Commentary on Romans; Systematic Theology

4. The Scriptures teach that Christ redeems us from the power of Satan. Satan is said to be the prince and god of this world. His kingdom is the kingdom of darkness, in which all men, since Adam, are born, and in which they remain, until translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. They are his subjects "taken captive by him at his will." (2 Tim. ii. 26.) The first promise was that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. Christ came to destroy the works of the devil; to cast him down from his place of usurped power, to deliver those who are subject to his dominion. (2 Cor. iv. 4; Col. ii. 16.) The fact of this redemption of his people from the power of Satan, and the mode of its accomplishment, are clearly stated in Hebrews ii. 15. The eternal Son of God, who in the first chapter of that epistle, is proved to be God, the object of the worship of angels, the creator of heaven and earth, eternal and immutable, in verse 14 of the second chapter, is said to have become man, in order "that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." It is here taught, (1.) That men are in a state of bondage through fear of the wrath of God on account of sin. (2.) That in this state they are in subjection to Satan who has the power of death over them; i.e., the ability and opportunity of inflicting on them the sufferings due to them as sinners. (3.) That from this state of bondage and of subjection to the power of Satan, they are delivered by the death of Christ. His death, by satisfying the justice of God, frees them from the penalty of the law; and freedom from the curse of the law involves freedom from the power of Satan to inflict its penalty. "The strength of sin is the law." (1 Cor. xv. 56.) What satisfies the law deprives sin of the power to subject us to the wrath of God. And thus redemption from the law, is redemption from the curse, and consequently redemption from the power of Satan. This Scriptural representation took such hold of the imagination of many of the early fathers, that they dwelt upon it, almost to the exclusion of other and more important aspects of the work of Christ. They dallied with it and wrought it out into many fanciful theories. These theories have passed away; the Scriptural truth which underlay them, remains. Christ is our Redeemer from the power of Satan, as well as from the curse of the law, and from the dominion of sin. And if a Redeemer, the deliverance which He effected was by means of a ransom. Hence He is often said to have purchased his people. They are his because He bought them. "Know ye not that.... ye are not your own?" says the Apostle, "For ye are bought with a price." (1 Cor. vi. 20.) God, in Acts xx. 28, is said to have purchased the Church "with his own blood." "Ye were redeemed (delivered by purchase).... with the precious blood of Christ." (1 Pet. i. 18, 19.) "Thou art worthy.... for thou has purchased us (hegorasas) for God by thy blood." (Rev. v. 9.)

5. Christ redeems us not only from the curse of the law, from the law itself as a covenant of works, from the power of sin, and from the dominion of Satan, but also from all evil. This evil is the consequence of the curse of the law, and being redeemed from that we are delivered from all evil. Hence the word redemption is often used for the sum of all the benefits of Christ's work, or for the consummation of the great scheme of salvation. Thus our Lord says, Luke xxi. 28, that when the Son of Man shall appear in his glory, then his disciples may be sure that their "redemption draweth nigh." They are sealed unto the day of redemption. (Eph. i. 14.) Christ has "obtained eternal redemption." (Heb. ix. 12.) Believers are represented as waiting for their redemption. (Rom. viii. 23.)

It is therefore the plain doctrine of Scripture that, as before said, Christ saves us neither by the mere exercise of power, nor by his doctrine, nor by his example, nor by the moral influence which He exerted, nor by any subjective influence on his people, whether natural or mystical, but as a satisfaction to divine justice, as an expiation for sin and as a ransom from the curse and authority of the law, thus reconciling us to God, by making it consistent with his perfections to exercise mercy toward sinners, and then renewing them after his own image, and finally exalting them to all the dignity, excellence, and blessedness of the sons of God.

All the doctrines of grace are intimately connected. They stand in such relation to each other, that one of necessity supposes the truth of the others. The common Church doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ, therefore, is not an isolated doctrine. It is assumed in all that the Scriptures teach of the relation between Christ and his people; of the condition on which our interest in his redemption is suspended; and of the nature of the benefits of that redemption.

1. No doctrine of the Bible, relating to the plan of salvation, is more plainly taught or more wide reaching than that which concerns the union between Christ and his people. That union in one aspect, was from eternity, we were in Him before the foundation of the world; given to Him of the Father, to redeem from the estate of sin and misery, into which it was foreseen our race would by transgression fall. It was for the accomplishment of this purpose of mercy that He assumed our nature, was born of a woman, and did and suffered all that He was called upon to do and to endure in working out our salvation. He did not, therefore, come into the world for Himself. It was not to work out a righteousness of his own to entitle Him to the exaltation and power which in our nature He now enjoys. In virtue of the Godhead of his personality, He was of necessity infinitely exalted above all creatures. He came for us. He came as a representative. He came in the same relation to his people, which Adam, in the original covenant, bore to the whole race. He came to take their place; to be their substitute, to do for them, and in their name, what they could not do for themselves. All He did, therefore, was vicarious; his obedience and his sufferings. The parallel between Adam and Christ, the two great representatives of man, the two federal heads, the one of all his natural descendants, the other of all given Him by the Father, is carried out into its details in Romans v. 12-21. It is assumed or implied, however, everywhere else in the sacred volume. What Adam did, in his federal capacity, was in law and justice regarded as done by all whom he represented. And so all that Christ did and suffered as a federal head, was in law and justice done or suffered by his people. Therefore, as we were condemned for the disobedience of Adam, so we are justified for the obedience of Christ. As in Adam all died, so in Christ are all made alive. Hence Christ's death is said to be our death, and we are said to rise with Him, to live with Him, and to be exalted, in our measure, in his exaltation. He is the head and we are the body. The acts of the head, are the acts of the whole mystical person. The ideas, therefore, of legal substitution, of vicarious obedience and punishment, of the satisfaction of justice by one for all, underlie and pervade the whole scheme of redemption. They can no more be separated from that scheme than the warp can be separated from the woof without destroying the whole texture.

