(2) Next consider the effects which in Holy Scripture are attributed to the vicarious offering of Christ. The Levitical sacrifices connect the shedding of blood with atonement. " The life of the flesh is in the blood ; and I have given it to you upon
342 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
the altar, to make an atonement for your souls : for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." The principle expressed in these words seems to be that of Life for Life. Life is taken that law may be magnified, and that life may be spared ; that transgression may at once be condemned and the trans- gressor condoned, forgiven, pardoned. Ceremonial remission in the symbol corresponds to moral remission through the Saviour. Throughout the New Testament, and conspicuously in the Epistles, to the sacrifice of Christ is attributed the remission of sin. " God hath set forth Jesus Christ a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God ; " and to the Ephesians, the great Apostle writes : " We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace." ^
II Nearly one hundred years ago. La Eeveilliere Lepeaux, one of the five directors who then constituted the government of France, appealed to Talleyrand as to the forms of worship which might be necessary and helpful to Theophilanthropism. Talleyrand replied : " I have but a single observation to make : Jesus Christ, to found His religion, suffered Himself to be crucified, and He rose again. You should try to do as much." The splendid irony of this sentence is likely to escape us, in our sorrow at the imperfect account Talleyrand gives of the mission of our Lord. He did not die to found His religion. He died " the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God," and He lived and died to establish tha Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, until He comes whose right it is. But Talleyrand's memorable words reveal the greatness and the grandem* of our Lord's work.
2. Where is the justice of it ? If I am to trust my soul to this sacrifice, let me see the meaning of it. I do not ask to understand it thoroughly and to the bottom, but at least it should not startle and assail my moral instincts.
Well, is there not a spiritual law of imputation ? Do not these two verses reveal the same law, acting very differently, as the warm sun acts differently on slimy marshes and on beds of roses — the law of guilt and penalty stretching away beyond the actual perpetrators of the crime, laying hold on others, involving them in the same ruin ?
* Dean Lefroy.
ISAIAH 343
(1) Looking first at the spread of guilt to other guilty- persons, the very statute-book can tell of crime spreading out far beyond the doers of the act. For example, a murder has been perpetrated. The victim is in his grave. The deed is over. But the account is not closed : the guilt is spreading still ; and whoever knowingly shelters and helps the murderers, whoever tries to confuse the scent along which Justice is pursuing the fugitives, that man is an accessory after the act ; and if his deed can be proved he will suffer for it.
(2) Certainly it is a great leap from this to the falling of penalties upon an innocent head ; because here all sympathy with the crime is absent. But let us return to our example. Let one of those same murderers be convicted and await his doom. You can bear none of the penalty for his sin exacted by his fellows ; that is beyond mortal power. But is there not something quite as great which you can do for him ? Look at him, paralysed with terror and helpless rage, a pale, inert, sullen creature, stricken to stone, and yet full of rebellion against both God and man. Speak to him now about hell and the broken laws of God; and he shivers, perhaps he bids you cease from torturing him, but his heart is still as hard as adamant. There is only one chance for him, and that is that you should pity and suffer along with him ; that you should understand all the strange, aching numbness of his heart, painful beyond any pain ; that your eyes should grow dim and your voice be shaken — by what ? by your share in his agony, so that you must bear his grief and carry his sorrows, which he deserves so richly, and which you do not deserve at all. There are half-hours of such pleading which leave a man physically aching as after a long day of toil, and mentally exhausted as if he had been stunned by a blow. For that heavy frost upon a guilty soul is its due moral penalty, and the only possible way to uplift it is by taking share with it, by suffering for it, the just for the unjust. The innocent helper does, quite as really as the guilty abettor, though very differently, enter into the spirit of the culprit, and upon him comes a share in the suffering from which he would fain snatch his brother. Or ask any mother who has tenderly pleaded with a sullen rebellious child until the little one melted, after long obstinacy, and was forgiven — ask her whether