PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Atonement
A. A. Hodge, 1823–1886 · 134,256 words · 171 reading sections
146 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
the last chapter. The symbolical design of the pre- sentation of incense before the Lord is very clearly set forth in Scripture to be representative of prayer—the prayers of God’s people in mass; and in the case of the priests, the representatives of the people, intercessory prayer. The altar of incense was placed on t…
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1. The entire Epistle to the Hebrews is an inspired witness to the fact that the Levitical priests were types of Christ, and that he acted as the literal high priest of his people. In this short letter he is called priest six times and high priest twelve times. Of the earthly tabernacle it is declared that it “stood on…
908 wordsSECTION 63CHAPTER Xx.
true not only of each type or prophetic symbol in detail, but also of the entire system as a whole. It is a grand historical fact that the ancient temple, its ritual services, and its ministers and their functions, prefigured and pre- pared the way for the advent and work of Christ for nearly two thousand years. It is …
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as certainly as pantheism is atheism, does this generalizing of vicarious suffering, which of right is the sole, inalienable, and glorious function of the “one Mediator between God and men,” amount only to a direct and absolute denial of the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice, and to the affirmation that the sufferings of…
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1. We saw, under a previous head, that in the Jewish sacrifices the victim was in the most literal sense con- ceivable substituted for the offerer to bear the penalty due him, and thus to discharge his obligations to the law. Reconciliation was effected through propitiation, propitiation through expiation, and expiatio…
892 wordsSECTION 66OUR SINS LAID ON CHRIST. 159
the idea of a substitute. It is true, as I showed above, | . that the person upon whom the penalty is to be inflicted being changed—one divine person being substituted for many human persons—the law itself, on principles of essential justice, spontaneously adjusts the quality of the sufferings constituting the penalty…
803 wordsSECTION 67AL.
to judicial process. Or the thing imputed may not be originally his, but may be made his by the imputation, because of the legal connection subsisting between the person to whom the thing originally belonged and him to whom it is imputed. Thus, not to impute sin to the doer of it is of course not to charge the guilt of…
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The Scriptures plainly teach, therefore, that all the guilt or obligation to punishment incurred by the sins of his people was imputed or charged to the account of ‘Christ, as the legal ground of the execution upon him of the penalty involved in the case. Yet, notwithstand- ing that the guclt of all our sins is thus ch…
829 wordsSECTION 69EFFECTS OF CHRIST’S WORK, 167
(2.) The word nwa has a more diversified usage than Sap, yet when construed with ‘‘sin,” it always plainly means ‘‘to bear sin” in the sense of “‘ being penally re- sponsible’’ for it. ‘‘ Not to bear sin,” is not to have sin charged or imputed as a ground of punishment. If a husband cause his wife to break a vow made w…
862 wordsSECTION 70EFFECTS OF CHRIST'S WORK. 169
Moral Influence hypothesis generally, insist that the cuarrer word is used only in the sense of the persuasion of the ——~ sinner by God, through the cross of Christ, to lay aside his wicked alienation. But that the other sense of the propitiation, or rendering placable the divine nature in respect to sinners, is also …
709 wordsSECTION 71EFFECTS OF CHRIST’S WORK. 171
diately over this mercy-seat, and between the cherubin, habitually dwelt the Shekinah, or visible manifestation of Jehovah's presence. On the great day of atonement, the high priest entered within the veil, first with the blood of the bullock, slain as an atonement for the sin of his house ; and again with the blood of…
708 wordsSECTION 72EFFECTS OF CHRIST’S WORK. 173
used in different constructions express this double baie bearing of a bloody sacrifice, now upon God and now —— upon sin. (a.) The words ‘Aackopa and tAacuds, trans- lated in the English New Testament by the word propv- tiate, were habitually used by the Seventy to translate —p2, which can only, as a general thing, sig…
724 wordsSECTION 73EFFECTS OF CHRIST’S WORK. 175
sanctification is not in order to remission. But since sacrificial blood, by making expiation, and so securing remission, always effects purification, it is eminently proper that the instrumentality should be differently designated, as one or other effect might be in the special case most prominently thought of. To the…
866 wordsSECTION 74178 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
But in the second clause, which doubtless he intends to be exegetical of the first, he represents the divine in Christ and the Holy Ghost to be “agencies or influences” springing out of a divine source. Neither Strauss nor Renan would object to such a statement of the Trinity as involved in a rational conception o…
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debtor pays or another pays for him, The receipt in full of the creditor is purely a business acknowledgment that his claim is satisfied, and therefore extinguished by the simple force of the payment, and without any room for the exercise of grace on his part. In a case of debt, moreover, the demand is for the precise …
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ceiving of tory offering for sin; (b) that of the redemption of the. pean life and liberty of a captive by the payment of a ransom ais. in his stead ; and (c) the satisfaction of the law by the sages. vicarious fulfilment of its demands. These different conceptions are designed both to limit and to supplement each othe…