2. In like manner these same truths are implied in what sinners are required to do in order to become the subjects of the redemption of Christ. It is not enough that we should receive his doctrines; or endeavour to regulate our lives by his moral precepts; or that we confide in his protection, or submit to his control as one into whose hands all power in heaven and earth has been committed. It is not enough that we should open our hearts to all the influences for good which flow from his person or his work. We must trust in Him. We must renounce our own righteousness, and confide in his for our acceptance with God. We must give up the idea that we can satisfy the demands of God's justice and law, by anything we can do, suffer, or experience, and rely exclusively on what He, as our representative, substitute, and surety, has done and suffered in our stead. This is what the gospel demands. And this, the world over, is precisely what every true believer, no matter what his theological theories may be, actually does. But this act of self-renunciation and of faith in Christ as the ground of our forgiveness and acceptance with God, supposes Him to be our substitute, who has satisfied all the demands of law and justice in our stead.

3. If we turn to the Scriptural account of the benefits which we receive from Christ, we find that this view of the nature of his work, is therein necessarily implied. We are justified through Him. He is our righteousness. We are made the righteousness of God in Him. But justification is not a subjective work. It is not sanctification. It is not a change wrought in us either naturally or supernaturally. It is not the mere executive act of a sovereign, suspending the action of the law, or granting pardon to the guilty. It is the opposite of condemnation. It is a declaration that the claims of justice are satisfied. This is the uniform meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words employed in Scripture, and of the corresponding words in all other languages, as far as those languages are cultivated to express what passes in the consciousness of men. But if God, in justifying sinners, declares that with regard to them the claims of justice are satisfied, it confessedly is not on the ground that the sinner himself has made that satisfaction, but that Christ has made it in his behalf.

The doctrine of sanctification also, as presented in the Scriptures, is founded on the substitution of Christ. Sanctification is not a work of nature, but a work of grace. It is a transformation of character effected not by moral influences, but supernaturally by the Holy Spirit; although on that account only the more rationally. The first step in the process is deliverance from the curse of the law by the body, or death of Christ. Then God being reconciled, He admits us into fellowship with Himself. But as the sinner is only imperfectly sanctified, he is still in his state and acts far from being in himself an object of the divine complacency. It is only as united to Christ and represented by Him, that he enjoys the continuance of the divine favour, which is his life, and constantly receives from Him the gift of the Holy Spirit. So that the life that the believer lives, is Christ living in him. Thus in the whole process of salvation the ideas of substitution, of representation, of Christ's being and doing for us, all that we are required to be and to do, are of necessity involved. And even to the last we are saved only in Him. It is in virtue of this union that believers are raised from the dead, admitted into heaven, and receive the crown of eternal life. It is not for what they have done, nor for what they have been made, but solely for what has been done in their stead that they are made partakers of his life, and, ultimately, of his glory.

By the religious experience of Christians is meant those states and acts of the mind produced by "the things of the Spirit," or by the truths of God's Word as revealed and applied by the Holy Ghost. We are clearly taught in Scripture that the truth is not only objectively presented in the Word, but that it is the gracious office of the Spirit, as a teacher and guide, to lead the people of God properly to understand the truths thus outwardly revealed, and to cause them to produce their proper effect on the reason, the feelings, the conscience, and the life. What the Holy Spirit thus leads the people of God to believe must be true. No man however is authorized to appeal to his own inward experience as a test of truth for others. His experience may be, and in most cases is, determined more or less by his peculiar training, his own modes of thinking, and diverse other modifying influences. But this does not destroy the value of religious experience as a guide to the knowledge of the truth. It has an authority second only to that of the Word of God. One great source of error in theology has always been the neglect of this inward guide. Men have formed their opinions, or framed their doctrines on philosophical principles, or moral axioms, and thus have been led to adopt conclusions which contradict the inward teachings of the Spirit, and even their own religious consciousness. The only question is, How can we distinguish the human from the divine? How can we determine what in our experience is due to the teaching of the Spirit, and what to other influences? The answer to these questions is, (1.) That what is conformed to the infallible standard in the Scriptures, is genuine, and what is not thus conformed is spurious. The Bible contains not only the truths themselves, but a record of the effects produced on the mind when they are applied by the Holy Spirit. (2.) Another test is universality. What all true Christians experience must be referred to a cause common to all. It cannot be accounted for by what is peculiar to individuals or to denominations. (3.) A subordinate test, but one of great value to the individual, is to be found in the nature of the experience itself, and its effects upon the heart and life. A religious experience which makes a man self-complacent, self-righteous, proud, censorious, and persecuting, is certainly not to be referred to the Spirit of holiness and love. But if a man's experience renders him humble, meek, contrite, forgiving, and long-suffering; if it leads him to believe all things and hope all things; if it renders him spiritually and heavenly minded; if it makes it Christ for him to live; in short, if it produces the same effect on him that the truth produced on the prophets and apostles, there can be little doubt that it is due to the teaching and influence of the Holy Ghost.

