III.
Vicarious Healing.
1. What is Vicariousness? When we speak of " vicarious atonement," what do we mean ? " Vicarious " means something that is done by one on behalf of another because he is unable to do it himself. You have an obligation to fulfil, and you are unable to fulfil it, and another fulfils it on your behalf. Your obligation is this : you ought to obey the law of God perfectly, but you do not and cannot. You have, every one of you, broken the law, and you have done wrong against God, for every sin is a wrong against God. You owe, therefore, reparation to God. You deserve punishment, for your sin is a breach of the law, the eternal and immutable law of God which cannot be broken with impunity ; and that the majesty of law may be held and God's justice satisfied, you must bear the penalty of transgression. And then, further, you need to have the enmity done away with, which exists between you and God. You need a new heart of reconciliation which will bring you into fellowship and peace with God. How is this atonement, this at-one-ment, to be effected ? Plato said, " Deliberate sin may perhaps be forgiven, but I do not see how." How is this reparation to be made to God and to the majesty of His law ? How is the guilt which rests upon us to be taken away ? Who is the person that is able to take upon Himself all the sin of the world and to make perfect satisfaction to God's holy law, and so to bring us guilty sinners near to God ?
i y, Paget, Faculties and Difficulties, p. 181,
312 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
(1) First, He must be a willing victim, laying down His life of Himself freely, for if the punishment of the smallest sin were inflicted on Him without or against His will the justice of heaven would be infringed.
(2) Next, He must be a spotless victim, for one taint or spot would do away with the efficacy of the sacrifice — the sinless alone can atone for the sinful.
(3) Further, He must be capable of offering satisfaction for the sins of the whole world ; and no man can do this. A man, even a perfect man, cannot atone for all men's sins. He can only clear himself. He cannot open his arms and clasp all men to his bosom and make all their burdens his own. Let him be as philanthropic as he may, the effects of his death as a martyr would be unfelt beyond his own circle. To do a thing which should affect the whole race of man, those who have long since returned to the dust, and those who are not yet fashioned out of the dust, requires surely the same amount of power as where He creates and sustains men. The victim must have the power of God, to take upon Himself all human needs, and weak- nesses, and sorrows, and sufferings, and sins ; but if He is to suffer for sin, if he is to stand in the place of man and to write with His own hands the lesson that sin should not go unpimished — He must also be man, to suffer as one of us, and for us.
IT How could man rise towards the specific type when his ruin had reached that spiritual being to which had been intrusted the secret of this perfection ? The one answer may be given in words taken from St. Athanasius — None could change the corruptible to incorruption save He who also in the beginning made all things from nothing; none could renew in man the Image of God save the express Image of His Person; none could make the dying to be deathless save He who is the Life, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
2. Upon what, then, does the possibility of vicarious healing rest ? It rests upon two things : —
1. The identification of the Healer with those He has come to heal. — Before they say " with His stripes we are healed," they must be able to say, " Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." Their life must be His by voluntary
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adoption — its perils, its pains, its privations, His ! He must be involved in it all. He must taste its troubled life — " drink its sour grape and eat its bitter bread." He must be numbered even with the transgressors — must be content to be taken for one of them, to be misunderstood for their sake, to get near to them, understand them and represent them. And gradually the eyes of the people will open. This one, so unselfish and pure and loving, is bearing their iniquities. In bringing misery upon themselves they are bringing it upon Him. For themselves they deserve it, and they expect it. But He is wounded for their transgressions, and bruised for their iniquities. Nobody ;' can come really to their help and not be involved in their) retribution. At last they begin to see the shame and folly of their sin. They never hated their sins when they saw them in themselves, but now they see them in Him, the mark of them in pain upon His face, in agony upon His heart. A new loathing, a new penitence surges within them. They can bear it no j longer. The innocent Sufferer draws them out of their captivity, and by His stripes they are healed.