Ch. 6 throws further light on our Lord's teaching about His Atonement. The great discourse therein contains three sections, the first Cliristological (G-""*"), the second more definitely Soteriological (6"-5i), the third Eucharistic (652-5!*). In the first, Jesus requires belief in Himself as the living Lord, and bread of God. In the second, He asserts that He is the living bread, and that He Avill give His flesh for the life of the Avorld. In the third, He speaks of the necessity of eating His flesh and drinking His blood. The flesh and blood must mean not Himself merely, but Himself as afl'ected by a violent death, and a death endured, as He has declared, for the life of the Avorld. The act of communion is represented as an exalted act of faith by which man appropriates Christ's atoning self. All this implies that the death of Christ is propitiatory ; the sacrifice is dedicated to God, and it cleanses man's sin when man appropriates it. If Ave consult 8^ and 3^^ Ave see quite certainly that the result of this sacrifice is that God's Avratli is removed. The sin of the Avorld is exposed to His Avrath, and this Avrath on His part means death on man's part. It is such Avrath as can be felt only by perfect love. And the saving efl'ect of Christ's
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deatli is tliis, that it established between God and man that relationship which enables individual men to escape from sin, wrath, and death, and attain a vital union with God.
((I) In St. John's Fimt Epistle the doctrine of Christ's mediation is clear. The Apostle insists upon the historical trutli of the atoning work of Christ, and upon the existing witness of that work. In 5''' * he opposes the Docetic theory concerning Jesus and His work, and declares that the cruci- fixion was as true an experience of Christ as His baptism. He who by baptism associated Himself with repentant sinners, by crucifixion endm-ed what that baptism foreshadowed. The Holy Spirit makes these two saving events penetrate our hearts, and the water of Christian baptism and the blood of the Eucharistic cup bear testimony to His witness. In 2^- - 4*- '" 1" it is shown that the death of Jesus ha* a direct relation to the sins of the world, for it is their- propitiation ; to His own righteousness, for only the perfectly Righteous could establish God's law of righteousness ; to His present intercession for man, for He is the Advocate of man by \-irtue of what He has already done for us. The Apostle further implies in !"• ^ that the Christian needs a continuous puritication. He is unforgiven and uncleansed unless he continues to 'Avalk.' His salvation is ethical. It is made possible by sometliing which he did not do, and could not do, for himself. But it is not something which he can secure eternally by a momentary choice.
Conclusion. — The writers of the NT unite in various ways in teaching that Jesus is the Mediator between God and man in the whole work of recon- ciliation which the human conscience requires. In the whole of His teaching and His contest with evil He satisfied the Di\-ine law of Righteousness. Further, by His perfect sympathy He entered into the situation and the misery of sinful man ; a truth which is unintelligible when regarded as an external legal transference of guilt, but intelligible and moral when regarded as the voluntary act of love. In giving Himself for man. He gave Him- self to God, offering in His own Person to God all that devotion which God, who is holiness and love, could desire from His children. In so suiTendering Himself to death. He acquiesced in the justice of Gods condemnation of the sins of the human race, of which He had chosen to become a member. All sin inevitably tends to death, not by any arbitrary appointment but by its very nature, and Christ accepted death as the symbol of God's judgment on mans sin. La.stly, Christ is our propitiation, be- cause He gives us inwardly that power, that com- munication of His own life, which cleanses us from sin. He enables us to die to sin, and thus within us, as outside us, does not suspend but establishes the law of Righteousness. All this is possible if Jesus is truly God and perfectly man ; having an actual original solidarity with our race pre^^ous to the clioice of any individual member of it. and that new solidarity which He establishes between Him- self and all who consciously come into a moral and sacramental union with Him.
See also artt. Atoxement, Death of Chklst, Propitiation, Ransom, Reconciliation, Re- demption, and the Literature there referred to.
T KTPHTON" PT'T T W
MEEKNESS. — 1. The quality defined. — The Christian virtue of meekness has suti'ered the mis- fortune of being seriously misunderstood. In the popular mind it has been so conceived as to forfeit the right to be considered a ^'irtue at all, being regarded as the equivalent of weak compliance — the temper of one devoid of manly vigour, who tamely allows himself to be slighted and injured without protest or resistance. That this concep-
tion is a caricature of meekness, is apparent in \-iew of Christ's Beatitude (Mt 5') ; for not only is it incredible that our Lord should have pronounced a blessing on those of feeble character, but the nature of the promise attached to the Beatitude im]ilies that in some sen>e meekness is a strong j and victorious quality. Whatever it be, we must j presume it to be a virtue replete with energy, robust and manly, the very opposite of everything that is weak. Otherwise Christs words are re- duced to an absurdity.