It is certainly an unanswerable argument in favour of the divinity of Christ, for example, as a doctrine of the Bible, that all true Christians look up to Christ as God; that they render Him the adoration, the love, the confidence, the submission, and the devotion which are due to God alone, and which the apprehension of divine perfection only can produce. It is certainly a proof that the Scriptures teach that man is a fallen being, that he is guilty and defiled by sin, that he is utterly unable to free himself from the burden and power of sin, that he is dependent on the grace of God and the power of the Spirit, if these truths are inwrought into the experience of all true believers. In like manner, if all Christians trust in Christ for their salvation; if they look to Him as their substitute, obeying and suffering in their stead, bearing their sins, sustaining the curse of the law in their place; if they regard Him as the expiatory sacrifice to take away their guilt and satisfy the justice of God in their behalf; if they thank and bless Him for having given Himself as a ransom for their redemption from the penalty and obligation of the law as prescribing the condition of salvation, and from the dominion of Satan, from the power of sin and from all its evil consequences; then, beyond doubt, these are the truths of God, revealed by the Spirit in the word, and taught by the Spirit to all who submit to his guidance. That such is the experience of true believers in relation to the work of Christ, is plain, (1.) Because this is the form and manner in which holy men of old whose experience is recorded in the Scriptures, expressed their relation to Christ and their obligations to Him. He was to them an expiatory sacrifice; a ransom; an hilasmos or propitiation. They regarded Him as made a curse for them; as bearing their punishment, or "the chastisement of their peace." They received the "sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ," as the only means of being cleansed from the guilt of their sins, and of restoration to the favour of God and holiness of heart and life. This was undoubtedly their experience as it is recorded in the Bible. (2.) In the second place, from the times of the Apostle to the present day, the people of God have had the same inward convictions and feelings. This is clear from their confessions of faith, from their liturgies and prayers, from their hymns, and from all the records of their inward religious life. Let any one look over the hymns of the Latin Church, of the Moravians, the Lutherans, the Reformed, of Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Independents, and Congregationalists, and see what truths on this subject constituted and now constitute the, food and atmosphere of their religious life: —

"Jesus, my God, Thy blood alone hath power sufficient to atone."

"To the dear fountain of Thy blood, incarnate God, I fly"

"My soul looks back to see the burdens Thou didst bear, When hanging on the cursed tree, and hopes her sins were there."

Does any Christian object to such hymns? Do they not express his inmost religious convictions? If they do not agree with the speculations of his understanding, do they not express the feelings of his heart and the necessities of his fallen nature? The speculations of the understanding are what man teaches; the truths which call forth these feelings of the heart are what the Holy Ghost teaches.

This argument may be presented in another light. It may be shown that no other theory of the work of Christ does correspond with the inward experience of God's people. The theory that the work of Christ was didactic; that it was exemplary; that its proximate design was to produce a subjective change in the sinner or a moral impression on the minds of all intelligent creatures; these and other theories, contrary to the common Church doctrine, fail especially in two points. First, they do not account for the intimate personal relation between Christ and the believer which is everywhere recognized in Scripture, and which is so precious in the view of all true Christians. Secondly, they make no provision for the expiation of sin, or for satisfying the demands of a guilty conscience, which mere pardon never can appease.

Throughout the New Testament, Christ is represented not only as the object of worship and of supreme love and devotion, but also as being to his people the immediate and constant source of life and of all good. Not Christ as God, but Christ as our Saviour. He is the head, we are his members. He is the vine, we are the branches. It is not we that live, but Christ that liveth in us. He is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. His blood cleanses us from all sins. He redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. He is our great High Priest who ever lives to make intercession for us. It would be easy to show from the records of the religious life of the Church that believers have ever regarded Christ in the light in which He is here presented. The argument is that these representations are not consistent with any moral or governmental theory of the atonement.

There are two hymns which, perhaps, beyond all others, are dear to the hearts of all Christians who speak the English language. The one written by Charles Wesley, an Arminian; the other by Toplady, a Calvinist. It is hard to see what meaning can be attached to these hymns by those who hold that Christ died simply to teach us something, or to make a moral impression on us or others. How can they say, —

"Jesus, lover of my soul,

Let me to Thy bosom fly"?

Why should they fly to Him if He be only a teacher or moral reformer? What do they mean when they say, —

"Hide me, O my Saviour hide"?

