" 1st. Sin for its own sake deserves the wrath and curse of God, 2d. God is disposed, from the very excellence of his nature, to treat his creatures as they deserve. 3d. To satisfy the righteous judg- ment of God, his Son assumed our nature, was made under the law, fulfilled all righteousness, and bore the punishment of our sins. 4th. By his righteousness, those who believe are consti- tuted righteous, his merit being so imputed to them that they are regarded as righteous in the sight of God." — Hodge's Essays, p. 131.
9. In what sense ivere Christ's sufferings penal, and what is the difference betiveen calamity, chastisement, and punishment ?
Calamity is suffering, which has no relation to sin ; chastise- ment, that suffering which is designed for the improvement of the sufferer ; punishment, that which is designed for the satisfaction of justice. The penalty of the law is that suffering which the law demands as a satisfaction to justice for the violation of its commands. — Hodge's Essays, p. 152.
The sufferings of Christ were penal, therefore, because he suf- fered precisely that kind and degree of evil that divine justice demanded as a complete satisfaction for all the sins of all his people. — Is. liii. ; Gal. iii., 13 ; Matt, xx., 28 ; Eom. viii., 3 ; 2 Cor., v., 21. His sufferings are said to have been penal in dis- tinction, 1st, to calamity or chastisement ; 2d, to pecuniary sat- isfaction.
10. State the difference between pecuniary and penal satis- faction.
" 1st. In the one case, the demand is upon the thing due ; in the other, it is upon the person of the criminal. 2d. In the one, the demand is for an exact equivalent— a piece of money in the hands of a king is of no more value than in the hands of a peas-
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ant ; in the other case, the demand being upon the person, and for the satisfaction of justice, must be satisfied by very different kinds and degrees of punishment, depending upon the dignity of the person and the conditions of the law. 3d. The creditor is bound to accept the payment of the debt, no matter by whom offered ; whereas, in the case of crime, the sovereign is neither bound to provide a substitute, nor to accept one when offered. 4th. Hence penal satisfaction does not ipso facto liberate ; the acceptance is a matter of free grace, and is determined by arrange- ment or covenant." — Hodge's Essays, pp. 165, 166.
11. What is the penalty of the law, and in what sense did Christ bear that penalty ?
" The penalty of the law in Scripture is called c death/ which includes every kind of evil inflicted by divine justice in punishment of sin, and inasmuch as Christ suffered such evil, and to such a degree as fully satisfied divine justice, he suffered what the Scriptures call the penalty of the law. It is not any specific kind or degree of suffering. The penalty in the case of the individual sinner involves remorse, despair, and eternal ban- ishment from God ; in the case of Christ, they involved none of these. It is not the nature, but the relation of sufferings to the law that gives them their distinctive value." It is not the de- gree of the sufferings merely, but the dignity of the sufferer also, which determines their sin-atoning efficacy. — Hodge's Essays, p. 152.
Our standards declare that the penalty of the law in the case of Christ includes " the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, the accursed death of the cross, and continuance under the power of death for a time."
12. In what sense and on what ground were the sufferings of Christ equivalent to the sufferings of all his people ?
They were unutterably great, and equivalent to the sufferings of all his people, not in a pecuniary sense as precisely a quid pro quo, both in kind and degree ; but in a penal sense, as in the judgment of God fully satisfying in their behalf all the penal claims of the law.
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The ground upon which G-od judges the sufferings of Christ to be, in a penal sense, equivalent to the sufferings of all his peo- ple, is not the nature or degree of that suffering, but the dignity of the sufferer. Those sufferings, though endured in a finite na- ture, were of infinite value, because of the infinite dignity of his person.
13. In what sense were Christ's sufferings vicarious, and in what sense was he the substitute of his people ?
A substitute is one who acts or suffers in the place of or in be- half of another, and that is, vicarious obedience or suffering which is rendered or endured by the substitute in the place of another. In this sense Christ is our substitute, and his sufferings vica- rious.—Eom. v., 8 ; Matt, xx., 28 ; 1 Tim. ii., 6 ; 1 Pet. ii., 24 ; iii., 18 ; Isa. liii., 6.
14. What were the qualifications necessary for such a sub- stitute ?
1st. That he should be personally independent of the law, owing it nothing on his own account.