424

ACCOUNT OF THE ATONEMENT,

Having premised these observations on the comparative significance of sacrificial terms, as they are applied respectively to the offerings of the Mosaic institution, and to the offering of Jesus Christ, I may proceed to complete the series of evidence to be adduced on the present subject, by citing some parts of the epistle to the Hebrews-a treatise in which the analogy between the shadows of the law and the great realities of the Gospel, together with the natural unprofitableness of the former, and the essential virtue of the latter, are insisted on with such clearness and precision, as must for ever preclude all reasonable doubt respecting the truth, the efficacy, and the magnitude of the Christian doctrine of atonement. "Such an High Priest became us,” says the apostle, "who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily, as those High Priests, to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins, and then for the people's; for this he did once, when he offered up himself: for the law maketh men High Priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath which was since the law maketh the Son who is consecrated for evermore :" vii, 26-28. This explicit passage may be considered as a sort of text or thesis to the reasoning which soon afterwards follows, respecting the Jewish ceremonial atonements, and the true atonement by Jesus Christ. "Now, when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. But into the second went the High Priest alone, once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people: the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of

IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS:

425

all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing; which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation. But Christ being come, an highpriest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls, and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge our conscience from dead works, to serve the living God?" ix, 6-14.

99

Having urged this powerful comparison, the apostle proceeds to speak of Jesus Christ as the testator of that New Testament which he confirmed by his death; and, after showing that it was with blood that Moses ratified the first Testament, and that "almost all things' were "by the law purged with blood," he recurs to his main point as follows: "It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these; for Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the High Priest

426

THE ORIGIN OF IT

entereth into the holy place every year with the blood of others; for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after that the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him, shall he appear the second time without sin (that is, without a sin-offering) unto salvation:" ver. 23-28; comp. ii, 17. Again, “Every priest standeth daily ministering, and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. FOR BY ONE OFFERING HE HATH PERFECTED FOR EVER THEM THAT ARE SANCTIFIED:" x, 11-14.

On a fair examination of these luminous passages, it seems impossible not to confess, on the one hand, that the sacrifices of the law were, in their nature, weak and unprofitable; and, on the other hand, that, in the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, there was a real efficacy for the blotting out of all iniquity. While, however, we heartily acknowledge this blessed truth, and, under a sense of our own vileness, gratefully avail ourselves of the "blood of the everlasting covenant," as the only atonement for our sins, we ought to exercise a holy caution, lest our sentiments on this subject should degenerate into unscriptural and merely heathenish notions of expiatory sacrifice.

Christians have not unfrequently been accused of assuming, as the foundation of their doctrine of atonement, the natural implacability of God towards man ;

IS THE LOVE OF GOD.

427

and of holding the notion, that God was rendered placable, by the involuntary sufferings of a harmless, unoffending, substitute. That such and similar statements of the opinions of Christians are, for the most part, gross misrepresentations, and that no such views have ever been entertained by any reflecting or consistent theologian, I am fully persuaded. Be that as it may however, these unquestionably are not the views of the atonement presented to us in the Bible. There we plainly learn that the incarnation, humiliation, sufferings, and propitiatory sacrifice, of Christ, were ordained by the Father himself as the means through which, in his own infinite knowledge and wisdom, he saw fit to provide for the satisfaction of his justice; and at the same time for the pardon and restoration of a lost and sinful race of his creatures. And these eternal counsels were so far from being the effect of any essential implacability in the mind of God-that the divine attribute to which they are uniformly ascribed, in Scripture, is the very opposite of such a quality. It is placability; it is mercy; it is love. "God so LOVED the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life:" John iii, 16. "God is love." "In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him:" I John iv, 8, 9. Now, the Father and the Son (as we have already found abundant occasion to remark) are indissolubly one in purpose, as well as in essence: and in the gracious designs of the former for the salvation of man, the latter is represented in Scripture as a voluntary cooperator, actuated by the same divine impulse of unmerited

428

RECAPITULATION.

love. It was the Son of God who undertook the cause of man: Heb. ii, 16. In his adorable condescension, he made HIMSELF of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant, humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" Phil. ii, 7, 8. "He offered HIMSELF without spot to God:" Heb. ix, 14. "Christ hath loved us, and hath given HIMSELF for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God:" Eph. v, 2. "Unto him that LOVED us, and washed us from our sins in his blood ....be glory and dominion for ever and ever, Amen:" Rev. i, 5, 6; comp. Eph. v, 25; John x, 17.

On a review of the whole argument of the present part, the reader will observe,

That the light of reason, and the analogy of that part of God's moral government over men, which is already known to us, conspire to render it in the highest degree probable, that repentance is not, in itself, available to avert the future punishment of sin.

That, in the Holy Scriptures, this position is amply confirmed; for, while the sacred writers often make mention of repentance as acceptable to God, and as an indispensable condition of salvation, they also plainly declare that sinners are saved only through the mediation of Jesus Christ,-only because he offered himself on the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind.

That as this great atonement was foreordained before the foundation of the world, so during all ages, from the fall of man to the Gospel dispensation, 'it was foreshewn by that divinely-appointed rite, the sacrifice of animals-a rite which was practised by Abel, by Noah, by Abraham, by Jacob, by Job, and by others of the Lord's servants, and which appears to have represented at once, the death merited by