nearly akin to despair.\n\nBut the bad conscience, real as it is, may be too abstractly interpreted.\nMan is not a pure spirit, but a spiritual being whose roots strike to the\nvery depths of nature, and who is connected by the most intimate and\nvital relations not only with his fellow-creatures of the same species,\nbut with the whole system of nature in which he lives.  The moral\nconstitution in which he has his being comprehends, if we may say so,\nnature in itself: the God who has established the moral order in which\nman lives, has established the natural order also as part of the same\nwhole with it.  In some profound way the two are one.  We distinguish in\nman, legitimately enough, between the spiritual and the physical; but man\nis one, and the universe in which he lives is one, and in man's relation\nto God the distinction of physical and spiritual must ultimately\ndisappear.  The sin which introduces disorder into man's relations to God\nproduces reactions affecting man as a whole--not reactions that, as we\nsometimes say, are purely spiritual, but reactions as broad as man's\nbeing and as the whole divinely constituted environment in which it\nlives.  I am well aware of the difficulty of giving expression to this\ntruth, and of the hopelessness of trying to give expression to it by\nmeans of those very distinctions which it is its nature to transcend.\nThe distinctions are easy and obvious; what we have to learn is that they\nare not final.  It seems so conclusive to say, as some one has done in\ncriticising the idea of atonement, that spiritual transgressing brings\nspiritual penalty, and physical brings physical; it seems so conclusive,\nand it is in truth so completely beside the mark.  We cannot divide\neither man or the universe in this fashion into two parts which move on\ndifferent planes and have no vital relations; we cannot, to apply this\ntruth to the subject before us, limit the divine reaction against sin, or\nthe experiences through which, in any case whatever, sin is brought home\nto man as what it is, to the purely spiritual sphere.  Every sin is a sin\nof the indivisible human being, and the divine reaction against it\nexpresses itself to conscience through the indivisible frame of that\nworld, at once natural and spiritual, in which man lives.  We cannot\ndistribute evils into the two classes of physical and moral, and\nsubsequently investigate the relation between them: if we could, it would\nbe of no service here.  What we have to understand is that when a man\nsins he does something in which his whole being participates, and that\nthe reaction of God against his sin is a reaction in which he is\nconscious, or might be conscious, that the whole system of things is in\narms against him.\n\nThere are those, no doubt, to whom this will seem fantastic, but it is a\ntruth, I am convinced, which is presupposed in the Christian doctrine of\nAtonement, as the mediation of forgiveness through the suffering and\ndeath of Christ: and it is a truth also, if I am not much mistaken, to\nwhich all the highest poetry, which is also the deepest vision of the\nhuman mind, bears witness.  We may distinguish natural law and moral law\nas sharply as we please, and it is as necessary sometimes as it is easy\nto make these sharp and absolute distinctions; but there is a unity in\nexperience which makes itself felt deeper than all the antitheses of\nlogic, and in that unity nature and spirit are no more defined by\ncontrast with each other: on the contrary, they interpenetrate and\nsupport each other: they are aspects of the same whole.  When we read in\nthe prophet Amos, 'Lo, He that formeth the mountains, and createth the\nwind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning\ndarkness and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, the Lord, the\nGod of hosts, is His name,' this is the truth which is expressed.  The\npower which reveals itself in conscience--telling us all things that ever\nwe did, declaring unto us what is our thought--is the same which reveals\nitself in nature, establishing the everlasting hills, creating the winds\nwhich sweep over them, turning the shadow of death into the morning and\nmaking the day dark with night, calling for the waters of the sea, and\npouring them out on the face of the earth.  Conscience speaks in a still\nsmall voice, but it is no impotent voice; it can summon the thunder to\ngive it resonance; the power which we sometimes speak of as if it were\npurely spiritual is a power which clothes itself spontaneously and of\nright in all the majesty and omnipotence of nature.  It is the same\ntruth, again, in another aspect of it, which is expressed in Wordsworth's\nsublime lines to Duty:\n\n  'Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong,\n  And the most ancient Heavens through Thee are fresh and strong.'\n\nWhen the mind sees deepest, it is conscious that it needs more than\nphysical astronomy, more than spectrum analysis, to tell us everything\neven about the stars.  There is a moral constitution, it assures us, even\nof the physical world; and though it is impossible for us to work it out\nin detail, the assumption of it is the only assumption on which we can\nunderstand the life of a being related as man is related both to the\nnatural and the spiritual.  I do not pretend to prove that there is\narticulate or conscious reflection on this in either the Old Testament or\nthe New; I take it for granted, as self-evident, that this sense of the\nultimate unity of the natural and the spiritual--which is, indeed, but\none form of belief in God--pervades the Bible from beginning to end.  It\nknows nothing of our abstract and absolute distinctions; to come to the\nmatter in hand, it knows nothing of a sin which has merely spiritual\npenalties.  Sin is the act or the state of man, and the reaction against\nit is the reaction of the whole order, at once natural and spiritual, in\nwhich man lives.\n\nNow the great difficulty which the modern mind has with the Atonement, or\nwith the representation of it in the New Testament, is that it assumes\nsome kind of connection between sin and death.  Forgiveness is mediated\nthrough Christ, but specifically through His death.  He died for our\nsins; if we can be put right with God apart from this, then, St. Paul\ntells us, He died for nothing.  One is almost ashamed to repeat that this\nis not Paulinism, but the Christianity of the whole Apostolic Church.\nWhat St. Paul made the basis of his preaching, that Christ died for our\nsins, according to the Scriptures, he had on his own showing received as\nthe common Christian tradition.  But is there anything in it?  Can we\nreceive it simply on the authority of the primitive Church?  Can we\nrealise any such connection between death and sin as makes it a truth to\nus, an intelligible, impressive, overpowering thought, that Christ died\nfor our sins?\n\nI venture to say that a great part of the difficulty which is felt at\nthis point is due to the false abstraction just referred to.  Sin is put\ninto one world--the moral; death is put into another world--the natural;\nand there is no connection between them.  This is very convincing if we\nfind it possible to believe that we live in two unconnected worlds.  But\nif we find it impossible to believe this--and surely the impossibility is\npatent--its plausibility is gone.  It is a shining example of this false\nabstraction when we are told, as though it were a conclusive objection to\nall that the New Testament has to say about the relation of sin and\ndeath, that 'the specific penalty of sin is not a fact of the natural\nlife, but of the moral life.'  What right has any one, in speaking of the\nultimate realities in human life, of those experiences in which man\nbecomes conscious of all that is involved in his relations to God and\ntheir disturbance by sin, to split that human life into 'natural' and\n'moral,' and fix an impassable gulf between?  The distinction is\nlegitimate, as has already been remarked, within limits, but it is not\nfinal; and what the New Testament teaches, or rather assumes, about the\nrelation of sin and death, is one of the ways in which we are made\nsensible that it is not final.  Sin and death do not belong to unrelated\nworlds.  As far as man is concerned, the two worlds, to use an inadequate\nfigure, intersect; and at one point in the line of their intersection sin\nand death meet and interpenetrate.  In the indivisible experience of man\nhe is conscious that they are parts or aspects of the same thing.\n\nThat this is what Scripture means when it assumes the connection of death\nand sin is not to be refuted by pointing either to the third chapter of\nGenesis or to the fifth of Romans.  It does not, for example, do justice\neither to Genesis or to St. Paul to say, as has been said, that according\nto their representation, 'Death--not spiritual, but natural death--is the\ndirect consequence of sin and its specific penalty.'  In such a dictum,\nthe distinctions again mislead.  To read the third chapter of Genesis in\nthis sense would mean that what we had to find in it was a mythological\nexplanation of the origin of physical death.  