(Continued from page 378.)
4. THE ATONEMENT.
THE word atonement is generally used to designate the priestly work of Christ. It occurs once in the Authorized Version of the New Testament (Roms. v. ii.) where it is interchanged with reconciliation as the translation of katalagē. The word literally means, to be at one—at-one-ment. In this sense atonement is reconciliation. This expresses the effect and not the nature of Christ’s work. Though from a theologian’s standpoint the word is not as comprehensive or descriptive as one would desire yet it has entered so largely into the vocabulary of theology that it would not be easy to displace it and as long as we are careful to use it in the comprehensive sense as setting forth all that Christ did to satisfy the demands of the law and justice of God, in the place and on behalf of sinners we will not err in its use. The word satisfaction is the term used by the Reformers and in many respects it is preferable to the more common term, atonement. Christ’s work was so perfect that it gave full satisfaction to God’s justice. “This perfection of the satisfaction of Christ” is not due as Dr. Charles Hodge points out “to His having suffered either in kind or in degree what the sinner would have been required to endure; but principally to the infinite dignity of His Person. He is not a mere man, but God and man in one person. His obedience and sufferings were therefore the obedience and sufferings of a divine Person” (System. Theol. iii. 483). This does not imply that the divine nature suffered as was maintained by some heretics (Patripassians) in the ancient church and as is held by so many modern theologians who hold the doctrine of the passibility of God. It is wrong to say that the human nature was the sacrifice for this would immediately make the sacrifice finite. The correct way of stating the doctrine is that He suffered in His human nature but it was the suffering of a Person who was divine. Hence the Scriptures when they speak of His sufferings always speak of them as the sufferings of a Person. While making reference to the infinite sufficiency of Christ’s satisfaction attention may be called to a view presented by the Schoolmen which in a corrected form has been adopted by the later Calvinistic theologians. Some of the Schoolmen were accustomed to say that Christ died sufficiently for all men and efficaciously for the elect. This is misleading though accepted by Calvin, and other orthodox divines, as it ascribes or seems to ascribe an intention of Christ dying for all. It erred in fixing the attention on the intention instead of on the sufficiency. After the controversies which waged around the extent or design of the atonement the later post-Reformation theologians stated it thus: His death is sufficient for all but efficacious only for the elect. In other words, they emphasised the all-sufficiency* of Christ’s death without asserting or seeming to assert any bearing on the intention in the first part as the statement of the Schoolmen did. In dealing with the satisfaction rendered by Christ some of the ablest of the conservative divines point out the difference between what they call pecuniary and penal satisfaction, that is, the satisfaction rendered in the payment of debt and the satisfaction rendered to a broken law. If a man owes another one hundred pounds and a kindly disposed person pays this to the creditor that is the end of the matter. But if a man steals a hundred pounds, though it is made good by a friend, that does not relieve the man of facing the consequences of having broken the law of the land. Sin is more than debt, it is breach of divine law and the sinner’s Substitute had to pay the penalty which was death.
*Dr. Smeaton in a well balanced statement presents the matter thus: “Though in intrinsic worth it could save the whole world, and a thousand worlds more, if there had been such worlds of human beings to be saved, yet the redemption work does not extend, in point of fact, beyond the circle of those who approve of it as a fit and proper method of salvation; or, in other words, who, by a faith which is the gift of God, are led to accept it as the ground of reconciliation with God. It is simply co-extensive, as to saving effects, with the number of true believers.”—(Our Lord’s Doctrine of the Atonement, p. 371).
Christ’s Death Substitutionary.
This brings us to another point in connection with the Atonement which must be held at all costs—viz., its vicariousness. The Saviour of sinners stood as the old divines put it in the sinner’s law place. It is unnecessary to elaborate this point as any intelligent reader of the New Testament will find abundant confirmation of it there. Christ is the Substitute, paying the penalty, and obtaining eternal redemption for all His people.
The Necessity of the Atonement.
