note,+ in the sense of being the medium through which God produces a moral impression upon us. It must be interpreted in the sense of a medium through which we approach a reconciled Father. He is also called our ‘Advocate with the Father:” “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation (‘Aacuos) for our sins’? (1 Jobn 1. 1, 2). And finally, he is called our Surety (€yyvos) with the Father (Heb. vii. 22.) In its classical sense éyyvos means “Bondsman” or ‘ Bails- man.” This cannot mean, as the Socinians and their fol- lowers have from the beginning striven to prove, that Christ was surety for the truth and fidelity of God to us. It must mean that he was our surety for the solu- tion of our legal obligations to God, because it is ex- plicitly declared, in the only passage in which the word occurs, that he was surety for us in his function as high priest: “The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a PRIEST for ever after the order of Melchisedec: By so much was Jesus made a SURETY of a_ better testament.”
* See Chapter ix. t Young’s Life and Light of Men, p. 27.
THE MYSTICAL UNION. 195
We here, of course, attempt no philosophical explana- cuarmn tion of the essential basis of that union. Wecan know =” it only so far as its nature and its consequences are made substance known to us by direct revelation, The disciples of ff) ta
Schleiermacher, and Realists in general, maintain that cdasto union 0
this union essentially consists in the fact that the eternal cnrist A.oyos, in his incarnation, assumed the entire substance Poi. of human nature, and thus becomes, ipso facto, in the most literal sense, responsible for all the sin of that nature. This view we have rejected for reasons assigned in a preceding chapter ;* and, whether true or false, it is no part of Christian doctrine, because no part of re- vealed truth, but at best a human attempt at the ra- tional explanation of the truth revealed. All that is clearly taught mm the Scriptures, and, therefore, all that ought to be received as Christian doctrine as to the nature of this union, 1s,—(1.) That it is a real union, such as in the infallible judgment of God lays the foundation in right for his being punished for our sins, and for our being credited with his righteousness—that is, so far as to answer all the federal demands of the law upon us. (2.) That it is, in some way to us unexplained, condi- tioned upon the fact that our nature is generative, hence that the whole race is made of one flesh, and that he became bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh. (3.) That it is conditioned upon the eternal counsel of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. (4.) That our legal responsibili- ties were voluntarily assumed by the Logos, to be dis- charged by him as Theanthropos. (5.) That provision is made, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, for his becoming to all his people a ‘quickening spirit (xvevua Cworo.ovy),” 1 Cor. xv. 45, and for their being made living members of that spiritual bedy of which he is the Head.
* See Chapter vii.
CHAPTER XIII.
Union of Christ and his people, as proved from Scripture, consistent only with orthodox doctrine of Atone- ment.
194 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
This much, and far more, the Scriptures teach to the same effect ; the whole of which, taken together, conspires to form one perfectly self-consistent representation of a union most real and practical, though transcending all analogies. Ido not deny that, by skilful selection and apposition, the advocates of each of the heterodox theo- ries of the Atonement may show that the majority of these passages, treated separately, are not absolutely in- — capable of being reduced into conformity with. their views. And this follows necessarily from the fact that each of their hypotheses, as is the case with respect to every heresy which ever existed, is a partial truth. But—