But does any one believe\nthat any Bible writer was ever curious about this question? or does any\none believe that a mythological solution of the problem, how death\noriginated--a solution which _ex hypothesi_ has not a particle of truth\nor even of meaning in it--could have furnished the presupposition for the\nfundamental doctrine of the Christian religion, that Christ died for our\nsins, and that in Him we have our forgiveness through His blood?  A truth\nwhich has appealed so powerfully to man cannot be sustained on a\nfalsehood.  That the third chapter of Genesis is mythological in form, no\none who knows what mythology is will deny; but even mythology is not made\nout of nothing, and in this chapter every atom is 'stuff o' the\nconscience.'  What we see in it is conscience, projecting as it were in a\npicture on a screen its own invincible, dear-bought, despairing\nconviction that sin and death are indissolubly united--that from death\nthe sinful race can never get away--that it is part of the indivisible\nreality of sin that the shadow of death darkens the path of the sinner,\nand at last swallows him up.  It is this also which is in the mind of St.\nPaul when he says that by one man sin entered into the world and death by\nsin.  It is not the origin of death he is interested in, nor the origin\nof sin either, but the fact that sin and death hang together.  And just\nbecause sin is sin, this is not a fact of natural history, or a fact\nwhich natural history can discredit.  Scripture has no interest in\nnatural history, nor does such an interest help us to understand it.  It\nis no doubt perfectly true that to the biologist death is part of the\nindispensable machinery of nature; it is a piece of the mechanism without\nwhich the movement of the whole would be arrested; to put it so, death to\nthe biologist is part of the same whole as life, or life and death are\nfor him aspects of one thing.  One can admit this frankly without\ncompromising, because without touching, the other and deeper truth which\nis so interesting and indeed so vital alike in the opening pages of\nrevelation and in its consummation in the Atonement.  The biologist, when\nhe deals with man, and with his life and death, deliberately deals with\nthem in abstraction, as merely physical phenomena; to him man is a piece\nof nature, and he is nothing more.  But the Biblical writers deal with\nman in the integrity of his being, and in his relations to God; they\ntranscend the distinction of natural and moral, because for God it is not\nfinal: they are sensible of the unity in things which the everyday mind,\nfor practical purposes, finds it convenient to keep apart.  It is one\ngreat instance of this that they are sensible of the unity of sin and\ndeath.  We may call sin a spiritual thing, but the man who has never felt\nthe shadow of death fall upon it does not know what that spiritual thing\nis: and we may call death a natural thing, but the man who has not felt\nits natural pathos deepen into tragedy as he faced it with the sense of\nsin upon him does not know what that natural thing is.  We are here, in\nshort, at the vanishing point of this distinction--God is present, and\nnature and spirit interpenetrate in His presence.  We hear much in other\nconnections of the sacramental principle, and its importance for the\nreligious interpretation of nature.  It is a sombre illustration of this\nprinciple if we say that death is a kind of sacrament of sin.  It is in\ndeath, ultimately, that the whole meaning of sin comes home to the\nsinner; he has not sounded it to its depths till he has discovered that\nthis comes into it at last.  And we must not suppose that when Paul read\nthe third chapter of Genesis he read it as a mythological explanation of\nthe origin of physical death, and accepted it as such on the authority of\ninspiration.  With all his reverence for the Old Testament, Paul accepted\nnothing from it that did not speak to his conscience, and waken echoes\nthere; and what so spoke to him from the third chapter of Genesis was not\na mythical story of how death invaded Paradise, but the profound\nexperience of the human race expressed in the story, an experience in\nwhich sin and death inter-penetrate, interpret, and in a sense constitute\neach other.  To us they are what they are only in relation to each other,\nand when we deny the relation we see the reality of neither.  This is the\ntruth, as I apprehend it, of all we are taught either in the Old\nTestament or in the New about the relation of sin and death.  It is part\nof the greater truth that what we call the physical and spiritual worlds\nare ultimately one, being constituted with a view to each other; and most\nof the objections which are raised against it are special cases of the\nobjections which are raised against the recognition of this ultimate\nunity.  So far as they are such, it is not necessary to discuss them\nfurther; and so far as the ultimate unity of the natural and the\nspiritual is a truth rather to be experienced than demonstrated, it is\nnot probable that much can be done by argument to gain acceptance for the\nidea that sin and death have essential relations to each other.  But\nthere are particular objections to this idea to which it may be worth\nwhile to refer.\n\nThere is, to begin with, the undoubted fact that many people live and die\nwithout, consciously at least, recognising this relation.  The thought of\ndeath may have had a very small place in their lives, and when death\nitself comes it may, for various reasons, be a very insignificant\nexperience to them.  It may come in a moment, suddenly, and give no time\nfor feeling; or it may come as the last step in a natural process of\ndecay, and arrest life almost unconsciously; or it may come through a\nweakness in which the mind wanders to familiar scenes of the past, living\nthese over again, and in a manner escaping by so doing the awful\nexperience of death itself; or it may come in childhood before the moral\nconsciousness is fully awakened, and moral reflection and experience\npossible.  This last case, properly speaking, does not concern us; we do\nnot know how to define sin in relation to those in whom the moral\nconsciousness is as yet undeveloped: we only know that somehow or other\nthey are involved in the moral as well as in the natural unity of the\nrace.  But leaving them out of account, is there any real difficulty in\nthe others? any real objection to the Biblical idea that sin and death in\nhumanity are essentially related?  I do not think there is.  To say that\nmany people are unconscious of the connection is only another way of\nsaying that many people fail to realise in full and tragic reality what\nis meant by death and sin.  They think very little about either.  The\nthird chapter of Genesis could never have been written out of their\nconscience.  Sin is not for them all one with despair: they are not,\nthrough fear of death, all their lifetime subject to bondage.  Scripture,\nof course, has no difficulty in admitting this; it depicts, on the\namplest scale, and in the most vivid colours, the very kind of life and\ndeath which are here supposed.  But it does not consider that such a life\nand death are _ipso facto_ a refutation of the truth it teaches about the\nessential relations of death and sin.  On the contrary, it considers them\na striking demonstration of that moral dulness and insensibility in man\nwhich must be overcome if he is ever to see and feel his sin as what it\nis to God, or welcome the Atonement as that in which God's forgiveness of\nsin is mediated through the tremendous experience of death.  I know there\nare those who will call this arrogant, or even insolent, as though I were\npassing a moral sentence on all who do not accept a theorem of mine; but\nI hope I do not need here to disclaim any such unchristian temper.  Only,\nit is necessary to insist that the connection of sin and death in\nScripture is neither a fantastic piece of mythology, explaining, as\nmythology does, the origin of a physical law, nor, on the other hand, a\npiece of supernaturally revealed history, to be accepted on the authority\nof Him who has revealed it; in such revelations no one believes any\nlonger; it is a profound conviction and experience of the human\nconscience, and all that is of interest is to show that such a conviction\nand experience can never be set aside by the protest of those who aver\nthat they know nothing about it.  One must insist on this, however it may\nexpose him to the charge of judging.  Can we utter any truth at all, in\nwhich conscience is concerned, and which is not universally acknowledged,\nwithout seeming to judge?\n\nSometimes, apart from the general denial of any connection between death\nand sin, it is pointed out that death has another and a totally different\ncharacter.  Death in any given case may be so far from coming as a\njudgment of God, that it actually comes as a gracious gift from Him; it\nmay even be an answer to prayer, a merciful deliverance from pain, an\nevent welcomed by suffering human nature, and by all who sympathise with\nit.  This is quite true, but again, one must point out, rests on the\nfalse abstraction so often referred to.  Man is regarded in all this\nsimply in the character of a sufferer, and death as that which brings\nsuffering to an end; but that is not all the truth about man, nor all the\ntruth about death.  