Strictly speaking, as Dr. Cunningham points out, the question is not so much the necessity of the atonement as the necessity of the sufferings and death of Christ. While this is so, for the purpose of this article, we keep by the old designation. The question of the necessity of the Atonement was raised in the controversy with the Socinians* and others who denied that a vicarious atonement was necessary. The assertion of the necessity of the atonement, as well as the denial, must be based upon certain ideas of the attributes and moral government of God viewed in connection with the actual state and condition of man as a transgressor of His law says Dr. William Cunningham. The necessity of the Atonement is based by Dr. Owen on the nature of divine justice. In his powerful Dissertation on Divine Justice he maintains the absolute nature of divine justice in opposition to the view that its claims could be set aside by the mere volition of God. There was something so absolutely necessary in divine justice that this was impossible. Sin had to be punished in the Surety or in the sinner. This truth gives us an awful view of God’s justice but it throws a flood of light on the solemn transactions of the Atonement.
*It is only right to point out in making the above statement that there were some among the Schoolmen (Hales, Bonaventura, etc.) and also such great divines as Dr. Twisse, the prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly, Samuel Rutherford, and others, who held that it was possible for God to have forgiven sin by a mere volition of His will without satisfaction to His justice. Dr. Twisse held that the Atonement was only hypothetically necessary. The foregoing divines reached their conclusion by magnifying God’s sovereignty and power at the expense of His justice. Those who are interested in the subject will find it treated by a master theologian in Dr. Owen’s Dissertation on Divine Justice (Works, x. 481). It is a masterpiece of profound reasoning and sanctified scholarship.
Extent or Design of the Atonement.
For whom did Christ die? Around this question there have raged all those controversies that go under the name of Arminianism, Amyraldianism, Baxterianism, the Double Reference Theory of the Atonement and Dr. Warfield’s Cosmic Universalism as it has been called. Space will not permit us to deal with these, even though we had the inclination. Calvinism in opposition to Arminianism maintains that Christ died only for those who were given Him by the Father—all that were elected in Him before the foundation of the world. This is the true doctrine taught in the Scriptures. The teaching of our Confession is as follows: “As God has appointed the elect unto glory, so hath He, by the eternal and most free purpose of His will, fore-ordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they, who are elected being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ; are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power through faith. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only” (chap. iii. sec. 6). “The Lord Jesus, by His perfect obedience and sacrifice of Himself, which He through the eternal Spirit once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of His Father; and purchased not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for all those whom the Father hath given to Him.” (Chap. viii. sec. v).
While holding the doctrine of a limited or definite* atonement there are some who have raised the question: “Is there a sense in which Christ died for all?” This is an unfortunate way of putting the question. As already pointed out the mention of His dying immediately raises before the mind the intention of His death. The question as put above by those who do not believe in a universal atonement arises from a confusion in the mind between the universality of the atonement and the universality of certain benefits derived from it. There can be no doubt as the most orthodox Calvinists hold that many benefits come to men in general through the death of Christ. “Many blessings,” says Dr. Cunningham “flow to mankind at large from the death of Christ, collaterally and incidentally, in consequence of the relation in which men, viewed collectively, stand to each other. All these benefits were of course foreseen by God, when He resolved to send His Son into the world; they were contemplated or designed by Him, as what men should receive and enjoy. They are to be regarded and received as bestowed by Him, and as thus unfolding His glory, indicating His character, and actually accomplishing His purposes; and they are to be viewed as coming to men through the channel of Christ’s mediation—of His sufferings and death. . . . . The advocates of universal atonement, then, have no right to charge us with teaching that none derive any benefit from Christ’s death except those who are pardoned and saved: we do not teach this, and we are not bound in consistency to teach it.” (Hist. Theology, ii. 333). While admitting that important benefits have accrued to the whole human race through His death we are careful to guard against the idea that Christ did by His death procure for all men those blessings which are the proper and peculiar fruits of His death such as pardon and reconciliation.
* “Definite” is the better word and is used by the Princeton theologians and Dr. Cunningham (though the latter commonly uses “limited”). “Limited” is open to the objection that it tends to clash with the “sufficiency” of the atonement if its common usage is not kept clearly in mind.—Editor.
In the foregoing pages we have touched briefly on doctrines and controversies that would require volumes to adequately deal with them instead of paragraphs of a few lines. We have had occasion to mention heresies, not with the intention that they should be received, but with the purpose of conserving the truth they contravene. The whole subject of the atonement has gone through the fires of controversy and many false views have been held on it but the scriptural doctrine is plain and simple and when applied by the Holy Spirit it gives true satisfaction to the understanding and peace to the conscience. Christ crucified—dying in the room and stead of sinners—is the burden of the Gospel message and when blessed by the Holy Ghost is the mightiest lever ever known for the uplift of helpless sinners of Adam’s race.