The death of Jesus may be regarded partly as a vicarious sacrifice of the order recognized in the Synoptics — sufiering and self-denial for the sake of the Kingdom of God, for conscience, and men's uplifting. The justification of this law of sacrifice (' Ever by losses the right must gain, Every good have its birth of pain' [Whittier, The Preacher']) is that it makes possible the expression of moral qualities. In order that love may have significance, it must pay a price— must be written upon a hard resisting world, as labour and self-denial. This demand of law is obviously not indicative of Divine displeasure or opposition.
The death of Jesus may also be regarded as part of the penalty of human sin. If men had not been selfish, hj'pocritical, apathetic to goodness and justice, there would not have been the tragedy on Calvary. In virtue of race solidarity, the sins of an evil and adulterous generation fell upon Him. This dark law — that the innocent must suffer tlie results of transgression along with the guilty — has an educative value in demonstrating the evil and disastrous nature of sin, which is doubly terrible since the sufi'ering which it creates falls upon the just as well as upon the unjust, sometimes even more upon the former than upon the latter. The
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penalty of sin indicates the Divine displeasure towards sin, but not necessarily towards those who pay the penalty, for obviously God cannot be con- ceived as being angry with innocent sutierers, involved in the results of others' sins. Neither must we regard God as angry with a repentant sinner because he continues to reap what he has so^vn. Tlie forgiveness of sin is distinct from the cancelling of its results, Avhich, in accord- ance with educative moral law, must run their course.
One's trust in the forgiveness of God rests upon the sense of the divinity of human forgiveness — ' By all that He requires of me, I know what God Himself must be' (Whittier, Eevelation). If we must judge the anger of God from the righteous indignation of a good man, we cannot think of His cherishing any vindictiveness, or needing any propitiation to induce Him to forgive, when the sinner seeks His face. Nor can a view of recon- ciliation held by the most sternly ethical of the OT prophets, and bj^ the purest soul of the NT, be considered as weakening the sense of sin, and minimizing the grace of pardon.
The Day of Wrath. — From the time of Amos, OT prophetism had conceived a darker side to Israel's still more ancient conception of the Day of the Lord. It would be a time when human ^vrongdoing, much of which was apparently over- looked in this age, would receive its sure reward, although genuine repentance would apparently avert the coming anger (Jl 2, Am S'**-, Jer 18**j. That 'great and notable Day' (Ac 2-"), with its darker aspects, entered largely into NT thought (Mt 3^ 722, Lk 10'2, 2 Th P'-, etc.). It is to this coming Dies Irce that the actual term ' wrath of God ' [opTfT] Tov deou) is almost uniformly applied by NT writers. Some of the Divine indignation may be manifested in the present operation of moral law — the penalties experienced by the ungodly heathen seem to be part of the Divine wrath which ' is being revealed ' (dTroKaXv-n-Terai) from heaven (Ro 1'^'-) ; and, according to 13^ the temporal ruler punishing evil-doers is ' a minister of God, an avenger for (Divine) wrath,' i.e. a human instrument carrying out in this age the Divine retribution. But the emphasis is upon ' the wrath to come.' In the present age, moral law only imperfectly operates. The sinner is treasuring up for himself ' wrath in the day of wrath ' (Ro 2*), when upon every soul that worketh evil shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish (v.^; cf. Rev IP* 6'®-", where the Divine anger is spoken of as ' the wrath of the Lamb'). Repentance before the Day of Wrath will save one fi'om the coming doom (Ac 2-^ ^' **, Eph 2^), and the provision of these days of grace modifies the conception of tlie Divine sternness (Ro 9--). The ' Law,' in making transgression possible, 'worketh wrath' (Ro 4'^), but Christ, by His reconciliation of man and God, delivers the believer from the 'wrath to come' (1 Th 1'" 5®). The NT significance of dpyi) deoO is illustrated in Ro 5', where St. Paul argues from the fact of present reconciliation with God that the saints will be delivered from the 'wrath of God.' Even where the Divine anger is described as having already had its manifestation, the reference may really be eschatological (Ritschl). The aorist of 1 Th 21^ (i(pdaaev 5i iir aiiToi>s r) 6py^ els riXos) seems to indicate that, in the Apostle's judgment, some historical manifestation of God's wrath upon the Jews has already taken place, but St. Paul may regard such an indication of the Divine anger as the preliminary movements of the Day of Wrath. The clouds were already gathering for that con- summation which the Apostle was expecting in his own lifetime (1 Th 4^').
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Literature. — A. Ritschl, de Ira Dei, Bonn, 1S59, Justifica- tion and Atonement, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1900; R. W. Dale, The Atonement', London, 1878 ; D. W. Simon, Redemption 0/ Man:^, do. 1900 ; O. Lodge, Man and the L niverse, do. 1908, chs. 7 and 8 ; P. Gardner, Exploraiio Ecanijelica, do. 1S99, chs. 29, 31. For human anger : J. Butler's Sermrms, 8 and 9 ; J. R. Seeley, EcceHomo, 1866, pp. 21-23 ; Tolstoi, Essays and Letters, cl»- 12. H. BULCOCK.