Hide from what? Not from the vindicatory justice of God, for they admit no such attribute.

"Other refuge have I none;"

refuge from what?

"All my trust on Thee is laid."

For what do we trust Him? According to their theory He is not the ground of our confidence. It is not for his righteousness, but For our own that we are to be accepted by God. It would seem that those only who hold the common Church doctrine can say, —

"Thou, O Christ, art all I need."

All I need as a creature, as a sinner, as guilty, as polluted, as miserable and helpless; all I need for time or for eternity. So of Toplady's precious hymn, —

"Rock of ages, cleft for me;"

for me personally and individually; as Paul said he lived "by faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me."

How can such language be used by those who deny the necessity of expiation; who hold that guilt need not be washed away, that all that is necessary is that we should be made morally good? No one can say, —

"Nothing in my hand I bring,

Simply to Thy cross I cling,"

who does not believe that Christ "bore our sins in his own body on the tree."

It is a historical fact that where false theories of the atonement prevail, Christ and his work are put in the background. We hear from the pulpits much about God as a moral governor; much about the law and obligation, and of the duty of submission; but little about Christ, of the duty of fleeing to Him, of receiving Him, of trusting in Him, of renouncing our own righteousness that we may put on the righteousness of God; and little of our union with Him, of his living in us, and of our duty to live by faith in Him Thus new theories introduce a new religion.

§ 7. Objections.

The only legitimate method of controverting a doctrine which purports to be founded on the Scriptures is the exegetical. If its advocates undertake to show that it is taught in the Bible, its opponents are bound to prove that the Bible, understood agreeably to the recognized laws of interpretation, does not teach it. This method, comparatively speaking, is little relied upon, or resorted to by the adversaries of the Church doctrine concerning the satisfaction of Christ. Their main reliance is on objections of two classes: the one drawn from speculative or philosophical principles; the other from the sentiments or feelings. It is not uncommon for modern writers, especially among the German theologians, to begin the discussion of this subject by a review of the Scriptural statements in relation to it. This is often eminently satisfactory. It is admitted that Christ saves us as a priest by offering Himself a sacrifice for sin; that He is a priest and sin offering in the Old Testament sense of those terms; and that a priest is a mediator, a representative of the people, and an offerer of sacrifices. It is admitted that the sin offerings of the old dispensation were expiatory sacrifices, designed to satisfy the justice of God and to secure the restoration of his favour to the sinner. It is admitted that expiation was made by substitution and vicarious punishment, that the victim bore the sins of the offerer and died not only for his benefit, but in his place. It is further admitted that all this was designed to be typical of the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ, and that the New Testament teaches that these types were fulfilled in Him; that He was the only true priest, and his offering of Himself was the only available sacrifice for sin; that He bore the sins of men; made expiation for their guilt by taking their place, and sustaining the penalty of the law and time wrath of God in their stead; and that the effect of his satisfaction of justice is that God is in such a sense reconciled to man, that He can consistently pardon their sins, and bestow upon them all saving blessings. Having given this exhibition of what the Scriptures teach on the subject, they go on to state what the Fathers taught; how the doctrine was presented during the Middle Ages, and afterwards by the Reformers; how the Rationalists and Supernaturalists of the last generation dealt with it; and how the modern speculative theologians have philosophized about it; and end, generally, by giving in their adhesion to some one of these modern theories more or less modified. All the while there stand the Scriptural statements untouched and unrefuted. They are allowed to go for what they are worth; but they are not permitted to control the writers own convictions. This course is adopted by different men on different principles. Sometimes it is upon the distinct denial of the inspiration of the sacred writers. They are admitted to be honest end faithful. They may or may not have been the recipients of a supernatural revelation, but they were fallible men, subject to all the influences which determine the modes of thought and the expressions of the men of any given age or nation. The sacred writers were Jews, and accustomed to a religion which had priests and sacrifices. It was, therefore, natural that they should set forth under figures and in the use of terms, borrowed from their own institutions, the truths that Christ saved sinners, and that in the prosecution of that work He suffered and died. These truths may be retained, but the form in which they are presented in the Bible may be safely discarded.

Others, and perhaps the majority of the most popular of this class of theologians, go further than this. They are willing that criticism and forced interpretations should make what havoc they please with the Bible. Any and every book may be rejected from the canon. Any and every doctrine may be interpreted out of the sacred pages; still the only Christianity they value is safe. Christianity is independent of any form of doctrine. It is a life, an inward, organic power, which remodels the soul; which life is Christianity, because it is assumed to have its origin in Christ.