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Besides this, these different expressions are sometimes applied to different subjects. When it is said that Christ “has redeemed us by his blood” (Rev. v. 9), the term redemption of course is used to designate the nature and designed effect of his sacrifice, which he finished on the cross. But when it is said that Chri…
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terests of his government even better than the punish- ment of each sinner in person would have done, there can, of course, be no injustice involved in the arrange- ment as far as the interests of God and his government are concerned. (c.) This vicarious suffering is an in- finite benefit to those sinners who are saved…
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cuarter and covenant representative of that race, during a limited ae period and under the most favourable conditions, in the Garden of Eden. Adam sinned; and, as a matter of unquestionable fact, the penalty of that sin has been executed in common upon him and on each of his descendants from birth. The penalty denounce…
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The literal penalty in all its parts has been from the first universally executed upon the entire race, in the same sense it was executed upon Adam. The apostle calls it a “ yudgment” and a “condemnation.” The same infallible authority declares (a) that “even so,” that is, we are made righteous through the obedience of…
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note,+ in the sense of being the medium through which God produces a moral impression upon us. It must be interpreted in the sense of a medium through which we approach a reconciled Father. He is also called our ‘Advocate with the Father:” “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous…
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IL. I submit that the induction of Scriptural passages I have presented makes certain the following points: 1. That. the entire class of passages above presented are not only without exception consistent with, but when taken together naturally suggest, the central principle of our doctrine, viz., that Christ, in the st…
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which God effects, of which Christ’s sacrifice is the meri- torious ground, and the people of Christ the subjects, is not an infusion of grace effecting a subjective change in moral condition, but a declarative act pronouncing the believer to be forensically just, and thus effecting a change of legal relation, and not …
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works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Gal. 11. 11: “But that no man is justi- fied by the law in the sight of God, it is evid…
872 wordsSECTION 85DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION. 205
This doctrine, that justification is forensic, and that it is based upon imputed righteousness, was the watch-word of the glorious Reformation—the one word of power which dissolved the venerable power of the Papacy, awakened the people from the sleep. of ages, introduced the new world of modern history, and the stupend…
856 wordsSECTION 86DOOTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION, 207
things :-—(1) the admission of the sufferings of Christ, in themselves of incomparably less value, in the place of the real penalty of the law; and (2) the admission of faith and evangelical obedience, in the place of that perfect obedience which the law demands as the ground of the sinner’s justification. The first re…
695 wordsSECTION 87DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION. 209
(2.) The Scriptures declare that justification proceeds upon the ground of a righteousness. ‘The righteous- ness of the law,” ‘their own righteousness,” is con- trasted with ‘ the righteousness of God,’ ‘“ the righteousness of faith.” The former is declared not to be, but the latter to be, the ground of justification. …
866 wordsSECTION 88NATURE AND EFFECT OF FAITH. 213
(3.) When the Scriptures declare that justification does not proceed on the ground of human works, they always use the words in a general sense to include works of whatever kind. This excludes, of course, faith and evangelical obedience as well as obedience to the law of the Adamic Covenant: ‘‘And if by grace, then it …
860 wordsSECTION 89NATURE AND EFFECT OF FAITH. 215
doings are the ground,—as well as credit or assent to the truthfulness of his communications. And it is a fact that the sole condition of salvation is habitually pre- sented in the Scriptures by the phrases, “ to believe wm or apon Christ Jesus ;” es or emi tov Xpirrov, and els To dvoua Xpicrov, and év to Xpicr@. John …
780 wordsSECTION 90THE ORTHODOX DOCTRINE AS TO THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT PROVED FROM WHAT THE SCRIPTURES TEACH AS TO ITS ABSOLUTE NECESSITY IN ORDER TO THE SALVATION OF SINNERS.
honours, and rights. BE On the other hand, according to the Moral Influence scrip. Hypothesis, a sinner may with evident propriety be pak called to credit the communications of the Divine Mes- fe 7aith siah, and to yield obedience and sympathy to the spiri- cilable tual influence of the heavenly Medium of the Father's …
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whis question has been much discussed among theo- logians, and different answers have been given by differ- ent classes of them, in correspondence with the funda- mental principles of their respective systems. The Socinians hold that the work of Christ, as a whole, was one of doubtless many plans subject to God’s selec…
824 wordsSECTION 92THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT DETERMINED BY WHAT TIE SCRIPTURES TEACH AS TO ITS PERFECTION.