Physical pain may be so terrible that consciousness\nis absorbed and exhausted in it, sometimes even extinguished, but it is\nnot to such abnormal conditions we should appeal to discover the deepest\ntruths in the moral consciousness of man.  If the waves of pain subsided,\nand the whole nature collected its forces again, and conscience was once\nmore audible, death too would be seen in a different light.  It might not\nindeed be apprehended at once, as Scripture apprehends it, but it would\nnot be regarded simply as a welcome relief from pain.  It would become\npossible to see in it something through which God spoke to the\nconscience, and eventually to realise its intimate relation to sin.\n\nThe objections we have just considered are not very serious, because they\npractically mean that death has no moral character at all; they reduce it\nto a natural phenomenon, and do not bring it into any relation to the\nconscience.  It is a more respectable, and perhaps a more formidable\nobjection, when death is brought into the moral world, and when the plea\nis put forward that so far from being God's judgment upon sin, it may be\nitself a high moral achievement.  A man may die greatly; his death may be\na triumph; nothing in his life may become him like the leaving it.  Is\nnot this inconsistent with the idea that there is any peculiar connection\nbetween death and sin?  From the Biblical point of view the answer must\nagain be in the negative.  There is no such triumph over death as makes\ndeath itself a noble ethical achievement, which is not at the same time a\ntriumph over sin.  Man vanquishes the one only as in the grace of God he\nis able to vanquish the other.  The doom that is in death passes away\nonly as the sin to which it is related is transcended.  But there is more\nthan this to be said.  Death cannot be so completely an action that it\nceases to be a passion; it cannot be so completely achieved that it\nceases to be accepted or endured.  And in this last aspect of it the\noriginal character which it bore in relation to sin still makes itself\nfelt.  Transfigure it, as it may be transfigured, by courage, by\ndevotion, by voluntary abandonment of life for a higher good, and it\nremains nevertheless the last enemy.  There is something in it monstrous\nand alien to the spirit, something which baffles the moral intelligence,\ntill the truth dawns upon us that for all our race sin and death are\naspects of one thing.  If we separate them, we understand neither; nor do\nwe understand the solemn greatness of martyrdom itself if we regard it as\na triumph only, and eliminate from the death which martyrs die all sense\nof the universal relation in humanity of death and sin.  No one knew the\nspirit of the martyr more thoroughly than St. Paul.  No one could speak\nmore confidently and triumphantly of death than he.  No one knew better\nhow to turn the passion into action, the endurance into a great spiritual\nachievement.  But also, no one knew better than he, in consistency with\nall this, that sin and death are needed for the interpretation of each\nother, and that fundamentally, in the experience of the race, they\nconstitute one whole.  Even when he cried, 'O death, where is thy sting?'\nhe was conscious that 'the sting of death is sin.' Each, so to speak, had\nits reality in the other.  No one could vanquish death who had not\nvanquished sin.  No one could know what sin meant without tasting death.\nThese were not mythological fancies in St.  Paul's mind, but the\nconviction in which the Christian conscience experimentally lived, and\nmoved, and had its being.  And these convictions, I repeat, furnish the\npoint of view from which we must appreciate the Atonement, _i.e._ the\ntruth that forgiveness, as Christianity preaches it, is specifically\nmediated through Christ's death.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nCHRIST AND MAN IN THE ATONEMENT\n\nWhat has now been said about the relations subsisting between God and\nman, about the manner in which these relations are affected by sin, and\nparticularly about the Scripture doctrine of the connection between sin\nand death, must determine, to a great extent, our attitude to the\nAtonement.  The Atonement, as the New Testament presents it, assumes\nthe connection of sin and death.  Apart from some sense and recognition\nof such connection, the mediation of forgiveness through the death of\nChrist can only appear an arbitrary, irrational, unacceptable idea.\nBut leaving the Atonement meanwhile out of sight, and looking only at\nthe situation created by sin, the question inevitably arises, What can\nbe done with it?  Is it possible to remedy or to reverse it?  It is an\nabnormal and unnatural situation; can it be annulled, and the relations\nof God and man put upon an ideal footing?  Can God forgive sin and\nrestore the soul?  Can we claim that He shall?  And if it is possible\nfor Him to do so, can we tell how or on what conditions it is possible?\n\nWhen the human mind is left to itself, there are only two answers which\nit can give to these questions.  Perhaps they are not specially\ncharacteristic of the modern mind, but the modern mind in various moods\nhas given passionate expression to both of them.  The first says\nroundly that forgiveness is impossible.  Sin is, and it abides.  The\nsinner can never escape from the past.  His future is mortgaged to it,\nand it cannot be redeemed.  He can never get back the years which the\nlocust has eaten.  His leprous flesh can never come again like the\nflesh of a little child.  Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also\nreap, and reap for ever and ever.  It is not eternal punishment which\nis incredible; nothing else has credibility.  Let there be no illusion\nabout this: forgiveness is a violation, a reversal, of law, and no such\nthing is conceivable in a world in which law reigns.\n\nThe answer to this is, that sin and its consequences are here conceived\nas though they belonged to a purely physical world, whereas, if the\nworld were only physical, there could be no such thing as sin.  As soon\nas we realise that sin belongs to a world in which freedom is real--a\nworld in which reality means the personal relations subsisting between\nman and God, and the experiences realised in these relations--the\nquestion assumes a different aspect.  It is not one of logic or of\nphysical law, but of personality, of character, of freedom.  There is\nat least a possibility that the sinner's relation to his sin and God's\nrelation to the sinner should change, and that out of these changed\nrelations a regenerative power should spring, making the sinner, after\nall, a new creature.  The question, of course, is not decided in this\nsense, but it is not foreclosed.\n\nAt the opposite extreme from those who pronounce forgiveness impossible\nstand those who give the second answer to the great question, and\ncalmly assure us that forgiveness may be taken for granted.  They\nemphasise what the others overlooked--the personal character of the\nrelations of God and man.  God is a loving Father; man is His weak and\nunhappy child; and of course God forgives.  As Heine put it, _c'est mon\nmetier_, it is what He is for.  But the conscience which is really\nburdened by sin does not easily find satisfaction in this cheap pardon.\nThere is something in conscience which will not allow it to believe\nthat God can simply condone sin: to take forgiveness for granted, when\nyou realise what you are doing, seems to a live conscience impious and\nprofane.  In reality, the tendency to take forgiveness for granted is\nthe tendency of those who, while they properly emphasise the personal\ncharacter of the relations of God and man, overlook their universal\ncharacter--that is, exclude from them that element of law without which\npersonal relations cease to be ethical.  But a forgiveness which\nignores this stands in no relation to the needs of the soul or the\ncharacter of God.\n\nWhat the Christian religion holds to be the truth about forgiveness--a\ntruth embodied in the Atonement--is something quite distinct from both\nthe propositions which have just been considered.  The New Testament\ndoes not teach, with the naturalistic or the legal mind, that\nforgiveness is impossible; neither does it teach, with the sentimental\nor lawless mind, that it may be taken for granted.  It teaches that\nforgiveness is mediated to sinners through Christ, and specifically\nthrough His death: in other words, that it is possible for God to\nforgive, but possible for God only through a supreme revelation of His\nlove, made at infinite cost, and doing justice to the uttermost to\nthose inviolable relations in which alone, as I have already said, man\ncan participate in eternal life, the life of God Himself--doing justice\nto them as relations in which there is an inexorable divine reaction\nagainst sin, finally expressing itself in death.  It is possible on\nthese terms, and it becomes actual as sinful men open their hearts in\npenitence and faith to this marvellous revelation, and abandon their\nsinful life unreservedly to the love of God in Christ who died for them.\n\nFrom this point of view it seems to me possible to present in a\nconvincing and persuasive light some of the truths involved in the\nAtonement to which the modern mind is supposed to be specially averse.