should produce an alienation or separation between the guilty party and those who are not guilty. To illustrate all this, let us suppose a case. A man, hitherto respected and trusted by society commits some great breach of trust, and robs the community. What does the conscience in such a case demand? First, that he should give up his property, and make, if he can, full restitution; second, that he should endure some suffering that he should not continue to enjoy, as before, all his accustomed privileges; and third, that he should not retain his standing in society, and receive, as before, the countenance and esteem of honorable persons. Conscience requires that he should make atonement to those he has injured by restitution; to the law of right, which he has offended, by suffering some punishment; and to honorable men by keeping out of their way. This, which the conscience teaches of an injury done to man, it also teaches of an injury done to God. The offence against man is a crime; the offence against God is a sin. For a crime, the conscience requires restitution, punishment with confession, and alienation from the good, which is shame. For a sin, the conscience requires, in like manner, restitution, punishment, and alienation. It merely transfers to God's justice the ideas of atonement which human justice has given to it. But God's justice is not like man's. The ideas of atonement so abstracted are essentially false; and to convince us of their falsehood is one of the objects of Christ's death. It is to show us that God does not demand this full restitution, does not intend to inflict this punishment, and is not alienated from the penitent sinner. The death of Christ has done this. § 10. How the Death of Jesus brings Men to God. - As a matter of fact, the death of Christ has enabled men to come to God. "They who were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." As a matter of fact, it has lifted men above the fear of God into the love of God. And this must be a divine work. Not the mere death of the human being could have done this; but the God who dwelt in him has uttered his tender love, his forgiving grace, from the cross. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." The death of Christ is an expression of God's free grace. If we regard Christ, in his life and character, as a manifestation of God's will, then his pathetic and tender death reveals to us that God loves us even when we are sinners, before reparation or repentance; "for, while we were sinners, Christ died for us." There is, however, a difficulty in believing that we can be forgiven. This difficulty is in the conscience; and, (a.) To say there is no difficulty, will not remove it. (b.) To say that repentance and good works are enough, will not remove it. (c.) To say that God is merciful, will not remove it; for the difficulty lies in the conscience, which declares that every sin is, 1. An injury done to God. 2. An injury to the moral universe; inasmuch as it is an example of evil, and a defiance of right. 3. An injury to ourselves, by putting us away from God, the source of life, and alienating us from him. Now, it is true that the New Testament says, "Repent, and be converted, and your sins shall be blotted out;" "Believe, and be saved." It is true that if we will believe ourselves forgiven, we shall be forgiven. But how can we believe it, when the inward voice of conscience is always saying that God ought not to forgive us without some repa ration made for the injury done to himself, to the universe, and to ourselves? We need something to believe in some manifestation, some object. Something we need done by God to assure us that he is in earnest in desiring us to come and be reconciled to him. Now, the sufferings and death of Christ seem to be this object: they enable us to believe in forgiveness, and so to be forgiven; they meet the difficulty of the conscience, and relieve it of its threefold embarrassment. For, in regard to the injury done to God, Christ's sufferings are substitution, or vicarious suffering. I do not say vicarious punishment. The innocent cannot be punished in the place of the guilty; but he can suffer, and constantly does suffer, in the place of the guilty. These two laws are announced in the Old Testament: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die;""The wickedness of parents shall be on the children." If a man is alone, he must bear all the consequences of his sins; but if he have friends and children, they will relieve him of some by their self-sacrificing kindness: their sufferings take the place of his punishment. How often a wife does this! -interposing her sufferings between her husband's sins and their penalty. And what a profound impression is made by it of the evil of sin! It torments innocent women and children; it shipwrecks the peace of a family. What an effect is produced on the man himself! What a reproach and tender rebuke to him is this! The sufferings of Christ are substituted in this way for ours, according to this law; and this divine substitution is continued in the sacrifices of Christians. Missionaries and martyrs, by their zeal, patience, and generosity, carry out the sacrifice of Christ. This is God in Christ working in us and in the Church, and working for sinners. Then, as to the injury to the world by the contempt sin does to the law, the sufferings of Christ are satisfaction: they satisfy the divine law; they make an impression of the importance of the law. But here, again, it is not merely Christ alone who does it, but God in Christ, and Christ in the Church, who honor the divine law by the respect pro duced for it. They bring us to repentance; they make us feel the sinfulness of sin; show us the misery it causes to those who love us, how it pains God, pains Christ, pains the good, and pains our friends. So we feel it, and show it by true penitence, and so honor the law. The law is satisfied when the sufferings of Christ and his followers, caused by sin, lead men to abhor sin, and love righteousness. As to the injury which sin does to a man himself by sepa rating him from God's love, and making him at enmity with God, and God's wrath on him, the sufferings of Christ are reconciliation. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself." Why was God alienated from man? Because he is holy. How can an unholy person be at one with a holy God? The answer is this: God comes into his heart by Christ, to form Christ within him, and to make him holy as Christ was holy. He sees that when united with Christ his sinfulness is killed in its roots, and a seed of perfect purity is planted in his soul; and so God is able to be at one with him through his union with Christ: "I in them, and thou in me, that we may be perfectly at one." A love for Christ in the heart forms Christ within us. He is our life, our motive power, our aim; and so he casts out the root of our sin, and brings us to God. Thus we see that, even though we should reject all the Orthodox theories about atonement, we may accept the fact. We can believe that God in Christ does reconcile the world to himself, does create a sense of pardoned sin, does does take away the does help us into a living faith, remove the weight of transgression, Moreover, Christ is really a sacrifice for sin a real and true sin-offering. For what were the sin-offerings under the law? How did they remove sin? Not by themselves (it was impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to remove sin), but because they were an appointment of God, and so showed God's disposition. They showed that his holiness was displeased with evil; they showed that he loved the sinner, and wished to make him holy. So the death of Christ is a true sacrifice in exactly the same way, but in a higher degree, convincing us of the evil of sin and the love of God. The experience of the whole Church teaches the power of this faith to create in our souls a new life of love. Seeing God coming to us in Christ to reconcile us to himself, and freely forgiving our sins, removes from our hearts doubt, anxiety, and the burden of hard responsibility, and fills the soul with a deep peace and joy in believing. So felt the apostle Peter when the Master forgave him his denial. From the fountain of that forgiveness flowed forth a river of devotion. So felt Paul when forgiven by Jesus; so felt Augustine, so Ambrose, so Luther, so Wesley: because they had been forgiven much, they loved much; for to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. The practical conclusion is, that it is less important to speculate as to the how, than to endeavor to see the fact. What we need is faith in God's pardoning, redeeming, saving love in Christ Jesus faith that our sins are blotted out; that we can come at once to our Father; that we can come boldly to the throne of grace; that the infinite Father looks at us with love when we are a great way off, and says, "This my son was dead, and is alive again; was lost, and is found." We may therefore, when we are conscious of going wrong and of doing wrong, instead of trying to reform ourselves alone by our own strength, go first to God, and be forgiven through faith in the great sacrifice of Christ: "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation (or mercy seat), through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God, that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." § 11. This Law of Vicarious Suffering universal. -Or |