But in the second clause, which doubtless he intends to
be exegetical of the first, he represents the divine in
Christ and the Holy Ghost to be “agencies or influences”
springing out of a divine source. Neither Strauss nor
Renan would object to such a statement of the Trinity
as involved in a rational conception of the person of
Christ. Let the reader, for the purpose of tracing the
connection, compare Bushnell’s book on the “ Vicarious
Sacrifice,’ in which he gives the Unitarian view as to
the work of Christ, with the radically defective view of
the person of our Lord given in his “ God in Christ.” —_thoaox To the charge that our view of Satisfaction necessarily (cts
involves Tritheism, we answer—1. That the eternal to involve
subsistence of three distinct persons, capable of mutual Sip)
12
176 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
cmarter personal interaction in the unity of one indivisible — essence, is a truth clearly revealed in Scripture, yet one which no man can distinctly construe in his own mind. As it is presented in different relations in Scripture, every person who, with competent clearness of thought, observes his own mental states, knows that his mind oscillates between the extreme of too widely separating the persons (Tritheism), and the opposite extreme of too closely pressing the unity toward the extinction of the personal distinction (Sabellianism). Nevertheless, there are no truths more clearly taught in Scripture than . these: (a.) That the true God is one God. (b.) That Christ, in the highest sense the word bears, is the great God in person. (c¢.) That, at the same time, he is a dis- tinct person from the Father. 2. We answer, that our doctrine of the execution, by the Father, of the penalty of the law upon the person of the God-man as the sub- stitute of his people does not bear a tritheistic appear- ance any more than the undeniable representations given in Scripture of the relations sustained by the Son to the Father. They mutually love and are beloved by each other. The Son is commanded, is sent by the Father ; prays to him; addresses to him the pronoun thou; uses, with reference to him, the pronoun he. When the Son came in the place of men, and suffered in their stead (av7t), then the Scriptures declare that the Father laid upon him the iniquities of us all, and made him to be sin and a curse. On the cross the Son cried in agony, the whole world darkening in ey ipay, “My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Effect ot | III. The Scriptures set forth the effect of the atoning canes — work of Christ, as it bears upon the sinner himself, as a itrespects redemption ; as a deliverance from the curse of the law nerhim- by the payment of an equivalent as a ransom-price. The a words which express this effect are of frequent recur-
EFFECTS OF CHRIST’S WORK. 177
rence, and are such as ayopaCev, to buy; “ Ye are bought cmarrer with a price” (1 Cor. vii. 23); “Thou hast redeemed us to“ God by thy blood” (Rev. v. 9);—e£ayopaCe, to redeem, siniical to buy out of the hands of; “Christ hath redeemed us (eo | from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” #rdée,
(Gal. iii. 13). Also AvTp0w, mid., to ransom, to redeem oa by payment of a ransom; “‘ For ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1.18). Christ is called our Av’Tpov, ransom (Matt. xx. 28), and our avtiAuTpoyr, substituted ransom (1 Tim. ii. 6). Avutpéw is very fre- quently used by the Seventy to translate the Hebrew 5x1 and nqp, words of very frequent occurrence, and translated in our version by redeem and ransom. The Jehovah of the Old Testament is habitually described as the redeemer of his people of Israel (Isa. xli. 14; xliv. 24, &.). And the people of the Lord are constantly set forth as those who have been bought with a price— ransomed (Isa. xxxv. 10; lh. 11; lxu. 12, &c.).
It has often been charged against the supporters of These | the orthodox doctrine of the Atonement, that, by unduly ee pressing the literal sense of a few passages like those ‘hat the just cited, we have been led to represent the work of ment was our Lord as purely a mercantile transaction. This ob- rea jection is utterly unfounded. The orthodox have from 7° the first carefully distinguished in statement, and in argument triumphantly vindicated their doctrine, in view of the distinction between a pecuniary satisfaction on the one hand and a penal satisfaction on the other.*
' In a matter of pecuniary indebtedness, the claim respects exclusively the thing due, and not at all the person of the debtor. A pecuniary satisfaction, therefore, being the payment of the money due, which was all the claim required, «pso facto, liberates, no matter whether the
* Turretin, Locus 14, Questio 10.
CHAPTER AAT.
178 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.