\n\nThus it becomes credible--we say so not _a priori_, but after\nexperience--that there is a _divine necessity_ for it; in other words,\nthere is no forgiveness possible to God without it: if He forgives at\nall, it must be in this way and in no other.  To say so beforehand\nwould be inconceivably presumptuous, but it is quite another thing to\nsay so after the event.  What it really means is that in the very act\nof forgiving sin--or, to use the daring word of St. Paul, in the very\nact of justifying the ungodly--God must act in consistency with His\nwhole character.  He must demonstrate Himself to be what He is in\nrelation to sin, a God with whom evil cannot dwell, a God who maintains\ninviolate the moral constitution of the world, taking sin as all that\nit is in the very process through which He mediates His forgiveness to\nmen.\n\nIt is the recognition of this divine necessity--not to forgive, but to\nforgive in a way which shows that God is irreconcilable to evil, and\ncan never treat it as other or less than it is--it is the recognition\nof this divine necessity, or the failure to recognise it, which\nultimately divides interpreters of Christianity into evangelical and\nnon-evangelical, those who are true to the New Testament and those who\ncannot digest it.\n\nNo doubt the forms in which this truth is expressed are not always\nadequate to the idea they are meant to convey, and if we are only\nacquainted with them at second hand they will probably appear even less\nadequate than they are.  When Athanasius, _e.g._, speaks of God's\n_truth_ in this connection, and then reduces God's truth to the idea\nthat God must keep His word--the word which made death the penalty of\nsin--we may feel that the form only too easily loses contact with the\nsubstance.  Yet Athanasius is dealing with the essential fact of the\ncase, that God must be true to Himself, and to the moral order in which\nmen live, in all His dealings with sin for man's deliverance from it;\nand that He has been thus true to Himself in sending His Son to live\nour life and to die our death for our salvation.  Or again, when Anselm\nin the _Cur Deus Homo_ speaks of the satisfaction which is rendered to\nGod for the infringement of His honour by sin--a satisfaction apart\nfrom which there can be no forgiveness--we may feel again, and even\nmore strongly, that the form of the thought is inadequate to the\nsubstance.  But what Anselm means is that sin makes a real difference\nto God, and that even in forgiving God treats that difference _as_\nreal, and cannot do otherwise.  He cannot ignore it, or regard it as\nother or less than it is; if He did so, He would not be more gracious\nthan He is in the Atonement, He would cease to be God.  It is Anselm's\nprofound grasp of this truth which, in spite of all its inadequacy in\nform, and of all the criticism to which its inadequacy has exposed it,\nmakes the _Cur Deus Homo_ the truest and greatest book on the Atonement\nthat has ever been written.  It is the same truth of a divine necessity\nfor the Atonement which is emphasised by St. Paul in the third chapter\nof Romans, where he speaks of Christ's death as a demonstration of\nGod's righteousness.  Christ's death, we may paraphrase his meaning, is\nan act in which (so far as it is ordered in God's providence) God does\njustice to Himself.  He does justice to His character as a gracious\nGod, undoubtedly, who is moved with compassion for sinners: if He did\nnot act in a way which displayed His compassion for sinners, He would\n_not_ do justice to Himself; there would be no [Greek] _endeixis_ of\nHis [Greek] _dikaiosune_: it would be in abeyance: He would do Himself\nan injustice, or be untrue to Himself.  It is with this in view that we\ncan appreciate the arguments of writers like Diestel and Ritschl, that\nGod's righteousness is synonymous with His grace.  Such arguments are\ntrue to this extent, that God's righteousness includes His grace.  He\ncould not demonstrate it, He could not be true to Himself, if His grace\nremained hidden.  We must not, however, conceive of this as if it\nconstituted on our side a claim upon grace or upon forgiveness: such a\nclaim would be a contradiction in terms.  All that God does in Christ\nHe does in free love, moved with compassion for the misery and doom of\nmen.  But though God's righteousness as demonstrated in Christ's\ndeath--in other words, His action in consistency with His\ncharacter--includes, and, if we choose to interpret the term properly,\neven necessitates, the revelation of His grace, it is not this only--I\ndo not believe it is this primarily--which St. Paul has here in mind.\nGod, no doubt, would not do justice to Himself if He did not show His\ncompassion for sinners; but, on the other hand--and here is what the\napostle is emphasising--He would not do justice to Himself if He\ndisplayed His compassion for sinners in a way which made light of sin,\nwhich ignored its tragic reality, or took it for less than it is.  In\nthis case He would again be doing Himself injustice; there would be no\ndemonstration that He was true to Himself as the author and guardian of\nthe moral constitution under which men live; as Anselm put it, He would\nhave ceased to be God.  The apostle combines the two sides.  In Christ\nset forth a propitiation in His blood--in other words, in the Atonement\nin which the sinless Son of God enters into the bitter realisation of\nall that sin means for man, yet loves man under and through it all with\nan everlasting love--there is an [Greek] _endeixis_ of God's\nrighteousness, a demonstration of His self-consistency, in virtue of\nwhich we can see how He is at the same time just Himself and the\njustifier of him who believes on Jesus, a God who is irreconcilable to\nsin, yet devises means that His banished be not expelled from Him.  We\nmay say reverently that this was the only way in which God could\nforgive.  He cannot deny Himself, means at the same time He cannot deny\nHis grace to the sinful, and He cannot deny the moral order in which\nalone He can live in fellowship with men; and we see the inviolableness\nof both asserted in the death of Jesus.  Nothing else in the world\ndemonstrates how real is God's love to the sinful, and how real the sin\nof the world is to God.  And the love which comes to us through such an\nexpression, bearing sin in all its reality, yet loving us through and\nbeyond it, is the only love which at once forgives and regenerates the\nsoul.\n\nIt becomes credible also that there is a _human necessity_ for the\nAtonement: in other words, that apart from it the conditions of being\nforgiven could no more be fulfilled by man than forgiveness could be\nbestowed by God.\n\nThere are different tendencies in the modern mind with regard to this\npoint.  On the one hand, there are those who frankly admit the truth\nhere asserted.  Yes, they say, the Atonement is necessary for us.  If\nwe are to be saved from our sins, if our hearts are to be touched and\nwon by the love of God, if we are to be emancipated from distrust and\nreconciled to the Father whose love we have injured, there must be a\ndemonstration of that love so wonderful and overpowering that all\npride, alienation and fear shall be overcome by it; and this is what we\nhave in the death of Christ.  It is a demonstration of love powerful\nenough to evoke penitence and faith in man, and it is through penitence\nand faith alone that man is separated from his sins and reconciled to\nGod.  A demonstration of love, too, must be given in act; it is not\nenough to be told that God loves: the reality of love lies in another\nregion than that of words.  In Christ on His cross the very thing\nitself is present, beyond all hope of telling wonderful, and without\nits irresistible appeal our hearts could never have been melted to\npenitence, and won for God.  On the other hand, there are those who\nreject the Atonement on the very ground that for pardon and\nreconciliation nothing is required but repentance, the assumption being\nthat repentance is something which man can and must produce out of his\nown resources.\n\nOn these divergent tendencies in the modern mind I should wish to make\nthe following remarks.\n\nFirst, the idea that man can repent as he ought, and whenever he will,\nwithout coming under any obligation to God for his repentance, but\nrather (it might almost be imagined) putting God under obligation by\nit, is one to which experience lends no support.  Repentance is an\nadequate sense not of our folly, nor of our misery, but of our sin: as\nthe New Testament puts it, it is repentance _toward God_.  It is the\nconsciousness of what our sin is to Him: of the wrong it does to His\nholiness, of the wound which it inflicts on His love.  Now such a\nconsciousness it is not in the power of the sinner to produce at will.\nThe more deeply he has sinned, the more (so to speak) repentance is\nneeded, the less is it in his power.  It is the very nature of sin to\ndarken the mind and harden the heart, to take away the knowledge of God\nalike in His holiness and in His love.  Hence it is only through a\nrevelation of God, and especially of what God is in relation to sin,\nthat repentance can be evoked in the soul.  Of all terms in the\nvocabulary of religion, repentance is probably the one which is most\nfrequently misused.  It is habitually applied to experiences which are\nnot even remotely akin to true penitence.  