1. It may be inferred from the amazing greatness of the sacrifice. The Scriptures constantly speak of the sacrifice of the Son by the Father as an unparalleled wonder. All else that God will or can do is as nothing in comparison with the gift of Christ. If God “spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, h…
879 wordsSECTION 93PERFECTION OF THE ATONEMENT. 225
And (b) as to its application and effect, is the atoning work of Christ so complete in itself that it secures the salvation of those for whom it was made; or does it only put the sinner in a salvable state, leaving the result to depend upon other conditions ? I. The first point, it is evident, would have no rele- Th…
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* Apol. Thes., iii., 21, 6. t Ibid., 21, 8. { Institutio Rel. Christ., vol. y., chap. xix., 2 5. CHAPTER XVII. 226 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. by the sufferings of Christ to the law and justice of God is, in its own intrinsic value, a full equivalent in the strict rigour of justice for the penal sufferings of all m…
856 wordsSECTION 95ACTIVE AND PASSIVE OBEDIENCE. 231
1. The Bible represents all the sufferings of believers in this life as disciplinary, designed to advance their moral and spiritual improvement, and having no respect whatever to the expiation of guilt. The removal of condemnation is referred solely to the work of Christ (Rom. vil. 1, 33, 34); and the design of discipl…
838 wordsSECTION 96ACTIVE AND PASSIVE OBEDIENCE, 233
rious sufferings, but expresses nothing concerning the relation which his obedience sustains to our salvation, as that meritorious condition upon which the divine favour and the promised reward have by covenant been sus- pended. On the other hand, the word Satisfaction the term exactly and exhaustively expresses all …
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very nature it must, in every event, be terminated, 7pso jucto, either by the first sin which brings in the penalty, or by the granting of the promised reward when the conditions upon which it has been suspended have been accomplished. The penal relation comes in when the law has been broken, and the trial has cease…
843 wordsSECTION 98238 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
God’s free promise has been made, to all those repre- sented by Christ, the condition of divine favour and of eternal well-being. In the one aspect the obedience is called passive, to signalize it as penal suffering. In another aspect the same obedience is called active, to signa- lize it as the doing of that which is …
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We are, therefore, shut up to the choice presented in the third and fourth alternatives above stated, the former representing the Arminian and the latter the Calvinistic theory as to the legal grounds upon which the positive justification of the believer in Christ proceeds. The Arminian holds that, in some way never de…
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freely, and on identically the same terms as the remission of sins itself. (5.) The Scriptures everywhere set forth the truth that the adoption of sons, eternal life, &c., are given to the believer freely for Christ’s sake, as elements of that purchased possession of which the Holy Spirit is the earnest or first instal…
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upon mere natures as such. Yet, as our Representative, he bore, in the unity of his divine personality, our nature impersonally (‘‘a true body and a reasonable soul’), in order that he might thus be made vicariously under the law, to the end that, by his purely vicarious obedience, he might “redeem them that were under…
781 wordsSECTION 102HISTORY OF OPINION. 247
V. Piscator and Richard Watson object that the Calvinistic view represents Christ as rendering two distinct satisfactions to the law in behalf of his people. They maintain that obedience and penalty are alter- natives, the presence of one excluding the demand for the other. If Adam had rendered perfect obedience, he wo…
699 wordsSECTION 103HISTORY OF OPINION. 249
i® Tt is not pretended that the doctrine of Satisfac- tion, as received in common by the Lutheran and Re- formed Churches, was conceived of in all its elements, or stated with scientific accuracy, in the early ages of the Church, or that in this complete sense it is possessed by all parts of the Church in modern times.…
618 wordsSECTION 104HISTORY OF OPINION. 251
Zwingle and Luther and Calvin, each independent in his origin, drawing from different sources, and marked by many profound characteristic differences from the others; and with them all the four great spontaneous move- ments of reform, in Switzerland, Germany, France, and Britain, each of which was so truly original, an…
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Rev. G. 8. Faber’s Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses. De Sacrificiis, Gulielmo Outramo autore. The Life and Light of Men, by John Young, LL.D., Edinburgh. Comparative Darstellung des Lehrbegriffs der Verschiedenen Christ- lichen Kirchenpartsien. Von Dr. Geo. Bened. Winer. Hase, Libri Symbolici Eccle. Evangelice. Ni…
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1. It is unquestionably a strong presumptive evi- dence in favour of the truth of our position, that the most learned, impartial, and minute students of the origi- nal sources of all knowledge on this subject, such as Neander, Dorner, Faber, Shedd, Schaff, &c., all in effect bear independent testimony to the substantia…
