Christian experience it would seem to mar the force of his argu-
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ment. " It is better," he cries, " if the will of God should so will, that ye suffer for well-doing." Why ? Because Christ gave you the great example ? There surely is the supreme motive for Christians. But no. He cannot gaze at the Cross and speak thus. " Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God." There is the paradox of the Christian life. The punishment of Jesus became the power of Christian patience just at the point where there is no comparison between His sufferings and ours. More remarkable still is the passage out of which our text is taken. Here there can be no question that in the humility and patience of the Master the Apostle sees a motive for the endurance of the servant. " Because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow his steps." But as though taught by instinct that such an appeal was utterly inadequate when addressed by a Christian pastor to children of the Eesurrection, he immediately breaks out into those grand sentences, every syllable of which is redolent of the power of the atoning Sacrifice and breathes the merit of the vicarious Death. " Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness ; by whose stripes ye were healed."
^ When St. Peter wrote, " Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness," this was not the testimony of a person in a distant age, who never knew our Lord ; St. Peter said this of one with whom he had lived, whose words he had noted, and with whom he had been in daily intercourse and communion. And yet what a difiicult, what a sharp and trying test this for such supernatural pretensions ! To say of one person that His death was an atone- ment for the sins of the world, that He bore them in His own body on the cross, was to assert a profound and awful mystery respecting Him, because it is saying that the whole world was saved by His death ; but to say this of one whom he had lived with and known — this is what we have no example of except in the testimony of the Apostles to Christ.^
The doctrine is the doctrine of vicarious suffering. Now in considering the doctrine of vicarious suffering it is important to remember three things.
1 J. B. Mozley.
I PETER II. 24 105
(1) Tlic mcarious sufferiiuj of Christ is not an isolated fact. — Below the surface of human life lies the great universal fact of vicarious sufiering, " not a dogmatic but an experimental truth." All true service for men involves the bearing of the sins of men, not in the same sense as that in w^hich Christ bore them, but in a sense that helps us to understand the meaning of His suffering.
(2) The mcarious suffering of Christ must not he separated from its purpose — that we, being dead unto sins, should live unto righteousness. The ultimate efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ depends on what it does in us. The old hymn is right — " He died to make us good."
(3) Only through suffering do we learn the meaning of His suffering. — Slaves bearing ill-usage patiently will by the mysterious power of sympathy learn to see more clearly into the mystery of redemption than the subtlest theologian who has not suffered. The deep truths of Is. liii. were wrung from the heart of the nation as it groaned under the captivity of Babylon, and St. Paul's knowledge of the meaning of the death of Christ was won on the same battlefield — " I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus" (Gal. vi. 17). Christianity is stamped with the image of the Cross, and the whole life of each true Christian has something of the form and look of Christ crucified.
I.
The Vicakious Suffeeing. " Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree."
1. Let us first of all try to understand St. Peter's language. He has here four remarkable phrases.
(1) His oivn self. — Christ did not employ any one else to accomplish the great work of our redemption ; He did it Himself, in His own proper person. The priest of old brought a substitute, and it was a lamb. He struck the knife and the warm blood flowed, but our Lord Jesus Christ had no substitute for Himself. He " his own self bare our sins." " 0 thou priest of God ! the pangs are to be thine own pangs ; the knife must reach thine own heart; no lamb for thee, thou art thyself the Lamb; the blood
io6 THE ETHICS OF THE ATONEMENT
which streams at thy feet must be thine own blood ; wounds there must be, but they must be wounds in thine own flesh."
^ A little girl brought me half a sovereign for missions. " Is this all from yourself ? " I asked. Pointing to her heart, she said, " Yes, it is all from my own very self." So St. Peter's words mean, Christ did bear our sins really and truly ; He bore them all alone ; He had no rival, or partner, or substitute. When the king travels, the newspapers sometimes tell us that Mr. So-and-so, the superintendent of the line, drove the engine him- self. The word himself shows that he did then in person what he usually does by the hand of his servants.^