The self-centred regret\nwhich a man feels when his sin has found him out--the wish, compounded\nof pride, shame, and anger at his own inconceivable folly, that he had\nnot done it: these are spoken of as repentance.  But they are not\nrepentance at all.  They have no relation to God.  They constitute no\nfitness for a new relation to Him.  They are no opening of the heart in\nthe direction of His reconciling love.  It is the simple truth that\nthat sorrow of heart, that healing and sanctifying pain in which sin is\nreally put away, is not ours in independence of God; it is a saving\ngrace which is begotten in the soul under that impression of sin which\nit owes to the revelation of God in Christ.  A man can no more repent\nthan he can do anything else without a motive, and the motive which\nmakes evangelic repentance possible does not enter into his world till\nhe sees God as God makes Himself known in the death of Christ.  All\ntrue penitents are children of the Cross.  Their penitence is not their\nown creation: it is the reaction towards God produced in their souls by\nthis demonstration of what sin is to Him, and of what His love does to\nreach and win the sinful.\n\nThe other remark I wish to make refers to those who admit the death of\nChrist to be necessary _for us_--necessary, in the way I have just\ndescribed, to evoke penitence and trust in God--but who on this very\nground deny it to be _divinely_ necessary.  It had to be, because the\nhard hearts of men could not be touched by anything less moving: but\nthat is all.  This, I feel sure, is another instance of those false\nabstractions to which reference has already been made.  There is no\nincompatibility between a _divine_ necessity and a necessity _for us_.\nIt may very well be the case that nothing less than the death of Christ\ncould win the trust of sinful men for God, and at the same time that\nnothing else than the death of Christ could fully reveal the character\nof God in relation at once to sinners and to sin.  For my own part I am\npersuaded, not only that there is no incompatibility between the two\nthings, but that they are essentially related, and that only the\nacknowledgment of the divine necessity in Christ's death enables us to\nconceive in any rational way the power which it exercises over sinners\nin inducing repentance and faith.  It would not evoke a reaction\nGodward unless God were really present in it, that is, unless it were a\nreal revelation of His being and will: but in a real revelation of\nGod's being and will there can be nothing arbitrary, nothing which is\ndetermined only from without, nothing, in other words, that is not\ndivinely necessary.  The demonstration of what God is, which is made in\nthe death of Christ, is no doubt a demonstration singularly suited to\ncall forth penitence and faith in man, but the necessity of it does not\nlie simply in the desire to call forth penitence and faith.  It lies in\nthe divine nature itself.  God could not do justice to Himself, in\nrelation to man and sin, in any way less awful than this; and it is the\nfact that He does not shrink even from this--that in the Person of His\nSon He enters, if we may say so, into the whole responsibility of the\nsituation created by sin--which constitutes the death of Jesus a\ndemonstration of divine love, compelling penitence and faith.  Nothing\nless would have been sufficient to touch sinful hearts to their\ndepths--in that sense the Atonement is humanly necessary; but neither\nwould anything else be a sufficient revelation of what God is in\nrelation to sin and to sinful men--in that sense it is divinely\nnecessary.  And the divine necessity is the fundamental one.  The power\nexercised over us by the revelation of God at the Cross is dependent on\nthe fact that the revelation is true--in other words, that it exhibits\nthe real relation of God to sinners and to sin.  It is not by\ncalculating what will win us, but by acting in consistency with\nHimself, that God irresistibly appeals to men.  We dare not say that He\nmust be gracious, as though grace could cease to be free: but we may\nsay that He must be Himself, and that it is because He is what we see\nHim to be in the death of Christ, understood as the New Testament\nunderstands it, that sinners are moved to repentance and to trust in\nHim.  That which the eternal being of God made necessary to Him in the\npresence of sin is the very thing which is necessary also to win the\nhearts of sinners.  Nothing but what is divinely necessary could have\nmet the necessities of sinful men.\n\nWhen we admit this twofold necessity for the Atonement, we can tell\nourselves more clearly how we are to conceive Christ in it, in relation\nto God on the one hand and to man on the other.  The Atonement is God's\nwork.  It is God who makes the Atonement in Christ.  It is God who\nmediates His forgiveness of sins to us in this way.  This is one aspect\nof the matter, and probably the one about which there is least dispute\namong Christians.  But there is another aspect of it.  The Mediator\nbetween God and man is Himself man, Christ Jesus.  What is the relation\nof the man Christ Jesus to those for whom the Atonement is made?  What\nis the proper term to designate, in this atoning work, what He is in\nrelation to them?  The doctrine of Atonement current in the Church in\nthe generation preceding our own answered frankly that in His atoning\nwork Christ is our substitute.  He comes in our nature, and He comes\ninto our place.  He enters into all the responsibilities that sin has\ncreated for us, and He does justice to them in His death.  He does not\ndeny any of them: He does not take sin as anything less or else than it\nis to God; in perfect sinlessness He consents even to die, to submit to\nthat awful experience in which the final reaction of God's holiness\nagainst sin is expressed.  Death was not _His_ due: it was something\nalien to One Who had nothing amiss; but it was our due, and because it\nwas ours He made it His.  It was thus that He made Atonement.  _He_\nbore _our_ sins.  He took to Himself all that they meant, all in which\nthey had involved the world.  He died for them, and in so doing\nacknowledged the sanctity of that order in which sin and death arc\nindissolubly united.  In other words, He did what the human race could\nnot do for itself, yet what had to be done if sinners were to be saved:\nfor how could men be saved if there were not made in humanity an\nacknowledgment of all that sin is to God, and of the justice of all\nthat is entailed by sin under God's constitution of the world?  Such an\nacknowledgment, as we have just seen, is divinely necessary, and\nnecessary, too, for man, if sin is to be forgiven.\n\nThis was the basis of fact on which the substitutionary character of\nChrist's sufferings and death in the Atonement was asserted.  It may be\nadmitted at once that when the term substitute is interpreted without\nreference to this basis of fact it lends itself very easily to\nmisconstruction.  It falls in with, if it does not suggest, the idea of\na transference of merit and demerit, the sin of the world being carried\nover to Christ's account, and the merit of Christ to the world's\naccount, as if the reconciliation of God and man, or the forgiveness of\nsins and the regeneration of souls, could be explained without the use\nof higher categories than are employed in bookkeeping.  It is surely\nnot necessary at this time of day to disclaim an interpretation of\npersonal relations which makes use only of sub-personal categories.\nMerit and demerit cannot be mechanically transferred like sums in an\naccount.  The credit, so to speak, of one person in the moral sphere\ncannot become that of another, apart from moral conditions.  It is the\nsame truth, in other words, if we say that the figure of paying a debt\nis not in every respect adequate to describe what Christ does in making\nthe Atonement.  The figure, I believe, covers the truth; if it did not,\nwe should not have the kind of language which frequently occurs in\nScripture; but it is misread into falsehood and immorality whenever it\nis pressed as if it were exactly equivalent to the truth.  But granting\nthese drawbacks which attach to the word, is there not something in the\nwork of Christ, as mediating the forgiveness of sins, which no other\nword can express?  No matter on what subsequent conditions its virtue\nfor us depends, what Christ did had to be done, or we should never have\nhad forgiveness; we should never have known God, and His nature and\nwill in relation to sin; we should never have had the motive which\nalone could beget real repentance; we should never have had the spirit\nwhich welcomes pardon and is capable of receiving it.  We could not\nprocure these things for ourselves, we could not produce them out of\nour own resources: but He by entering into our nature and lot, by\ntaking on Him our responsibilities and dying our death, has so revealed\nGod to us as to put them within our reach.  We owe them to Him; in\nparticular, and in the last resort, we owe them to the fact that He\nbore our sins in His own body to the tree.  If we are not to say that\nthe Atonement, as a work carried through in the sufferings and death of\nChrist, sufferings and death determined by our sin, is vicarious or\nsubstitutionary, what are we to call it?