cnarter and rendered. the obedience upon which our well-being “* was made to depend. Vicarious sufferings and obedi- ence are penal inflictions, and acts of obedience to law which are rendered in our place or stead (vice), as well as in our behalf, by our substitute. An alien goes to the army in the place of a drafted subject. He is the substitute of the man in whose place he goes. His labours, his dangers, his wounds and his death are vicarious. Of “Ex- 5. The distinction between the terms EXPIATION and Pia ot..p. PROPITIATION.—Both these words represent the same a, Greek word, AadoxecOa. When construed, as it is con- ' stantly in the classics, with tov Ocdy or roves Oeovs, it means to propitiate by sacrificial expiation. In the New Testament it is construed with tas auaptias (Heb. ii. 17), and is properly translated to exprate. Expiation removes — the reatus or guilt of sin. Reatus is that obligation to — suffer the penalty wl which is inherent in sin, Sanctifica- tion alone removes the pollution of sin. Propitiation removes the judicial displeasure of God. “Expiation respects the bearing or effect which Satisfaction has upon sin or upon the sinner. Propitiation has respect to the bearing or effect which Satisfaction has upon God. Sacri- ficial expiation, among heathens, Jews, and Ch ristians, has always been ae asa true pena vicaria: it is of the genus penalty; its specific difference is vicariousness. Propitiation, as a theological term, means that peculiar method of rendering placable which affects the heart of a Deity, who at the same time hates the sin and is deter- mined to punish it, yet loves the sinner; and which pro- ceeds by means of explation, or the vicarious suffering of the penalty by a substituted victim. Of “Im- 6. IMPETRATION and APPLICA : Hon” and the Calvinistic advocates of a general Atonement are con- a gee stantly insisting upon the distinction between the Invpe-
tion,”
DEFINITION OF TERMS. 39
tration and the Application of salvation by Christ. By Impetration they mean the purchase, or meritorious procurement by sacrifice, of all those objective condi- tions of salvation which are offered to all men in the gospel ; that is, salvation made. available on the condition of faith. By Application they mean the actual applica- tion of that salvation to individuals upon faith. The Impetration they hold to be general and indefinite ; the Application they believe to be personal, definite, and limited to believers. The Reformed Churches, on the other hand, teach that while the impetration of salva- tion is both logically and chronologically distinguishable from its application, nevertheless in the eternal and immutable design of God the impetration is personal and definite, and includes certainly and meritoriously the subsequent application to the persons intended; for “to ALL for whom Christ hath purchased redemp- tion he doth certainly and effectually apply and com- municate the same.”
7. REDEMPTION and ATONEMENT.—The modern advo- cates of a general Atonement distinguish between the words Redemption and Atonement after this manner: Atonement they confine to the impetration of the objec- tive conditions of salvation, which they maintain is general and indefinite. Redemption they use in a wider sense, as including the actual personal application in addition to the general and all-sufficient impetration. Hence, while they speak of a general Atonement, they deny of course that there is a general Redemption. It must be carefully noted, however, that this distinction was not marked by this usage of the terms Atonement
and Redemption by any of the controversialists, on either.
side of the question, during the seventeenth century, when the authoritative standards of the Reformed Churches were written. Baxter used the word Redemp-
CHAPTER iil.
———
d
tion” and “* Atone- ment.”
40 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
esarrer tion as equivalent to Atonement in his work entitled BEL,
“Universal Redemption of Mankind by the Lord Jesus Christ.” So also the Arminian, Dr. Isaac Barrow, in his sermons entitled ‘The Doctrine of Universal Redemption Asserted and Explained.” In the Westminster Confes- sion, let it be remembered, the word Redemption is used in the sense of Atonement, or the sacrificial purchase of Re ace, Gad ie esaunaiee aitdensnsts
There is, however, unquestionably a distinction to be carefully observed between these words in their Biblical usage. The precise Biblical sense of Atonement (o753 —tracpmos) is the expiation of sin by means of a pena vicaria in order to the propitiation of God. The Bibli- cal usage with respect to Redemption (arodvtpwors, &c.) is more comprehensive and less definite. It signifies deliverance from loss or from ruin by the payment for
us of a ransom by our Substitute. Hence it may signify — the act of our Substitute in paying that ransom. Or it may be used to express the completed deliverance itself, the consummation of which is of course future. To say