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 charged to Christ, and expiated in him, all their blame, shame, pollution, and power, as inherent personal habits or principles, remain all the while inalienably ours. These sins are none the less ours, after their imputation to him, than they were before. (a) The very force of the im- putation is to make him “ alienw culpe reus’”—that is, penally responsible for another’s sin. They must remain ours in order that they may be to him the sins of an-
The doc- trine of imputa- tion guarded from abuse.
CHAPTER XI,
Misrepre- senta- tions of adver- saries re- buked.
162 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
other, (b) Because personal moral qualities, and the pollution inherent in sinful ones, are inalienable and cannot be transferred by imputation. (c) Because, as Owen pointed out long ago, to be “ alenw culpe reus” makes no man a sinner, subjectively considered, unless he did unwisely or irregularly undertake the responsi-. bility. (d@) Because our blessed Lord was a divine — person, and therefore absolutely incapable of personal sin in any sense or degree. While, therefore, he bore our sins, and consequently suffered the penalty in- volved, and hence was both regarded and treated by the Father, during the time and for the purpose of expiation, as vicariously guilty and worthy of wrath, he was all the while not one iota the less personally immaculate and glorious in holiness, and all the more the well-beloved Son of the Father, in whom he was well pleased.
All this the orthodox have always held and carefully expressed. We regard it, then, as an evident sign of weakness, and as an offence against honourable argu- ment, when the advocates of the Governmental Theory (as, for instance, Barnes, Fiske, and others), by studi- ously confounding the imputation of guilt with the transference of personal inherent sinful character, and by habitually setting forth the coarse and indiscriminat- ing language of Luther on this subject as a fair repre- sentation of the Satisfaction Theory, disingenuously insinuate that at least the more self-consistent of the orthodox have held the blasphemy that Christ was made personally a sinner when he bore our sins upon the tree. On this subject I remark, (1.) No Christian ever did, or by possibility could, hold the doctrine of imputation which they thus covertly impute to us. It is nonsense on the one hand, and infamous blasphemy upon the other. (2.) Luther’s language on this point was, characteristi-
OUR SINS LAID ON CHRIST. 163
cally of the man and of his age, coarse and wild, and carrer neither to be defended nor imitated. (3.) But Luther = was a good man, and no competent theologian believes, and no honest one will pretend, that he held a doctrine in any respect different from that which I have stated above as that of the Scriptures and of the Reformed Churches. (4.) But his language renders him pecu- liarly liable to misconception upon the part of the unin- structed. It is, therefore, an instrument peculiarly fitted for the use of controversialists who, lacking argument, need to excite the prejudices of the uninstructed against their opponents. (5.) These very same gentlemen, who thus exhibit Luther to the public as a vile blasphemer, in order that all who hold the same doctrine of the Atonement may be silently implicated in the’ same charge, nevertheless honour him as a true Christian and a great reformer. But unless they misrepresent his doc- trine of imputation, he cannot be a Christian. Which alternative will they accept? Will they accept as a true Christian a traducer of their Lord? or will they assert that Luther was no Christian? or will they acknowledge that, for purposes of controversy, they have misrepresented his doctrine ?*
3. This doctrine of the invputation of the guilt of our Usage of sins is clearly proved by the passages above stated, when eaestee interpreted in careful comparison with the usage of the He words translated “to bear sin,’ both in the Old and uity,” in New Testaments. Thus,— New tel
(1.) The Hebrew word bap has the precise sense of “™°* beavrvng—not of bearing away or removing, but in the sense of carrying. Thus (Lam. v. 7), “ Our fathers have sinned and are not, and we have borne (52p) their iniquities.” This can only mean to bear the penalty of
* See Cunningham’s Reformers and Theology of the Reformation: Essay 2nd—Luther.
CHAPTER a9 &
Bush- nell’s ex- travagant asser- tions.
164 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
the sins of their fathers. So of Christ, “ My righteous servant shall justify many ; for he shall bear (Sap) their iniquities”” (Isa. li. 11).