\n\nThe only answer which has been given to this question, by those who\ncontinue to speak of Atonement at all, is that we must conceive Christ\nnot as the substitute but as the representative of sinners.  I venture\nto think that, with some advantages, the drawbacks of this word are\nquite as serious as those which attach to substitute.  It makes it less\neasy, indeed, to think of the work of Christ as a finished work which\nbenefits the sinner _ipso facto_, and apart from any relation between\nhim and the Saviour: but of what sort is the relation which it does\nsuggest?  It suggests that the sinners who are to be saved by Christ\ncan put Christ forward in their name: they are not in the utterly\nhopeless case that has hitherto been supposed; they can present\nthemselves to God in the person and work of One on whom God cannot but\nlook with approval.  The boldest expression of this I have ever seen\noccurs in some remarks in the _Primitive Methodist Quarterly Review_ on\nthe doctrine of St. Paul.  The reviewer is far from saying that a\nwriter who finds a substitutionary doctrine throughout the New\nTestament is altogether wrong.  He goes so far as to admit that 'if we\nlook at the matter from what may be called an external point of view,\nno doubt we may speak of the death of Christ as in a certain sense\nsubstitutionary.'  What this 'certain sense' is, he does not define.\nBut no one, he tells us, can do justice to Paul who fails to recognise\nthat the death of Christ was a racial act; and 'if we place ourselves\nat Paul's point of view, we shall see that to the eye of God the death\nof Christ presents itself less as an act which Christ does for the race\nthan as an act which the race does in Christ.'  In plain English, Paul\nteaches less that Christ died for the ungodly, than that the ungodly in\nChrist died for themselves.  This is presented to us as something\nprofound, a recognition of the mystical depths in Paul's teaching: I\nown I can see nothing profound in it except a profound misapprehension\nof the apostle.  Nevertheless, it brings out the logic of what\nrepresentative means when representative is opposed to substitute.  The\nrepresentative is ours, we are in Him, and we are supposed to get over\nall the moral difficulties raised by the idea of substitution just\nbecause He is ours, and because we are one with Him.  But the\nfundamental fact of the situation is that, to begin with, Christ is\n_not_ ours, and we are _not_ one with Him.  In the apostle's view, and\nin point of fact, we are 'without Christ' ([Greek] _choris Christou_).\nIt is not we who have put Him there.  It is not to us that His presence\nand His work in the world are due.  If we had produced Him and put Him\nforward, we might call Him our representative in the sense suggested by\nthe sentences just quoted; we might say it is not so much He who dies\nfor us, as we who die in Him; but a representative not produced by us,\nbut given to us--not chosen by us, but the elect of God--is not a\nrepresentative at all, but in that place a substitute.  He stands in\nour stead, facing all our responsibilities for us as God would have\nthem faced; and it is what He does for us, and not the effect which\nthis produces in us, still less the fantastic abstraction of a 'racial\nact,' which is the Atonement in the sense of the New Testament.  To\nspeak of Christ as our representative, in the sense that His death is\nto God less an act which He does for the race than an act which the\nrace does in Him, is in principle to deny the whole grace of the\ngospel, and to rob it of every particle of its motive power.\n\nTo do justice to the truth here, both on its religious and its ethical\nside, it is necessary to put in their proper relation to one another\nthe aspects of reality which the terms substitute and representative\nrespectively suggest.  The first is fundamental.  Christ is God's gift\nto humanity.  He stands in the midst of us, the pledge of God's love,\naccepting our responsibilities as God would have them accepted,\noffering to God, under the pressure of the world's sin and all its\nconsequences, that perfect recognition of God's holiness in so visiting\nsin which men should have offered but could not; and in so doing He\nmakes Atonement for us.  In so doing, also, He is our substitute, not\nyet our representative.  But the Atonement thus made is not a\nspectacle, it is a motive.  It is not a transaction in business, or in\nbook-keeping, which is complete in itself; in view of the relations of\nGod and man it belongs to its very nature to be a moral appeal.  It is\na divine challenge to men, which is designed to win their hearts.  And\nwhen men are won--when that which Christ in His love has done for them\ncomes home to their souls--when they are constrained by His infinite\ngrace to the self-surrender of faith, then we may say He becomes their\nrepresentative.  They begin to feel that what He has done for them must\nnot remain outside of them, but be reproduced somehow in their own\nlife.  The mind of Christ in relation to God and sin, as He bore their\nsins in His own body to the tree, must become their mind; this and\nnothing else is the Christian salvation.  The power to work this change\nin them is found in the death of Christ itself; the more its meaning is\nrealised as something there, in the world, outside of us, the more\ncompletely does it take effect within us.  In proportion as we see and\nfeel that out of pure love to us He stands in our place--our\nsubstitute--bearing our burden--in that same proportion are we drawn\ninto the relation to Him that makes Him our representative.  But we\nshould be careful here not to lose ourselves in soaring words.  The New\nTestament has much to say about union with Christ, but I could almost\nbe thankful that it has no such expression as mystical union.  The only\nunion it knows is a moral one--a union due to the moral power of\nChrist's death, operating morally as a constraining motive on the human\nwill, and begetting in believers the mind of Christ in relation to sin;\nbut this moral union remains the problem and the task, as well as the\nreality and the truth, of the Christian life.  Even when we think of\nChrist as our representative, and have the courage to say we died with\nHim, we have still to _reckon_ ourselves to be dead to sin, and to _put\nto death_ our members which are upon the earth; and to go past this,\nand speak of a mystical union with Christ in which we are lifted above\nthe region of reflection and motive, of gratitude and moral\nresponsibility, into some kind of metaphysical identity with the Lord,\ndoes not promote intelligibility, to say the least.  If the Atonement\nwere not, to begin with, outside of us--if it were not in that sense\nobjective, a finished work in which God in Christ makes a final\nrevelation of Himself in relation to sinners and sin--in other words,\nif Christ could not be conceived in it as our substitute, given by God\nto do in our place what we could not do for ourselves, there would be\nno way of recognising or preaching or receiving it as a motive; while,\non the other hand, if it did not operate as a motive, if it did not\nappeal to sinful men in such a way as to draw them into a moral\nfellowship with Christ--in other words, if Christ did not under it\nbecome representative of us, our surety to God that we should yet be\neven as He in relation to God and to sin, we could only say that it had\nall been vain.  Union with Christ, in short, is not a presupposition of\nChrist's work, which enables us to escape all the moral problems raised\nby the idea of a substitutionary Atonement; it is not a presupposition\nof Christ's work, it is its fruit.  To see that it is its fruit is to\nhave the final answer to the objection that substitution is immoral.\nIf substitution, in the sense in which we must assert it of Christ, is\nthe greatest moral force in the world--if the truth which it covers,\nwhen it enters into the mind of man, enters with divine power to\nassimilate him to the Saviour, uniting him to the Lord in a death to\nsin and a life to God--obviously, to call it immoral is an abuse of\nlanguage.  The love which can literally go out of itself and make the\nburden of others its own is the radical principle of all the genuine\nand victorious morality in the world.  And to say that love cannot do\nany such thing, that the whole formula of morality is, every man shall\nbear his own burden, is to deny the plainest facts of the moral life.\n\nYet this is a point at which difficulty is felt by many in trying to\ngrasp the Atonement.  On the one hand, there do seem to be analogies to\nit, and points of attachment for it, in experience.  No sin that has\nbecome real to conscience is ever outlived and overcome without\nexpiation.  There are consequences involved in it that go far beyond\nour perception at the moment, but they work themselves inexorably out,\nand our sin ceases to be a burden on conscience, and a fetter on will,\nonly as we 'accept the punishment of our iniquity,' and become\nconscious of the holy love of God behind it.  But the consequences of\nsin are never limited to the sinner.  They spread beyond him in the\norganism of humanity, and when they strike visibly upon the innocent,\nthe sense of guilt is deepened.  