Others again act on the principles of that form of rationalism which has received the name of Dogmatism. The doctrines and facts of the Bible are allowed to stand as true. They are allowed to be the proper modes of statement for popular instruction and impression. But it is assumed to be the office of the theologian to discover, present, and bring into harmony with his system, the philosophical truths which underlie these doctrinal statements of the Bible. And these philosophical truths are assumed to be the substance of the Scriptural doctrines, of which the doctrines themselves are the unessential and mutable forms. Thus the doctrine of the Trinity is admitted. The form in which it is presented in the Bible is regarded as its popular form, which it may be useful to retain for the people. But the real and important truth which it involves is, that original, unintelligent, unconscious Being (the Father) comes to conscious existence in the world (the Son), by an eternal process, and returns by an unceasing flow into the infinite (the Spirit). It is also admitted that God became flesh, but it was, as some say, in the whole race of man; mankind are the manifestation of God in the flesh; or, as others say, the Church is his body, that is, the form in which the incarnation is realized. Christ is acknowledged to be our saviour from sin, but it is by a purely subjective process. He introduces a new life power into humanity, which enters into conflict with the evil of our nature, and after a painful struggle overcomes it. This is called the application of philosophy to the explanation of Scriptural doctrines. It is patent, however, that this is not explanation, but substitution. It is the substitution of the human for the divine; of the thoughts of men, which are mere vapour, for the thoughts of God, which are eternal verities. It is giving a stone for bread, and a scorpion for an egg. It is, indeed, a very convenient method of getting rid of the teachings of the Bible, while professing to admit its authority. It is important, however, to notice the concession involved in these modes of proceeding. It is acknowledged that the Church doctrine of a true expiatory sacrifice for sin, of a real satisfaction of justice by means of the vicarious punishment of sin, is the doctrine of the Scriptures, as well of the Old Testament as of the New. This is all we contend for, and all we care for. If God teaches this, men may teach what they please.

Another class of objections to the Scriptural doctrine of satisfaction, which may be called philosophical, although not of the speculative kind, are those which are founded on certain assumed moral axioms. It is said to be self-evident that the innocent cannot be guilty; and if not guilty he cannot be punished, for punishment is the judicial infliction of evil on account of guilt. As the Church doctrine, while maintaining the perfect sinlessness of Christ, teaches that He bore the guilt of sin, and therefore was regarded and treated as a sinner, that doctrine assumes both an impossibility and an act of injustice. It assumes that God regards things as they are not. He regards the innocent as guilty. This is an impossibility. And if possible for Him to treat the innocent as guilty, it would be an act of gross injustice. On this class of objections it may be remarked, —

1. That they avail nothing against the plain declaration of the Scriptures. If the Bible teaches that the innocent may bear the guilt of the actual transgressor; that He may endure the penalty incurred in his place, then it is in vain to say that this cannot be done.

2. If it be said that these moral objections render it necessary to explain these representations of Scripture as figurative, or as anthropomorphic modes of expression, as when God is said to have eyes, to stand, or to walk, then the reply is that these representations are so didactic, are so repeated; and are so inwrought into the whole system of Scriptural doctrine, that they leave us no alternative but to receive them as the truths of God, or to reject tie Bible as his word.

3. Rejecting the Bible does not help the matter. We cannot reject the facts of providence. Where is the propriety of saying that the innocent cannot justly suffer for the guilty, when we see that they actually do thus suffer continually, and everywhere since the world began? There is no moral principle asserted in tie Bible, which is not carried out in providence. God says He will visit the iniquities of the fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation of those that hate Him. And so He does, and ever has done. Are we so confident in ourselves as to deny that there is a just God who governs the world, rather than admit that the innocent may rightfully bear the iniquity of the guilty? In teaching the doctrine of legal substitution, of the transfer of guilt from the transgressor to the innocent, of the satisfaction of justice by vicarious punishment, the Bible asserts and assumes no moral principle which does not underlie all the providential dealings of God with individuals or with nations.

4. Men constantly deceive themselves by postulating as moral axioms what are nothing more than the forms in which their feelings or peculiar opinions find expression. To one man it is an axiom that a holy God cannot permit sin, or a benevolent God allow his creatures to be miserable; and he, therefore, infers either that there is no God, or that He cannot control the acts of free agents. To another it is self-evidently true that a free act cannot be certain, and therefore that there can be no foreordination, or foreknowledge, or prediction of the occurrence of such acts. To another, it is self-evident that a merciful God cannot permit any portion of his rational creatures to remain forever under the dominion of sin and suffering. There would be no end of controversy, and no security for any truth whatever, if the strong personal convictions of individual minds be allowed to determine what is, or what is not true, what the Bible may, and what it may not, be allowed to teach. It must be admitted, however, that there are moral intuitions, founded on the constitution of our nature, and constituting a primary revelation of the nature of God, which no external revelation can possibly contradict. The authority of these intuitive truths is assumed or fully recognized in the Bible itself. They have, however, their criteria. They cannot be enlarged or diminished. No man can add to, or detract from, their number. Those criteria are, (1.) They are all recognized in the Scriptures themselves. (2.) They are universally admitted as true by all rational minds. (3.) They cannot be denied. No effort of the will, and no sophistry of the understanding can destroy their authority over the reason and conscience.

