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, signify expia- tion by covering with blood. (b.) The word fAacKouat, when construed with ‘“‘God,” evidently and confessedly is used by both classical writers and the Seventy in the sense of propitiation; but when it is construed with “sin,” it can only be used in the sense of expiration: Heb. ii. 17, Christ was made a “faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, (AacKerOa Tas auaptias Tov Naov—to expiate the sins of the people.” In 1 John ii. 2 and iv. 10, Christ is twice declared to be the expiration for our sins. (c.) The Hebrew word 5D is sometimes con- strued with “God,” when it must be rendered propitiation ; as, for instance, Ezek. xvi. 63: ‘‘When I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lorp.” (Se@ Gen. xxxii. 20.) Whereas the same word is gener- ally and more immediately, in accordance with its radical meaning, construed with sin, or with the person or thing in which the sim inheres (Isa. vi. 7; Dan. ix. 24; and Lev. iv: 20;:v..6, 10; xvw'6, JI—16): “ And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin-offering, which is for himself, and shall make an atonement for himself, and for his house;.... and he shall take a censer full of burn- ing coals of fire from off the altar before the Lorn, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the veil: and he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lorp, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy-seat” (n75D or covering) “‘ that is upon the testimony, that he die not. And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercey-seat castward; and before the mercy-seat
CHAPTER XIL
Objec- tions of Young an- swered.
172 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times. Then shall he kill the goat of the sin-offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the veil, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy-seat, and before the mercy-seat: and he shall make an atonement” (covering by sacrificial blood) “for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins.” Although a different word is used, this is evidently the idea of David when, in Ps. xxxii 1, he says, “Blessed is the man whose sin 48s covered; which he explains by the parallel phrases, ‘‘ Whose transgression is forgiven,” and, “ Unto whom the Lorp imputeth not iniquity.” And Paul, in Rom. iv. 5, declares that this is the principle on which, in the gospel, God justifies the ungodly without works, and reckons faith for righteousness.
Young supposes that he overthrows this entire body of proof by noticing the fact (a) That the Seventy some- times translate the word 1p> by the Greek terms ay:aQeuw, to consecrate, and by caBapiCev, to purify, although he admits that their characteristic rendering is (AaoKec@at. (b.) That in those cases in which the word p> is used to set forth the ceremoniul atonement for the sacred instruments of religion, as the altar (Ex. xxix. 36, 37), and for the plague of leprosy in the walls of a house (Lev. xiv. 48-53), it cannot possibly be used in the strict sense of making expiation for sin.* We answer to the jurst point, that the very thing expressed by the habitual and always consistent usage of this word 1s, that a sinner can be reconciled, and his sin cleansed, and his soul made holy, and his life consecrated to God’s service, only as his sin is covered and so atoned by sacri- ficial blood. Remission of sins, the immediate effect of
* Young’s Life and Light of Men, pp. 287-289. ,
EFFECTS OF CHRIST’S WORK. 173
an acceptable offering, is in order to sanctification— cuarres