We see that we have done we know not\nwhat, something deeply and mysteriously bad beyond all our reckoning,\nsomething that only a power and goodness transcending our own avail to\ncheck.  It is one of the startling truths of the moral life that such\nconsequences of sin, striking visibly upon the innocent, have in\ncertain circumstances a peculiar power to redeem the sinful.  When they\nare accepted, as they sometimes are accepted, without repining or\ncomplaint--when they are borne, as they sometimes are borne, freely and\nlovingly by the innocent, because to the innocent the guilty are\ndear--then something is appealed to in the guilty which is deeper than\nguilt, something may be touched which is deeper than sin, a new hope\nand faith may be born in them, to take hold of love so wonderful, and\nby attaching themselves to it to transcend the evil past.  The\nsuffering of such love (they are dimly aware), or rather the power of\nsuch love persisting through all the suffering brought on it by sin,\nopens the gate of righteousness to the sinful in spite of all that has\nbeen; sin is outweighed by it, it is annulled, exhausted, transcended\nin it.  The great Atonement of Christ is somehow in line with this, and\nwe do not need to shrink from the analogy.  'If there were no witness,'\nas Dr. Robertson Nicoll puts it, 'in the world's deeper literature'--if\nthere were no witness, that is, in the universal experience of man--'to\nthe fact of an Atonement, the Atonement would be useless, since the\nformula expressing it would be unintelligible.'  It is the analogy of\nsuch experiences which makes the Atonement credible, yet it must always\nin some way transcend them.  There is something in it which is\nultimately incomparable.  When we speak of others as innocent, the term\nis used only in a relative sense; there is no human conscience pure to\nGod.  When we speak of the sin of others coming in its consequences on\nthe innocent, we speak of something in which the innocent are purely\npassive; if there is moral response on their part, the situation is not\ndue to moral initiative of theirs.  But with Christ it is different.\nHe knew _no_ sin, and He entered _freely_, deliberately, and as the\nvery work of His calling, into all that sin meant for God and brought\non man.  Something that I experience in a particular relation, in which\nanother has borne my sin and loved me through it, may help to open my\neyes to the meaning of Christ's love; but when they are opened, what I\nsee is the propitiation for the whole world.  There is no guilt of the\nhuman race, there is no consequence in which sin has involved it, to\nwhich the holiness and love made manifest in Christ are unequal.  He\nreveals to all sinful men the whole relation of God to them and to\ntheir sins--a sanctity which is inexorable to sin, and cannot take it\nas other than it is in all its consequences, and a love which through\nall these consequences and under the weight of them all, will not let\nthe sinful go.  It is in this revelation of the character of God and of\nHis relation to the sin of the world that the forgiveness of sins is\nrevealed.  It is not intimated in the air; it is preached, as St. Paul\nsays, 'in this man'; it is mediated to the world through Him and\nspecifically through His death, because it is through Him, and\nspecifically through His death, that we get the knowledge of God's\ncharacter which evokes penitence and faith, and brings the assurance of\nHis pardon to the heart.\n\nFrom this point of view we may see how to answer the question that is\nsometimes asked about the relation of Christ's life to His death, or\nabout the relation of both to the Atonement.  If we say that what we\nhave in the Atonement is an assurance of God's character, does it not\nfollow at once that Christ's teaching and His life contribute to it as\ndirectly as His death?  Is it not a signal illustration of the false\nabstractions which we have so often had cause to censure, when the\ndeath of Christ is taken as if it had an existence or a significance\napart from His life, or could be identified with the Atonement in a way\nin which His life could not?  I do not think this is so clear.  Of\ncourse it is Christ Himself who is the Atonement or propitiation--He\nHimself, as St. John puts it, and not anything, not even His death,\ninto which He does not enter.  But it is He Himself, as making to us\nthe revelation of God in relation to sin and to sinners; and apart from\ndeath, as that in which the conscience of the race sees the final\nreaction of God against evil, this revelation is not fully made.  If\nChrist had done less than die for us, therefore--if He had separated\nHimself from us, or declined to be one with us, in the solemn\nexperience in which the darkness of sin is sounded and all its\nbitterness tasted,--there would have been no Atonement.  It is\nimpossible to say this of any particular incident in His life, and in\nso far the unique emphasis laid on His death in the New Testament is\njustified.  But I should go further than this, and say that even\nChrist's life, taking it as it stands in the Gospels, only enters into\nthe Atonement, and has reconciling power, because it is pervaded from\nbeginning to end by the consciousness of His death.  Instead of\ndepriving His death of the peculiar significance Scripture assigns to\nit, and making it no more than the termination, or at least the\nconsummation, of His life, I should rather argue that the Scriptural\nemphasis is right, and that His life attains its true interpretation\nonly as we find in it everywhere the power and purpose of His death.\nThere is nothing artificial or unnatural in this.  There are plenty of\npeople who never have death out of their minds an hour at a time.  They\nare not cowards, nor mad, nor even sombre: they may have purposes and\nhopes and gaieties as well as others; but they see life steadily and\nsee it whole, and of all their thoughts the one which has most\ndetermining and omnipresent power is the thought of the inevitable end.\nThere is death in all their life.  It was not, certainly, as the\ninevitable end, the inevitable 'debt of nature,' that death was present\nto the mind of Christ; but if we can trust the Evangelists at all, from\nthe hour of His baptism it was present to His mind as something\ninvolved in His vocation; and it was a presence so tremendous that it\nabsorbed everything into itself.  'I have a baptism to be baptized\nwith, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished.'  Instead of\nsaying that Christ's life as well as His death contributed to the\nAtonement--that His active obedience (to use the theological formula)\nas well as His passive obedience was essential to His propitiation--we\nshould rather say that His life is part of His death: a deliberate and\nconscious descent, ever deeper and deeper, into the dark valley where\nat the last hour the last reality of sin was to be met and borne.  And\nif the objection is made that after all this only means that death is\nthe most vital point of life, its intensest focus, I should not wish to\nmake any reply.  Our Lord's Passion _is_ His sublimest action--an\naction so potent that all His other actions are sublated in it, and we\nknow everything when we know that He _died_ for our sins.\n\nThe desire to bring the life of Christ as well as His death into the\nAtonement has probably part of its motive in the feeling that when the\ndeath is separated from the life it loses moral character: it is\nreduced to a merely physical incident, which cannot carry such vast\nsignificance as the Atonement.  Such a feeling certainly exists, and\nfinds expression in many forms.  How often, for example, we hear it\nsaid that it is not the death which atones, but the spirit in which the\nSaviour died--not His sufferings which expiate sin, but the innocence,\nthe meekness, the love to man and obedience to God in which they were\nborne.  The Atonement, in short, was a moral achievement, to which\nphysical suffering and death are essentially irrelevant.  This is our\nold enemy, the false abstraction, once more, and that in the most\naggressive form.  The contrast of physical and moral is made absolute\nat the very point at which it ceases to exist.  As against such\nabsolute distinctions we must hold that if Christ had not really died\nfor us, there would have been no Atonement at all, and on the other\nhand that what are called His physical sufferings and death have no\nexistence simply as physical: they are essential elements in the moral\nachievement of the passion.  It leads to no truth to say that it is not\nHis death, but the spirit in which He died, that atones for sin: the\nspirit in which He died has its being in His death, and in nothing else\nin the world.\n\nIt seems to me that what is really wanted here, both by those who seek\nto co-ordinate Christ's life with His death in the Atonement, and by\nthose who distinguish between His death and the spirit in which He\ndied, is some means of keeping hold of the Person of Christ in His\nwork, and that this is not effectively done apart from the New\nTestament belief in the Resurrection.  There is no doubt that in\nspeaking of the death of Christ as that through which the forgiveness\nof sins is mediated to us we are liable to think of it as if it were\nonly an event in the past.  