5. It is very evident that the principle that "the innocent cannot justly be punished for the guilty," cannot stand the application of the above-mentioned criteria. So far from being recognized in the Bible, it is contrary to its plainest declarations and facts. So far from being universally received among men as true, it has never been received at all as part of the common faith of mankind. The substitution of the innocent for the guilty, of victims for transgressors in sacrifice, of one for many; the idea of expiation by vicarious punishment, has been familiar to the human mind in all ages. It has been admitted not only as possible, but as rational, and recognized as indicating the only method by which sinful men can be reconciled to a just and holy God. It is not, therefore, to be admitted that it conflicts with any intuition of the reason or of the conscience; on the contrary it is congenial with both. It is no doubt frequently the case that opposition to this doctrine arises from a misapprehension of the terms in which it is expressed. By guilt many insist on meaning personal criminality and ill desert; and by punishment evil inflicted on the ground of such personal demerit. In these senses of the words the doctrine of satisfaction and vicarious punishment would indeed involve an impossibility. Moral character cannot be transferred. The Remonstrants were right in saying that man cannot be good with another's goodness, any more than he can be white with another's whiteness. And if punishment means evil inflicted on the ground of personal demerit, then it is a contradiction to say that the innocent can be punished. But if guilt expresses only the relation of sin to justice, and is the obligation under which the sinner is placed to satisfy its demands, then there is nothing in the nature of things, nothing in the moral nature of man, nothing in the nature of God as revealed either in his providence or in his word, which forbids the idea that this obligation may on adequate grounds be transferred from one to an other, or assumed by one in the place of others.

To the head of objections founded on assumed moral axioms belong those urged by a large class of modern, and especially of German theologians. These theologians have their peculiar views of the nature of God, of his relation to the world, and of anthropology in all its branches, which underlie and determine all their theological doctrines. It is denied that Schleiermacher founded a school; but it is certain that he introduced a method of theologizing, and advocated principles, which have determined the character of the theology of a large class of men, not only in Germany, but also in England and America: Twesten, Nitsch, Lücke, Olshausen, Ullmann, Lange, Liebner, and even Ebrard in Germany and Morell and Maurice in England, belong to this class of writers. In this country what is known as the "Mercersburg Theology" is the product of the same principles. Everything which distinguishes that theology from the theology of the Reformed Church, comes from the introduction of these new German speculative principles. No two of the writers above mentioned agree in all points. They differ, however, only in the length to which they carry their common principles in modifying or overthrowing the faith of the Church. Ebrard, one of the best, because one of the most moderate and least infected of the class, says in the preface to his "Dogmatik," that he goes hand in hand with the old Reformed theology in all points, and that for that reason he is more true to the principles of his Church, as a church of progress. He professes to have carried that theology forward by a process of "organic development;" and this Professor Harbaugh of Mercersburg, in his late inaugural address, claims to have been the service, and still to be the office of the German Reformed Church in this country. It is true that the leading theologians of that Church, as was perhaps to be expected, have given themselves up to the guidance of the German mind. All they have done has been to incorporate the modern German philosophy with theology. Their advances, therefore, have no more worth than belongs to any other form of human speculation. They do not pretend to get their peculiar doctrines from the Bible; they only labour to make the Bible agree with their doctrines. But this is just as impossible as that the Scriptures should teach the principles of modern chemistry, astronomy, or geology. These philosophical principles had no existence in the minds of men when the Bible was written, and they have no authority now but what they get from their human authors. If they survive for a generation, it will be more than similar speculations have in general been able to accomplish.¹ It is, however, lamentable to see how even good men allow themselves to explain away the most catholic, and plainly revealed doctrines of the Bible, in obedience to the dictates of the modern transcendental philosophy. What however we have here immediately in view is, the objections which this class of writers make to the Church form of the doctrine of satisfaction, in obedience to the assumed moral axiom above mentioned, namely, that the innocent cannot by God be regarded and treated as guilty, or the guilty regarded and treated as righteous. It is indeed true that God cannot but regard every person as he really is. His judgments are according to truth. But this is not inconsistent with his regarding Christ, although personally innocent, as having voluntarily assumed our place and undertaken to satisfy the demands of justice in our place; nor with his regarding the believer, although personally undeserving, as righteous, in the sense of being free from just exposure to condemnation, on the ground of the vicarious satisfaction of Christ. This is precisely what the Scriptures affirm to be true, and that which believers in all ages have made the ground of their hope toward God. This is almost the identical proposition affirmed by the Apostle, when he declares that on the ground of the propitiation of Christ, God "can justify the ungodly," i.e., declare the unrighteous to be righteous; unrighteous personally, but righteous in that the demands of justice in regard to him are satisfied. This also is precisely what the writers referred to (not Ebrard who does not go so far as those with whom he is classed) deny. If God, say they, regards Christ as sinful, He must be really sinful; if He pronounces the believer righteous, he must be truly, personally, and subjectively righteous. As most of these writers admit the sinlessness of Christ, and yet maintain that only sinners can be treated as sinners, and only the personally righteous treated as righteous; and as they hold that imputation implies the real possession of the quality, act, or relation which is imputed, they are forced to teach that Christ in assuming our nature as guilty and fallen, ipso facto, assumed all the responsibilities of men, and was bound to answer to the justice of God for all the sins which hnmanity had committed. The doctrine of one class of these writers is, that the Logos in assuming our nature did not become an individual, but the universal man; He did not take to Himself "a true body and a reasonable soul," but the whole of humanity, or humanity as an organic whole or law of life; the individual dying for the sins of other individuals, does not satisfy justice. When He was nailed to the cross, not an individual merely, but humanity itself, was crucified; and, therefore, his sufferings were the sufferings not of an individual man, but of that which underlies all human individualities, and consequently avails for all in whom humanity is individualized. As Christ becomes personally responsible for the guilt which attaches to the humanity which He assumed, so we become personally righteous and entitled, on the ground of what we are or become, to eternal life, because, by our union with Him, we partake of his humanity as well as of his divinity. His theanthropic nature is conveyed to us with all its merits, excellence, and glories, as the nature of Adam with its guilt, pollution, and weaknesses, has been transmitted to his posterity. It is in favour of this theory that the church doctrine of the substitution of Christ, the innocent for the guilty; of his bearing the guilt not of his own nature, but of sinners; of his suffering the penalty of the law in the place of those by whom it had been incurred, one individual of infinite dignity dying in the stead of the multitude of his people (the shepherd for his sheep), is discarded and trodden under foot. In reference to this theory, it is sufficient here to remark, —

