^ J. Orr, God's Image in Man, 271.
REVELATION xxii. 13 371
Does it not teach us what is meant by " the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world " ?
T[ Jesus Christ died according to the appointment of His Father. They do fatally misconceive the whole evangelical system who represent the heart of the Father toward man as different from the heart of Christ. " God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son." It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell, and that that fulness should be opened up in His death. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. Christ is the Lamb which God Himself furnishes for sacrifice. The idea that God needed to be mollified or appeased by the sacrifice of His Son is a heathenish misconception. Whatever love dwelt in the heart of Christ was the love of the Father. Whatever fulness dwells in Him to forgive and to save is the fulness of the Father. He appeared to do the will of God when He came into the world to die.
Not only was He the Lamb appointed by God — He was also God Himself. He took upon Him our humanity, but He took it into union with His Divine nature. It was through His eternal Divine nature that He offered Himself to be a sacrifice to God, and because it was so the sacrifice was efficacious. He took human nature at His incarnation into eternal union with the Divine. The blood which He shed on the tree was the blood not merely of the Son of Mary, but of the Infinite Being thus united to a created form.
Much of the misconception which has attended the orthodox theory of the atonement has arisen from the fact that it has been unconsciously discussed on the Unitarian theory of the person of Christ. The transcendent mystery which we cannot remove lies in the fact that we have in the atonement the love of the Three- one God working for man ; or, as it has been expressed, the self- reconciling of the Godhead with itself, or an action of the Godhead within, and at unity with itself for our salvation.^
ii. Christ's Future Eternity.
1. If the term " Alpha " asserts a past eternity for Christ, the other term " Omega " declares for Him an eternity in the future. There shall always be a Divine Human in the Godhead. This, too, is a truth which we are liable to forget. As we think that the marvellous nature of the Saviour began in the manger, so we sometimes feel as if its elements were sundered in the last agony
1 W. R. NieoU, The, Lamb of God, 24.
372 THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA
of the cross. Practically a great many of us believe in a Trinity only for thirty-three years of history. Is not this the value of those passages in the New Testament which show us the ascended Saviour speaking or acting still in the same genuine humanity which He had worn on earth ? While Stephen stood waiting for the crash of murderous stones, "he looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God." Saul, prostrate on the Damascus road, cried out to the rebuking voice, " Who art thou. Lord ? " and the answer was, " I am Jesus." And as the last Eevelation closes, the last voice that comes forth is the voice of Christ, still wearing His human name and lineage, " I Jesus have sent my angel. I am the root and offspring of David." What is all this for, but to assure us of the everlasting manhood in our Lord ? The human hand still weighs ; the human voice still speaks ; the human heart still loves. He is not only Alpha, but also Omega. As all our hope shines from the truth that there ever has been, so it all centres in the truth that there for ever shall be, a Divine and human Christ.
^ No part of the New Testament is so decided as the Epistle to the Hebrews in its presentation of our Lord's humanity. In this it is something like the Fourth Gospel, which opens with the statement that " In the beginning was the Word," and continues with the statement that " Jesus wept ! " Think of the exquisite picture of the sympathizing High Priest, made like in all things to His brethren, tempted in all things like His brethren, not ashamed to call them brethren. Think of the language in which the suffering of Christ is described, the strong crying and tears, to which there is no parallel except in the Gospel of Luke (again one of the most human of books) ; or if it should be held to be an insertion in Luke (though I do not think this view will be held much longer), then make your parallel with the soul " sorrowful even unto death," without the vivid illustration from the suffering body. Indeed the whole of the passage about the offering of prayers to Him that was able to save His soul from death is so absolutely human that it even invites an apologetic treatment. Or take the passage in which the human evolution of Christ's character is described as a learning of obedience by the way of suffering, and you will see where the Arians, even if unbelieving, or only half- believing, could be reverent and almost devout.