That he is truly a priest, and that he fulfilled all the func- tions of that office has been fully proved above, Chapter XXI., questions 14-17. Xow when an Israelite sinned he went to the priest, who, taking a victim, offered it to God* life for life, and thus making atonement for sin it was forgiven the transgressor, Lev. iv., 20, 26, 31 ; v., 10, 18. " Therefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer," and " not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he hath obtained an eter- nal redemption for us," Heb. viii., 3 ; ix., 12. The priest never offered the sacrifice to obtain the possibility of salvation for his client, nor to manifest the determination of God to punish sin, but always to obtain remission of the penalty.
20. How may it be shown that the substitution of Christ in the place of his people did not cause him to become personally a sinner.
308
CHEIST MEDIATORIAL PRIEST.
Keason and Scripture alike teach that the personal character of one man can never be transferee! to another, but, on the other hand, that the legal responsibility, or liability to punishment, un- der which one man's labors may be transferred to another, when- soever sovereign authority recognizes one as legally representing the other. Christ is said (2 Cor. v., 21) " to be made sin for us" in the same sense that we are said " to be made the righteousness of God in him." When we are justified, or declared to be righte- ous for Christ's sake, we are no less than before personally sinners in heart and habit, because it is his legal merit, and not his per- sonal holiness, that is counted ours. So Christ remains no less infinitely "holy, harmless, and undefiled," when the chastise- ment of our sins is laid upon him, or their legal responsibility counted his.
21. Shoiv that the doctrine of a full satisfaction to justice does not destroy the gratuitous nature of salvation.
1st. Christ did not die to make the Father love the elect, but was given to die because of that love, John iii., 16 ; 1 John iv., 9.
2d. Christ made full satisfaction to divine justice in order to render the exercise of love consistent with justice, Kom. iii., 26 ; Ps. lxxxv., 10. The greater the obstacle, and the more costly the price demanded of love by justice, the greater the love and the freer. On this ground God commendeth his love, Rom. v., 8.
3d. God the Father and God the Son are one God, identical in nature, moved by the same love, and exacting the same satis- faction.
4th. Penal satisfaction differs from pecuniary. If a sovereign appoints or accepts a substitute it is all of grace.
5th. To Christ, as Mediator, the purchased salvation of his people belongs of right, from the terms of the eternal covenant, but to us that salvation is given in all its elements, stages, and instrumentalities only as a free and sovereign favor. The gift is gratuitous if the beneficiary has no shadow of claim to it, and if no conditions are exacted of him. The less worthy the beneficiary is, and the more difficult the conditions which justice exacts of the giver, the more eminently gratuitous the gift is.
NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 309
II. The necessity of the Atonement.
22. What view do the Socinians entertain as to the ground of the necessity of Christ's death ?
Every man's view of the grounds upon which the necessity of Christ's atoning work rests must be determined by his view as to its nature. For the Socinian view, as to the nature of the atone- ment, see above, question 5. The necessity of the atonement ac- cording to this view, therefore, results simply in the indisposition of men to repent, and the necessity of providing motives adequate to that end.
23. On what grounds do those who maintain the governmental theory of the atonement hold it to have been necessary ?
See above, question 6. According to this view the necessity of the atonement springs from the exigencies of God's general, moral government, which demand uniform and certain punish- ment as a warning to the subject, and thus as a restraint upon sin.
24. What is the doctrine of those ivho admit only a hypotheti- cal necessity for the atonement ?
These truly hold that the necessity for the atonement is in God, but they err in maintaining that this necessity springs from his mere will, and not from his nature, and that God sovereignly chose this as one of many ways of reconciling the forgiveness of sins with himself and his moral government.
25. What is the Scriptural view of the ground of this neces- sity ?
1st. Sin itself intrinsically deserves punishment. 2d. God is, by the perfection of his own righteous nature, immutably de- termined to punish all sin as intrinsically hateful. 3d. The necessity for the atonement, therefore, lies in God's infinite, wise, holy, just, free, and immutable nature.
26. How can the absolute necessity of the atonement be proved, i. e., on the assumption that sin is to be pardoned ?