1. That it is a mere speculative, or philosophical, anthropological theory. It has no more authority than the thousands of speculations which the teeming mind of man has produced. Schleiermacher says that man is the form in which the universal spirit comes to consciousness and individuality on this earth. These writers say that man is the form in which generic humanity is individualized. Every philosophy has its own anthropology. It is evidently most unreasonable and presumptuous to found the explanation of a great Scriptural doctrine, which the people are bound to understand and receive, and on which they are required to rest their hope of salvation, upon a theory as to the nature of man, which has no divine authority, and which not one man in a thousand, perhaps not one in hundreds of thousands, believes or ever has believed. The self-confidence and self-exaltation which such a course implies, can hardly be the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

2. The theory itself is unintelligible. The phrases "universal man," and "the whole of humanity," as here used, have no meaning. To say that "humanity itself was nailed to the cross," conveys no rational idea. By a universal man might be meant a universal genius, or a man who represents all mankind as Adam did. But this is expressly repudiated. By "a universal man," as distinguished from an individual man, is intended a man who includes the whole of humanity in himself. Though this might be said of Adam when he stood absolutely alone, before the creation of Eve, yet it cannot be said of any one of a multitude of men. A universal man would be a man who included in himself all human persons; an idea as monstrous as the modern doctrine of "the all-personality of God."

In the language of the Church, to assume a nature is to assume a substance with its essential attributes and properties. Through all ages in the Church the words phusis, oisia, substantia, and natura, have, in relation to this subject, been used interchangeably. When it is said that the Logos assumed our nature, it is meant that He took into personal union with Himself a substance or essence having the same essential properties which constitute us men. But He did not assume the whole of that substance or essence. He assumed the whole of humanity in the sense of assuming all the attributes of humanity. He took upon Him all that was necessary to constitute Him "very man" as He was from eternity "very God." This, however, is not what these writers mean. They say He took upon Him the whole of humanity so as to be, not an individual, but the universal man. This is what some of the first of German minds have pronounced to be Unsinn, i.e., meaningless. Even if the idea of substance, although recognized by the Bible, the Church, and mankind, be discarded, and humanity, or human nature, be defined as a life, or organic force, or aggregate of certain forces, the case is not altered. A universal man would still be a man who had in himself to the exclusion of all others, the totality of that life or of those forces. There is no conceivable sense in which Christ had in Himself the whole of humanity, when millions of other men existed around Him. This whole theory, therefore, which is set up as antagonistic to the Church doctrine of satisfaction, rests on an unintelligible, or meaningless proposition. It is no new thing in the history of the human mind that even great men should deceive themselves with words, and take mystic phrases, or vague imaginings for definite ideas.

3. There is a moral or ethical impossibility, as well as a metaphysical one, involved in this theory. The doctrine is, that in assuming human nature Christ assumed the guilt attaching to the sins humanity had committed. He became responsible for those sins; and was bound to bear the penalty they had incurred. Nevertheless human nature as it existed in his person was guiltless and absolutely pure. This, to our apprehensions, is an impossibility. Guilt and sin can be predicated only of a person. This if not a self-evident, is, at least, a universally admitted truth. Only a person is a rational agent. It is only to persons that responsibility, guilt, or moral character can attach. Human nature apart from human persons cannot act, and therefore cannot contract guilt, or be responsible. Christ assumed a rational soul which had never existed as a person, and could not be responsible on the ground of its nature for the sins of other men. Unless guilt and sin be essential attributes or properties of human nature, Christ did not assume guilt by assuming that nature. If guilt and sin cannot be predicated of Christ's person, they cannot by possibility be predicated of his human nature. The whole theory, therefore, which denies that Christ as a divine person clothed in a nature like our own, assumed the guilt of our sins by imputation of what did not belong to Him, and sustained the penalty which we had incurred, and makes that denial on the ground that the innocent cannot bear the sins of the guilty; that God could not regard Him as sin, unless He was in Himself sin, is founded on the moral impossibility that a nature, as distinguished from a person, can sin or be guilty.