777 wordsSECTION 107HISTORY OF OPINION. 259
Clemens Romanus, a disciple of Paul, died ciurewm A.D. 100. In his Epistola ad Corinthios (quoted by Dorner{), he writes thus: ‘‘ His blood has been shed for us, for our salvation; he has, according to God’s will, given his body for our body, his soul for our soul.” ‘Every in- terpretation of this passage,” says Dorner…
837 wordsSECTION 108HISTORY OF OPINION. 261
Trenzeus ($202) says: ‘‘ We were God’s enemies and debtors, as Christ in his priestly work fulfilled the law.’”* And again: ‘ And on account of this, in the last times the Lord, through his own incarnation, restored us into friendship, having been made mediator between God and man; truly propitiating the Father, agains…
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Gregory the Great (+604), the most distinguished and influential representative of the Latin Church of his age, in his Moralia in Jobum,|| quoted by Shedd, says “Guilt can be extinguished only by a penal offering to justice. But it would contradict the idea of justice if for the sin of a rational being like man, the de…
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carter pendence of each other, in each of the two great divisions a of) the Church—by Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the West ; and Nicholas, Bishop of Methone, in Mes- senia, in the East. From the fact that the essential principles involved in Christ’s work of vicarious expiation were, by these men and their suc…
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John Wessel of Groningen (quoted by Ullman) says: “According to the second or servant form, the Lord Jesus is not only mediator between God and man, but is rather mediator for man between the God of justice and the God of mercy; for it behoved that the whole law of justice should be fulfilled without failure of one jot…
747 wordsSECTION 112HISTORY OF OPINION. 271
‘“ Jesus Christ, who, when we were enemies, on ac- count of his great love wherewith he loved us, merited justification for us by his most sacred passion on the tree, and satisfied God the Father for us.”{ “The first and most excellent satisfaction is that by which whatever is due by us to God, on account of our sins, …
836 wordsSECTION 113HISTORY OF OPINION. 273
upon himself and borne our sins, and satisfied the divine cuarrer justice. God, therefore, on account of Christ as having =* suffered and risen, is propitiated with reference to our sins, neither does he impute them to us, but reckons the righteousness of Christ as ours ; so that we are now not only cleansed and purge…
814 wordsSECTION 114HISTORY OF OPINION. 275
The Formula Consensus Helvetica — “composed in Zurich (A.D. 1675) by Heidegger, assisted by Francis Turretin of Geneva, and Gereler of Basle,” and designed to rebuke the errors introduced by the Professors of the French Theological Seminary at Saumur, who taught.a mixed system, in general character the same with that s…
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As far as the Moral Influence Theory is concerned, This re- the adverse presumption raised by the history of opinion V<%,4% on this subject is overwhelming. The spiritual followers Pee of Christ have always lived a life the conscious principle of which was faith in a sin-expiating sacrifice. Socinians and Rationalists …
857 wordsSECTION 116OBJECTIONS STATED AND ANSWERED. 281
ment lies in the question, ‘An Christus morte sua, circa Deum aliquid effecerit?’?”* This is indeed the heart of the question. The whole Christian Church, Apostolic Fathers, Schoolmen, Reformers, Greek, Roman, Lutheran, Reformed, and even the Arminian Churches, all answer in one voice in the affirmative. The Arians, So…
687 wordsSECTION 117OBJECTIONS STATED AND ANSWERED. 283
Christ's satisfaction would be thoroughly exposed and would vanish.” * Priestley says that “justice in the Deity can be no more than a modification of that good- ness or benevolence which is his sole governing prin- ciple.” + Young{ denies that there is any such thing as rectilineal justice in our sense in God at all. …
821 wordsSECTION 118CHAPTER xX.
The form in which the principle upon which this objection to our doctrine rests, as entertained by the advocates of the Governmental Theory, is bad enough, but it is much worse as it is pressed by the advocates of the Moral Influence Theory. _/Their sickly sentiments are in obvious contradiction to all the sacred and p…
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human depravity that has ever disgraced the earth is more amazing than this denial, that the self-assumption of the penalty of the broken law of God in the stead of his elect is an exercise of sovereign and disinterested love. Christ is the one satisfied as well as the one satis- fying, the one punishing as well as the…
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suffer eternal death, and his temporal death is only one. For both reasons, therefore, because it was temporal, and because it was but the death of one man, it could not be intended to be a satisfaction to divine justice in the stead of the eternal death of an incalculable multitude. On this ground Socinus consistently…
798 wordsSource & rights
Public-domain historical work by A. A. Hodge, 1823–1886. OCR from an original historical scan hosted by Internet Archive; OCR may contain recognition errors.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.