REDEMPTION
REDEMPTION
481
below. The efficacy of this redemption is placed by all NT writers, after the sacrificial analoi^y, in the ' blood ' (Ac 20-'«, Ko S'^, I<:ph 1^ He 912 and passim. 1 P l^-^'-*, 1 Jn 1^, Kev 1^ 5'-* etc.), which here is the symbol of a sacrifice that culminates in death. This strain of teaching is so inwrought into the texture of Apostolic teaching that it is impossible by any ingenuity of exegesis to get rid of it, or make it mean essentially anything else than what the words naturally convey, viz. that the death of Jesus had a direct and indispensable redeeming efficacy, arising from its character as an expiation for sin.
(b) The NT writer who has given this redeem- ing character of Christ's death its most complete theological elucidation, it will be universally con- ceded, is St. Paul. A full exposition of the con- catenation of his ideas hardly falls within the scope of this article, but the general import of the Apostle's teaching on redemption is not difficult to grasp. Starting with the fact of sin as bring- ing the world, both Gentile and Jewish, under the condemnation (Kard/cpt/xa) of God (Ko 1-3. 6^^- ^^ 8^ etc.), he proceeds to the exhibition of God's method of salvation, in bringing to mankind a new righteousness ('the righteou.sness of God'), to be received by faith (Ro 1'' 3 2i.:i2.26. 517-21^ 2 Co 521, Ph 39 etc.). This righteousness comes through the propitiatory death of Christ (Ro325); is initially realized in Christ's sacrificial death, which is at the same time the culmination of His obedience (Ro 51^, Ph 2^) ; proceeds from His Cross, and is ap- plied in God's justifying act to the salvation of the individual believer (Ro 32-i- 26 51 81-33), who thereby is constituted ' the righteousness of God in him' (2 Co 521, Phil 39), or is 'justified' (Ro 32-'. 51), i.e. pronounced righteous. The salvation thus provided in Christ is a 'redemption' (Ro 32-*, Eph 1", Col 1'*). The connexion of it with Christ's death is, that Christ honours the righteousness of God in Himself consenting to be ' made sin ' for us (2 Co 521), or endure sin's condemnation in His own Person, that sinners may be saved. He re- deems from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us (Gal 3'3 4'*-5). Hoio such vicarious endurance of another's KaTa.Kpi.ixa was possible, St. Paul does not explain ; but we may gather from tlie context of his thought that he would find the explanation in the peculiarity of the representative relation which Christ sustained to our race (Ro 512-21, 2 Co 51*- 15) ; in the perfection of His identifi- cation with the world in sympathy and love (Gal 1* 220 .52 etc.) ; and in the fact that a vital union is constituted between the believer and Christ by faith, so that the acts of the Head are participated in by the members (Ro 03*-). St. Paul attaches great importance to the corporate idea (Ro 14^-9, i Co 12i2ff-), and to the representative principle involved in it (Ro 512^-). Christ, in His complete identification with the race He came to save, took part in its responsibilities as under a broken law, and magnified the righteousness of God (Ro 325-31) in His endurance of death, which is the wages of sin (623). Sinless Himself, the sin of the world met on Him, and was atoned for in His perfect response to the mind of God in His Judgment on that sin.
The attempt has been made to explain St. Paul's doctilne of the atoning character of Christ's death as a survival of his older Rabbinical notions, as well as to make out an inconsistency between this side of his teaching and his other doctrine of mystical union with Christ. But to the Apostle's own mind there was no inconsistency. St. Paul's conceptions of law, of righteousness, of sin and its desert, had their roots in some- thing far deeper than Kabbinism — even in the OT ; and there was to His thought no contradiction in setting forth Christ's death as the objective ground of man's acce[)tance with God, and at the same time in teaching that the end of salvation was holiness — a holiness which could only be realized through dying to sin with C'hrist, and rising again with Him to life in" the spirit ; in other words, through personal, vital union with the Risen Lord.
VOL. II. — TT
(c) In the remaining writings of the NT, while the ideas are less developed theologically, and the distinctive nomenclature of St. Paul is not u.sed, emphasis is not less strongly laid on Christ's death as a propitiatory and redeeming sacrifice (1 P 118.19, 2 P 21, He 912- '•"', cf. Ro 325), cleansing from the guilt and power of sin (1 Jn S-"-", He 21'' 9'* etc.), saving from wrath (He 22-3 Q^m._^ 1 p 417. is. Rev 59 ; cf. 71-* 14-»i'- etc.), rescuing from the power of the world and the devil (He 2"- 15, 1 P lis 5s etc.), giving access to God (1 P 3i8, He 4i*-i6 IO19-22 etc.), introducing into a new state of unspeakable privilege and felicity (1 P !«• ^ 2''i", 2 P 1", 1 Jn 31-3 etc.). Occasionally there seem links of con- nexion between the Epistles and the teaching of the Gospels. It is difficult, e.g., not to see in St. John's ' He was manifested to take away sins (iVa rds afxaprlas dpy) ; and in him is no sin ' (1 Jn 3^), a reminiscence of the Baptist's similar saying in Jnl29 (6 d/xvds Tov 0eov, 6 atpiov tt)v afj-aprlav rod Kdcrfxov); or in St. Paul's, ' Who gave himself a ransom for all' (6 5ovs iavTov avTiXvTpov virkp wavTuiv 1 Ti2®), an echo of the words of Jesus in Mk 10^^ (-^q^ Sovvat TT)v xpvxh^ avTov \vTpov dvTi iroXXcDv). In 1 Peter there is a blending of both sacrificial and Pro- phetic language. Jesus redeems with His 'preci- ous blood' (TLfjLluj aip.aTL) — the blood of the Sinless One (119 222) . but jj^ other places we have a clear falling back upon the ideas and language of Is 53 (e.g. 223-25). Christ's death did for believers all that the suffering of the Servant of the Lord in Is 53 was to do for the people, and all that re- deeming sacrifices did under the OT, only now in a grander and more effectual way. And St. Peter says that his readers kneio this (l^^) — it was the familiar doctrine of the Church. In 1 John we have prominence given to the idea of ' propitia- tion ' (iXa<r/i6s, 22 410). The term points to the effect of Christ's sacrifice, not on men, but on God, in averting His wrath or displeasure against sin (cf. Is 121). The Book of Revelation, again, moves in the distinctively sacrificial circle of ideas. The centre of worship is the Lamb that was ' slain ' (56.9. 12), who, loving us, 'lOOsed (XvcravTi) us from our sins by his blood' (1^), and 'purchased (^76- paa-as) unto God ' with His blood men of every nation (59- 1") — those described after (7i^), in strong paradox, as ' having washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.' If the design was to ascribe an expiatory and redeeming efficacy to the death of Christ, it is difficult to see in what stronger way it could be done.