When it is said that we derive a sinful nature from Adam, and that guilt as well as pollution attaches to the nature of fallen men, the doctrine is, that we, and all who derive that nature from Adam, are personally sinful and guilty. We are born, as the Apostle says, the children of wrath. It is not an impersonal nature which is guilty, for this would be a contradiction, but persons whose immanent, subjective state is opposed to the character and law of God. All this, however, is denied concerning Christ. These theologians admit that, as a person, He was without sin. But if without sin, He was without guilt. It was according to the Scriptures by the imputation to Him of sins not his own, that He bore our guilt, or assumed the responsibility of satisfying justice on our account. It is only by admitting that by being born of a woman, or becoming flesh, Christ placed Himself in the category of sinful men, and became personally a sinner, and guilty in the sight of God, as all other men are, that it can be maintained that the assumption of our nature in itself involved the assumption of guilt, or that He thereby became responsible for all the sins which men possessing that nature had committed.

4. It is another fatal objection to this scheme that it subverts the whole gospel plan of salvation. Instead of directing the soul to Christ, to his righteousness, and to his intercession; that is, to what is objective and out of itself, as the ground of its hope toward God, it turns the attention of the sinner in upon himself. The only righteousness he has on which to trust is within. He has a new nature, and because of that nature is and deserves to be, reconciled unto God and entitled to eternal life. It places Christ just as far from us as Adam is. As Adam is the source of a nature for which we are condemned, so Christ is the source of a nature for which we are justified and saved. The system, therefore, calls upon us to exchange a hope founded upon what Christ is and has done in our behalf, a hope which rests upon an infinitely meritorious righteousness out of ourselves, for a hope founded on the glimmer of divine life which we find within ourselves. We may call this new nature by what high-sounding names we please. We may call it theanthropic, divine-human, or divine, it makes no difference. Whatever it is called, it is something so weak and so imperfect that it cannot satisfy ourselves, much less the infinitely holy and just God. To call on men to trust for their acceptance before God on the ground of what they are made by this inward change, is to call upon them to build their eternal hopes upon a foundation which cannot sustain a straw. That this is the true view of the plan of salvation as proposed by these theologians, notwithstanding the lofty terms in which they speak of Christ as our Saviour, is plain from the parallel which they constantly refer to between our relation to Christ and our relation to Adam. This is an analogy which the Apostle insists upon, and which as presented by him is full of instruction and hope. Adam was the head and representative of his race. We stood our probation in him. His sin was putatively the sin of his posterity. It was the judicial ground of their condemnation. The penalty of that transgression was death, the loss of the life of God, as well as of his fellowship and favour. All mankind, therefore, represented by Adam in the first covenant came into the world in a state of condemnation and of spiritual death. He was a type of Christ, because Christ is the head and representative of his people. He fulfilled all righteousness in their behalf and in their stead. As Adam's disobedience was the ground of the condemnation of all who were in him, so Christ's obedience is the ground of the justification of all who are in Him; and as spiritual death was the penal, and therefore certain consequence of our condemnation for the sin of Adam, so spiritual and eternal life is the covenanted, and therefore the certain and inseparable consequence of our justification for the righteousness of Christ. But according to the modern speculative (or as it is called by Dorner,² "the regenerated") theology, the parallel between Christ and Adam is very different. We are not condemned for Adam's sin, as his sin, but only for that sin as it was ours, committed by us as partakers of the numerically same nature that sinned in him, and for the consequent corruption of our nature. The whole ground of our condemnation is subjective or inward. We are condemned for what we are. In like manner we are justified for what we become through Christ. He assumed numerically the same nature that had sinned. He sanctified it, elevated it, and raised it to the power of a divine life by its union with his divine person, and He communicates this new, theanthropic nature to his people, and on the ground of what they thus become they are reconciled and saved. It is a favourite and frequently occurring statement with these writers that Christ redeems us, not by what He does, but by what He is. His assumption of our nature was its redemption. Extreme spiritualism always ends in materialism. This whole theory has a materialistic aspect. Humanity as derived from Adam is conceived of as a polluted stream, into which a healing purifying element was introduced by Christ. From Him onward, it flows as a life-giving stream. What then becomes of those who lived before Christ? This is a question which these theologians are slow to answer. They agree, however, in saying that the condition of the patriarchs was deplorable; that their relation to Christ was essentially different from ours. There was no theanthropic life for them. That began with the incarnation, and the stream cannot flow backwards.

No one can read the theological works of the speculative school, without being satisfied that their design is not to set forth what the Scriptures teach. To this little or no attention is paid. Their object is to give a scientific interpretation of certain facts of Scripture (such as sin and redemption), in accordance with the principles of the current philosophy. These writers are as much out of the reach, and out of contact with the sympathies and religious life of the people, as men in a balloon are out of relation to those they leave behind. To the aeronauts indeed those on the earth appear very diminutive and grovelling; but they are none the less in their proper sphere and upon solid ground. All that the excursionists can hope for is a safe return to terra firma. And that is seldom accomplished without risk or loss.