While eusrpestinff the higrher conception of the nature of Christ's offering, the Epistle does not free itself from the idea that the physical event of death came into account as some- thing additional to the obedience. It accepts the principle that ' apart from 6he<lding of blood there is no remission ' (922), and indeed knows nothing of a sacrifice which does not involve sutTering and death as an essentia] element of it (9'-^). The following utterance seems to come near to the eventual teaching of the Epistle. ' It has been said that Christ's perfect sacri- fice is wholly inward, of the heart. But is it not essential to sacrifice that it should be the outward act by which the inward intention is realized, is pledged, is sealed? The inward self- dedication only becomes sacrificial when it has discovered the appropriate offering by which it can verify itself. Only through attaining this expression, in outward realization, does the language of sacrifice apply to it' (Scott UoUood in Priesthood and Sacnjice^ p. 85).
(rf) In the JoTumnineiDritings the centre of gravity shifts from the Atonement to the Incarnation. In the Pauline theology the capital tlieme is the sinner's acceptance and pardon on the ground of Christ's atoning sacrifice ; in the Johannine it is the possession of eternal life in intimate and vital- izing union with the Word made flesh. The key- note of the one is reconciliation, — of tlie other, communion. It is indeed a difi'erence of emphasis, not of inclusion and exclusion. As St. Paul also ex- perienced and chronicled the inspiration and spirit- ual energy enjoyed in mystic communion with the exalted Christ, so the Johannine writings also embody numerous references to the importance of Christ's sacrificial death. They preserve the Baptist's testimony to Christ as the lamb-victim, whether the Paschal lamb or the suffering Servant of Jehovah (Is 53"), that takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1®); His work is paralleled, as in Hebrews, to that of the hi"h priest on the Day of Atonement (17'") ; and His death, which is conceived as a Sin- oftering, has manifestly expiatory value [IXarrixb^ wcpl anaprtSv, 1 Jn 2-', cf . 4""). But the group of ideas con- nected with the Atonement is felt to be accepted and reproduced as part of the common stock of Christian beliefs, rather than to have been assimi- lated and developed under the progressive guid- ance of the Spirit of truth.
It haa sometimes been affirmed that St. John unfolda * new theory of redemption. Not by dyin',', but hv shedding abroad a revelation of God and true life from His Divine-human person, did Christ come to drive away darkness and sin (cf. Holtzinann, ii. 474). In other words, his soleriological theory waa Greek— th.at sin is jgnorance, and its remedy light. But his being possessed with the marvel of the Incarnation was not incom- patible with the loyal acceptance which he intimates of the general belief as to the significance of Christ's death. In Uoman Catholic and Anglican theology there is a similar in- sistence on the pre-eminence of the Incarnation dogma, coupled with a certain reserve, but assuredly no want of faith, in regard to the Atonement.
Such being the perspective of the Johannine theology, there is not much ground for expecting answers to questions raised in the theory of the Atonement. It accentuates by preference moral aspects of the Atonement, but without entitling ns to infer that Christ's sacrifice only influences God indirectly through the change which it pre- viously produces in believers. As examples of^its moral influence may be noted that in the Caper- naum discourse Christ views His death as the preliminary to pi%'ing His flesh for the life of the
world (6"), and that at a later period it is spoken of as destined to exercise an irresistible magnetism (12''^). But that its influence was not in the first instance merely subjective, appears from the fact that it is represented as a transaction in which Satan joined issue in decisive conflict, was beaten back, and in consequence was shorn of his power (16" 12^'). And with this direct transcendental efl'ect clearly predicated, it becomes the more prob- able that in the Johannine teaching the sacrifice of Christ, when likened to an expiatory or pro- pitiatory sacrifice, was understood to have an effect upon God unconditioned by its after - fruits in human experience.
To sum up, we find that the NT ^vriters are unanimous and distinct as to the .saving signifi- cance of Christ's sacrifice, as to the blessings which flow from it, and as to the conditions on which these are appropriated. As regards tlie precise nature of the ottering, and its mode of working, our Lord says nothing definite. St. Paul certainly holds the satisfaction of Divine justice through a vicarious death ; the Ep. to the Hebrews emphasizes the germinal thought that the ofl'ering was the obedience or spiritual perfection of Christ ; St. John's record chiefly confines itself to its moral bearings. Upon the points in question, indeed, they have more to teach if we could handle the key. To their thinking, and to that of their readers, these points were elucidated by describing Christ's death as a sacrifice, especi- ally a Sin-ottering ; but, as we cannot say with confidence what was the accepted theory of the significance of sacrifice, the elucidation has in its turn become a problem. From this condition of mingled certainty and uncertainty several infer- ences may fairly be drawn. In the first place, it may be surmised that the sacrificial category, while emphasizing certain vital aspects, was m- adequate to the expression of the full signifi- cance of the work of Christ, and that the old sacrificial doctrine was providentially left in ob- scurity at those points where it was least adequate. In close connexion with this it may also be sug- gested that there was a design not to bind up the work of Christ so intimately with the interpre- tation of an obsolescent institution as to prevent its receiving fresh illumination from other fields of human life. From this would follow, further, a commission to theology not to regard itself as bound by the fragmentary NT data for a theory of the Atonement, but to reinterjiret by its own thought the nature, the grounds of the necessity, and the mode of efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ. In the exercise of this commission modem theology has very generally become penetrated by the con- viction that the sacrifice of Christ is too narrowly interpreted of His death, and that the atoning etticacy attaches to the whole life, in which active and passive obedience are interwoven as warp and woof. Meanwhile the uncertainty which attaches to certain stages of the process only throws into bolder relief the apostolic certitude as to the fact that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.