HI.' The doctrine developed. — 1. The Pauline type. — It will he obvious to any reader of the literature of the Apostolic Church that its floctrine of atonement was the subject of consider- able development in form. In tracing this the PauUne writings must be our main source. Of all NT writers, St. Paul goes into the greatest detail and has most dehberately and continually reflected upon this subject. Indeed, the abundance of the material he provides is embarrassing to any one seeking a unified doctrine. In St. Paul we find for the first time a philosophy of the death of Christ in relation to the forgiveness of sins, which is ulti- mately based upon an analysis of the Divme attributes and their place in the interpretation of the doctrine of the cross. At the same time the emphasis he lays upon this is regarded by him as in accordance with the beUef and teaching of the primitive communitj^ ; it is the centre of his gospel and theirs. It may be assumed, therefore, that
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we are as Likely to learn from him as from any- other source what was the inner meaning of the primitive Christian behef. He declared that what he preached concerning the dying of Christ for our sins according to the Scriptures he 'received' (1 Co 15^). Whilst it is possible that this statement finds a fuller definition in his further assertion, ' Neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ ' (Gal 1^-), it seems clear that St. Paul's doctrine rested upon the common apostolic data given in (1) the words of Jesus respecting the necessity of His death on man's behalf ; (2) the very early Christian idea that it was included in the Divine purpose ; (3) the conception of the vicarious sufferings of the righteous and their merit founded on Is 53 which had been elaborated in later Jewish thought.* Although it seems clear that this late Jewish doc- trine was a source of St. Paul's theory, it under- went partial transformation at his hands ; it was ethicized ; moreover, it was probably the vicarious idea, as it was associated with the prophetic rather than with the priestlj' or legal conceptions, that he appropriated ; it was not the hteral legal substitu- tion and transfer, but the vicariousness of a real experience in which the righteous bear upon their hearts the woes and sins of the sinful, f
(1) St. Paul's early preaching. — The earliest indication of St. Paul's view of atonement would naturally be sought in his preaching during the fifteen or more years before he wrote the letters in which he sets forth more deliberately and with ob- vious carefulness his matured doctrinal judgments. The author of the Acts gives httle hght on St. Paul's method of setting out his interpretation of the death of Christ in his discourses ; how he was accustomed to place it in relation to forgiveness of sin in his earliest preaching does not definitely appear. The discourse at Antioch in Pisidia may illustrate the character of his reference to it : 'through this man is preached unto you forgive- ness of sins' (Ac 13^^) ; but nothing is defined more closely. To the Ephesian elders at Miletus he speaks about 'the Church of God, which he pur- chased with his own blood' (20^^). St. Paul himself gives us the only valuable account of his preaching. Its dominant topic was the crucifixion — 'the preaching of the cross' (1 Co 1^^) ; 'I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified' (2-). No explanation is given. But the fact that he made the cross supreme when it was regarded as a direct antagonism and provocat- ive by those he sought to win — a scandal to Jews and fooUshness to the Gentiles — imphes that it was associated with an interpretation that made it something different from a mart\Tdom. Such a martjTdom neither Jew nor Greek would have regarded with the scorn they exhibited for the interpretation St. Paul gave them in order to meet their challenge for explanation.
(2) The Pauline Epistles. — On the whole, St.Paul's preaching carries us no further towards a know- ledge of any reasoned doctrine of atonement than the position reached in the preacliing of his fellow- apostles — that 'Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.' Of course this is in itself a vast doctrinal imphcation. Still, for the structure of the Pauline doctrine we are shut up to his teach- ing in his Epistles. In his earhest writings — the Thessalonian Epistles — we practically get no further towards his doctrine than in his preaching, except perhaps that the idea emerges that in some way Christ identifies Himself with our evil that He may identify us with Himself in His own good (1 Th 5''-)' We meet the organized body of his
* Cf. Stevens, Chriatian Doctrine of Salvation, 59, 122. t Cf. G. A. Smith, Mod. Crit. and Preaching ofOT, London, 1901, p. 120 fif.
doctrine in the well-authenticated group of his writings to the Galatians, Romans, and Corinth- ians, with a supplementary view in the Imprison- ment Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians. We may differentiate this teaching, but it has throughout most important underh'ing principles in common. It falls conveniently into five divisions — Atonement and Law ; Atonement and Righteous- ness ; Atonement and Personalit j' ; Atonement and Newness of Life ; Atonement and the Universe. In briefly re\'iewing these, it should be remembered that according to St. Paul the love of God is the first and last motive of redemption, and that none of the atoning processes is separable from the fuU activities of the Divine Personality.