(5) The vicarious sacrifice of Christ becomes avail- able through faith. — Men cannot maintain a passive relation to Christ and be saved from sin ; they must join themselves to Him by a living faith.
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VICARIOUS SACRIFICE
VICARIOUS SACRIFICE
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They iiuist die witli Him on the cross, and rise with Him to newness of life. They must be one with Him in the fellowship of His sutierings. Christ must be in tiiem tiieir liope of glory. ' I live no longer,' cries the Apostle, ' but Christ liveth in me ; and the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God ' (Gal 2'^»). By fellowship with Christ the old man is put oli" and dies. The Christ living in us becomes the power by which we break absolutely with the sin of the world, and win a victory over it. This is being saved — being delivered from sin and brought to righteousness. A man who in the obedience of faith — faith being not the intellectual principle of belief, but the act of trust—joins himself to Christ, brings himself thereby into fellowship and moral unity with Him, and becomes jiossessed of the mind of Christ — the mind of hostility to sin and love of the good (Gal 3^^). Christ who has ascended in the Resurrection, descends into the heart of the believer in order to assist and complete the freeing, saving work. It is because of this that St. Paul lays such emphasis on the Resurrection in connexion with his doctrine of salvation. He ' was delivered up for our tres- passes, and was raised for our justification ' (Ro 4^). Having been reconciled to God, the believer lives the new life of righteousness by faith, which becomes a continuous experience, and will be con- summated in an eternal salvation.
(6) St. Paul also has a doctrine of a new humanity obtained through Christ's vicarious sacrifice, which grows out of tlie importance he attaches to human solidarity. Salvation is not only individual, but also social. This feature of St. Paul's thought has recently been worked out in an interesting way by Dr. Olin A. Curtis in The Christian Faith (pp. 317- 337). The end of God in redemption is 'to obtain a race of holy men.' 'God wanted an entangled race.' While Christ is the source of help and strength, the .social solidarity of men makes it essential that the social organism be redeemed, for men must help to complete one another. The new humanity built up in Christ becomes a body of which He is the living head, and for which He ever makes intercession.
4. The doctrine of vicarious sacrifice in He- brews.— The doctrine of vicarious sacrifice as set forth in Hebrews, although elaborate, need not be especially considered here, as this Epistle gives us no new information of importance. The subject is extensively discussed with special reference to the symbolism of the OT, the doctrine being set forth largely in terms of sacrifice. We do not hear any- thing about ' the law,' or about satisfaction to it or to God's righteousness. Here Christ is a pure otter- ing in sacrifice to God, but His death is not received as a substitutionary expiation. The ab- sence of this idea is tiie more remarkable that the author so closely iipproximates it. Had he shared this conception, it is not easy to see why he did not bring it forward in connexion with such assertions as that Christ made [jropitiation (iKdaKecrdai) for the sins of the people (2'^), tasted death for every man (2^), and was offered to bear away the sins of many (9*).
' Not the satisfaction of the Law, the removal of the curse, the endurance of the penalty of sin, hut a Divine fitness, or decorum, is assiirned as the re.Tson why the Author of salvation should he made jierfect tlirough sufferinp:s (21"). Elsewhere he deduces the necessity of .Jesus' death from the very fact that He is a priest. It is the callinjr of a priest to offer sacrifice, hence " this high priest must also have somewhat to offer" (8''), and that " somewhat " can only he His oVn life. In another place this necessity is derived from the imjiort of the word hixSr.x*,. This word has two meaninffs — " covenant" and "testament." Our author passes from one meaning to the other in the elahoration of his arprument. The first ciirennnt was sealed hy a death ; in fact, v/hereyer a. testnrnent or will ffoes into effect, it does so in consequence of a death : therefore it was needful that the estal)Iishment of the Xew Cairnant should he ratified hy a death, that is, by the death of Christ' (Stevens, op. cit. 76 f.).
One interesting fact concerning this Epistle is the ethical meaning the author attaches to the whole conception of sacrifice, making it, as applied to Christ, an entirely different thing from what it is in the Levitical ritual and ceremonies.
The Epistles of St. Peter will not be considered, for they shed no new light on the problem under discussion.
8. Summary of results.— In concluding our in- vestigation of vicarious sacrifice in the NT, we summarize our results as follows : (1) The doctrine of vicarious sacrilice is the very heart of the Scrip- tures. It is the harmonious note of all the Biblical writers, finding expression in the OT sacrifices, in the life and teachings of Jesus, and in the writings of the Apostles. God is .seeking to develop a rigliteous people, a holy race, and the process or method is by vicarious sacrifice.