We take the representation of it in the\nGospel and say, \"Such and such is the impression which this event\nproduces upon me; I feel in it how God is opposed to sin, and how I\nought to be opposed to it; I feel in it how God's love appeals to me to\nshare His mind about sin; and as I yield to this appeal I am at once\nset free from sin and assured of pardon; this is the only ethical\nforgiveness; to know this experimentally is to know the Gospel.\"  No\none can have any interest in disputing another's obligation to Christ,\nbut it may fairly be questioned whether this kind of obligation to\nChrist amounts to Christianity in the sense of the New Testament.\nThere is no living Christ here, no coming of the living Christ to the\nsoul, in the power of the Atonement, to bring it to God.  But this is\nwhat the New Testament shows us.  It is _He_ who is the propitiation\nfor our sins--He who died for them and rose again.  The New Testament\npreaches a Christ who was dead and is alive, not a Christ who was alive\nand is dead.  It is a mistake to suppose that the New Testament\nconception of the Gospel, involving as it does the spiritual presence\nand action of Christ, in the power of the Atonement, is a matter of\nindifference to us, and that in all our thinking and preaching we must\nremain within purely historical limits, if by purely historical limits\nis meant that our creed must end with the words \"crucified, dead, and\nburied.\"  To preach the Atonement means not only to preach One who bore\nour sins in death, but One who by rising again from the dead\ndemonstrated the final defeat of sin, and One who comes in the power of\nHis risen life--which means, in the power of the Atonement accepted by\nGod--to make all who commit themselves to Him in faith partakers in His\nvictory.  It is not His death, as an incident in the remote past,\nhowever significant it may be; it is the Lord Himself, appealing to us\nin the virtue of His death, who assures us of pardon and restores our\nsouls.\n\nOne of the most singular phenomena in the attitude of many modern minds\nto the Atonement is the disposition to plead against the Atonement what\nthe New Testament represents as its fruits.  It is as though it had\ndone its work so thoroughly that people could not believe that it ever\nneeded to be done at all.  The idea of fellowship with Christ, for\nexample, is constantly urged against the idea that Christ died for us,\nand by His death made all mankind His debtors in a way in which we\ncannot make debtors of each other.  The New Testament itself is pressed\ninto the service.  It is pointed out that our Lord called His disciples\nto drink of His cup and to be baptized with His baptism, where the\nbaptism and the cup are figures of His passion; and it is argued that\nthere cannot be anything unique in His experience or service, anything\nwhich He does for men which it is beyond the power of His disciples to\ndo also.  Or again, reference is made to St. Paul's words to the\nColossians: 'Now I rejoice in my sufferings on your behalf, and fill up\non my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my\nflesh for His body's sake, which is the Church'; and it is argued that\nSt. Paul here represents himself as doing exactly what Christ did, or\neven as supplementing a work which Christ admittedly left imperfect.\nThe same idea is traced where the Christian is represented as called\ninto the fellowship of the Son of God, or more specifically as called\nto know the fellowship of His sufferings by becoming conformed to His\ndeath.  It is seen pervading the New Testament in the conception of the\nChristian as a man _in Christ_.  And to descend from the apostolic age\nto our own, it has been put by an American theologian into the\nepigrammatic form that Christ redeems us by making us redeemers.  What,\nit may be asked, is the truth in all this? and how is it related to\nwhat we have already seen cause to assert about the uniqueness of\nChrist's work in making atonement for sin, or mediating the divine\nforgiveness to man?\n\nI do not think it is impossible or even difficult to reconcile the two:\nit is done, indeed, whenever we see that the life to which we are\nsummoned, in the fellowship of Christ, is a life which we owe\naltogether to Him, and which He does not in the least owe to us.  The\nquestion really raised is this: Has Jesus Christ a place of His own in\nthe Christian religion?  Is it true that there is one Mediator between\nGod and man, Himself man, this man, Christ Jesus?  In spite of the\nparadoxical assertion of Harnack to the contrary, it is not possible to\ndeny, with any plausibility, that this was the mind of Christ Himself,\nand that it has been the mind of all who call Him Lord.  He knew and\ntaught, what they have learned by experience as well as by His word,\nthat all men must owe to Him their knowledge of the Father, their place\nin the Kingdom of God, and their part in all its blessings.  He could\nnot have taught this of any but Himself, nor is it the experience of\nthe Church that such blessings come through any other.  Accordingly,\nwhen Christ calls on men to drink His cup and to be baptized with His\nbaptism, while He may quite well mean, and does mean, that His life and\ndeath are to be the inspiration of theirs, and while He may quite well\nencourage them to believe that sacrifice on their part, as on His, will\ncontribute to bless the world, He need not mean, and we may be sure He\ndoes not mean, that their blood is, like His, the blood of the\ncovenant, or that their sinful lives, even when purged and quickened by\nHis Spirit, could be, like His sinless life, described as the world's\nransom.  The same considerations apply to the passages quoted from St.\nPaul, and especially to the words in Colossians i. 24.  The very\npurpose of the Epistle to the Colossians is to assert the exclusive and\nperfect mediatorship of Christ, alike in creation and redemption; all\nthat we call being, and all that we call reconciliation, has to be\ndefined by relation to Him, and not by relation to any other persons or\npowers, visible or invisible; and however gladly Paul might reflect\nthat in his enthusiasm for suffering he was continuing Christ's work,\nand exhausting some of the afflictions--they were Christ's own\nafflictions--which had yet to be endured ere the Church could be made\nperfect, it is nothing short of grotesque to suppose that in this\nconnection he conceived of himself as doing what Christ did, atoning\nfor sin, and reconciling the world to God.  All this was done already,\nperfectly done, done for the whole world; and it was on the basis of\nit, and under the inspiration of it, that the apostle sustained his\nenthusiasm for a life of toil and pain in the service of men.  Always,\nwhere we have Christian experience to deal with, it is the Christ\nthrough whom the divine forgiveness comes to us at the Cross--the\nChrist of the substitutionary Atonement, who bore all our burden alone,\nand did a work to which we can for ever recur, but to which we did not\nand do not and never can contribute at all--it is this Christ who\nconstrains us to find our representative with God in Himself, and to\nbecome ourselves His representatives to men.  It is as we truly\nrepresent Him that we can expect our testimony to Him to find\nacceptance, but that testimony far transcends everything that our\nservice enables men to measure.  What is anything that a sinful man,\nsaved by grace, can do for his Lord or for his kind, compared with what\nthe sinless Lord has done for the sinful race?  It is true that He\ncalls us to drink of His cup, to learn the fellowship of His\nsufferings, even to be conformed to His death; but under all the\nintimate relationship the eternal difference remains which makes Him\n_Lord_--He knew no sin, and we could make no atonement.  It is the goal\nof our life to be found in Him; but I cannot understand the man who\nthinks it more profound to identify himself with Christ and share in\nthe work of redeeming the world, than to abandon himself to Christ and\nshare in the world's experience of being redeemed.  And I am very sure\nthat in the New Testament the last is first and fundamental.\n\n\n\n\nTHE EXPOSITOR'S GREEK TESTAMENT.\n\n\nEdited by the\n\nRev. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.\n\n\nALREADY PUBLISHED.\n\nVolume I., 880 pages, containing--\n\n  St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke.\n    By the Rev. Prof. A. B. BRUCE, D.D.\n  St. John.\n    By the Rev. Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.\n\nVolume II., 934 pages, containing--\n  The Acts of the Apostles.\n    By the Rev. R. J. KNOWLING, D.D.\n  The Epistle to the Romans.\n    By the Rev. Prof. JAMES DENNEY, D.D.\n  The First Epistle to the Corinthians.\n    By the Rev. Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, D.D.\n\nVolume III., _ready shortly_, containing--\n  The Second Epistle to the Corinthians.\n    By the Very Rev. Dean BERNARD, D.D.\n  The Epistle to the Galatians.\n    By the Rev. FREDERICK RENDALL, M.A.\n  The Epistle to the Ephesians.\n    By the Rev. Principal SALMOND, D.D.\n  The Epistle to the Philippians.\n    By the Rev. H. A. A. KENNEDY, D.Sc.\n  The Epistle to the Colossians.\n    By Professor A. S. PEAKE, M.A.","title":"The Atonement and the Modern Mind","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":26319}