aecomplished amid accessories more suggestive of ritual than the Crucifixion. But this would have been something less than a moral act, whereas the NT shows the propitiation wrought by Jesus Christ 'the righteous' (1 Jn 2', Ac 3'^ 7^^- 22''') to have been something more. The Agony in the Garden, followed by the Seven Words from the Cross, attests the naturalness of the Passion as suffering, though voluntarily endured, yet inflicted from with- out. It is only after the Resurrection that the human actors in the tragedy fall out of sight, and the Cross can be presented absolutely as that which it behoved the Christ to sufJ'er, so entering into His glory (Lk 24=«).
From what has been already said, it follows that an adequate soteriology, or theology of the Atone- ment whicli is genuinely evangelical, must be the expres-ion of a spiritual experience resting upon Chri>i s cl.atli a- I lie expiation of sin. With a tew nolalilo oMojiiiiais, foremost among them Dr. R. W. Halo, tlietnialof modern the,;i..uv, .since the
piil.li.alioT, of .MI (1 Caniplirll's trea'lis i The
y.llinr ,,ftl,r Af.niriiiriil, has hcM'll on tho whole to develop the doctrine on its etiiical side, and to find its spiritual principle either in tlie sinless penitence or the i^erfect obedience of Jesus (e.g. Westcott, Wilson, Moberly, Scott Lidgett). The tendency of these writings has been, while dissipating theories of a non-moral ' transaction,' to obscure to a greater or less extent ' the ottering of the body of Christ,' and to give an insufficient value to the Biblical account of His death as an objective act of pro- pitiation addressed to the Father by the incarnate Son. No doubt English writers for the most part maintain that the 'penitence' and obedience of Christ are imparted by grace to the believer. But between the obedience and the grace, as that which gives meaning to both, NT theology places the substitutionary sacrifice.
St. Peter connects obedience with the ' sprink- ling of the blood of Christ' (IP l2-"i8.iS) and the sin-bearing of the tree (2-^). Involving as these expressions do 'the blood of the covenant' (Ex 245-8, Lv le'^-'" 17"- i=, Zee 9" ; cf. He 10-» 13=°, and, for the 'new covenant,' Jer SP'"** 33*, Ezk 36=5), and the laying of hands upon the head of the sin-offering (Lv 16=', cf. Is 53" ; the whole passage [Is SS-"-'] should be car.ifnllv compared with 1 P 2='-=5, and the inttuen.o oi ili.. I.oviii.al ...de in moulding language and nloa-. noleil ), holh laniiliar conceptions of the ll(l.ro\\ lilnal, tiiey point un- doulitedly to a real transf.-r o[ unlit, a genuine
sulistitnl'ion, as tho trnc aninu of the 'glad
tiilin^s' (1 I' I'-), of wliirli ilii' ,\|iostIe was the witiirss (:,i|. The Christian society is the 'people of (iod's own pos-rssion' (i"- '"), ransomed and brought into coMiiant by the precious blood. The obedience and snllerings of Christians are not, therefore, redemptive, for such are already dead to sin (2=^).
With this the Johannine writings agree. FelloAV- ship with God is the eternal life which Christians enjoy, but this mystical union* is effected by the purifying blood of Jesus His Son (1 Jn 1'), in whom is forgiveness (V-^" 2' 3^), who is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world (2=i4"', cf. 5« [Jn 1 9^^], Jn 4« 1 1*', Ro 3=5 iXocrriJ/jiov). The antecedent power of Christ's death is thus explained by the sacrificial term iXacr^iSs to be an effectual means for turning away the wrath of God, which the impres- sive imagery of the Apocalypse represents as rest- ing upon the wicked (Rev O'"- " 14'" and passim). Nowhere is the significant figure of the Lamb more
* The tinio mustica must not be confouiidccl n-
by iiressJM^' the etymolog-, P'aulint equivalent of which (jsar, According to its proper meaning, t
lattr
, the
ATONEMENT
ATONEIMENT
emphatically applied to Christ than in the Johan- nine books ( Jn l-«- '^ 19^ [Ex l-2«], the Apocalypse, passim).
With the Apostle Paul we reach the fullest state- ment of the doctrine of the Atonement. And here it must be noted that the Epistles of the first im- prisonment, which develop the teaching concerning the Person of Christ in His eternal relation to the Universe and the Church, follow those which give detailed expression to the reconciliation of believers to God through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. ^ It would seem, tlierefore, that theologians like Westcott, who subordinate redemption to the Incarnation, are less true to Christian experience than those who reach the Incarnation through the Atonement. For St. Paul the Cross in its twofold aspect of Death and Resurrection is the central fact which forms the subject of his gospel (I Co lis. =3 o2_ Gal 5", 1 Ti 25-'), the basis of Baptism (see alx)ve) and of the Eucharist (see above), the source of the forgiveness of sins (Col 2"- ", cf. 3^-, Eph 4'-), the motive of Christian morality (Ro 6*), the spring of faith (1 Co 123, gf Rq iqs) and of spiritual life (2 Co 4^"- ^S Gal 2^), and the assurance of immor- tality (2 Ti 1'"). To this fact there is a correspond- ing personal experience, so that baptism may be represented as involving an identification of the believer with his Lord so intimate that not only is the figure of putting on Christ as a garment felt to be appropriate to the initiatory Christian rite (see above), but His death, burial, and resurrection are regarded as reproduced in the believer (see above). From the Cross the Christian life takes its specific complexion, so that 'the new man created in righteousness' (Eph 4^) becomes ' cruci- fied unto the world ' (Gal 6"), branded in the body with the marks of the Lord Jesus (Gal 6") ; glories in the Cross (v.") ; and fills up that which is lack- ing in the sufferings of Christ (Col 1"). Obvi- ously, therefore, the interpretation of this fact and its consequent experience is from the point of view of St. Paul the piimary task of tlie Christian theologian.