Already in the primitive Christian community, following hints of the Lord Himself in His earthly and then in His post- Resurrection teaching, we have the atoning significance of the Death represented. That Jesus ' died for our sins according to the scriptures ' — not only the fact of the Death but its atoning si^ificance — was part of the tradition which St. Paul had received and which, he claimed, was common to himself and the older apostles (1 Co 15^- "). ' The inference,' Weizsacker acknow- ledges, ' is indisputable ; the primitive Church already taught, and proved from Scripture, that the death of Jesus exerted a saving influence in the forgiveness of sin ' (Apost. Age'-, i. 130 f.).
This is borne out by the reports of St. Peter's speeches in the Acts, w here the death of Jesus is represented as a Divine necessity, taking place ' by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God ' (2^ ; cf. 4^"), and as in accordance with prophecy
(3" ; cf. Christ's ]iost-Resurrecti(m teaching, Lk24-'. Is 53 seems to have been the s[)ecial pa.ssage in the Apostle's mind — the Sullering Mes.siah being fre quently identified in these early spee(-hes with the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah, e.g. 3" 4" ; cf. 8"°). So, although represented as a crime on the part of the Jews (2"' 3'''-i» 5™), the death of Jesus is viewed as a fact Divinely foreordained and Divinely neces- sary. This Divine necessity of the Death has refer- ence to its .saving or redemptive significance in virtue of which the great blessing oi the gospel, ottered in the name of Jesus, is the forgiveness of sins (2^" 3'" 5"' 10^"). In these early sermons or dis- courses the redemptive significance of the Death is not developed. We have to reniemlier that ' the Petrine speeches in the Acts were called forth by special circumstances and (except the speeches recorded in Ac lo^""*" 15''") were all addressed to non-Christian Jews at Jerusalem. We have no right, therefore, to look to them for the full cj'cle of Christian doctrine w hich even in the beginning of the Gospel Peter had apprehended ' (Chase, llDIl iii. 793''). In the First Epistle of Peter we have a somewhat more developed doctrine ; the atoning efficacy of the sufl'ering and death of Christ being described in varied language— covenant blood (1-), ransom (1""-), sin-bearing (2-™-), substitution, the sacrifice of the righteous for the unrighteous (3'").
In St. Paul the redemptive significance of the Death is further developed. He died ' for our sins' (1 Co 15", 2 Co 5'-') ; a * ransom ' (Xin-pov, 1 Ti 2*) ; through His death there is inaugurated a New Covenant (1 Co 11-'), in which the Divine purpose of ' salvation ' is realized: deliverance from wrath (Ro 5"), from the curse of the Law (Gal 3''), and the imparting of eternal life (1 Th 5"-). The shedding of His blood was a sacrifice which had propitiatory value (Ro 3-"- 5", 1 Co 5"), in virtue of which men are brought into a new relation to God, treated as righteous (Ro 3°''), ' accepted in the Beloved ' (Eph 1*). This sacrificial significance of the Death is specially emphasized by the writer to tlie Hebrews, who linds in the sacrifices of the Old Covenant types and shadows of the sacrifice of Christ. Through its propitiatory eflicacy the Death is viewed as a crown of glory (2" ; of. 5"-). In the Johannine writings 'Jesus Christ the righteous' is reiiresented as 'the propitiation for our sins' (1 Jn 2- 4«»; cf. Rev P S"- '•"• '=), in the Gospel the suffering and death being viewed, as in Heb. , as a glorification (13^'). 'He [St. John]. . . does not ever, like St. Paul (e.g. Ph 2'- *), separate it [the Passion] as a crisis of humili.ation from the glory which followed ' (Westeott, on Jn 12"- ; cf. Milligan, Resurreriion, p. 314).
3. Evidential with regard to man's eternal destiny. — Another aspect of the evidential signi- ficance of the resurrection of Oirist for the Apos- tolic Church is that which concerns the eternal destiny of those ' who through him do believe in God.' Already in the OT we have foreshadowings of the belief in a continued personal life with God after death. The religious relation of the soul to God was felt to carry with it the pledge of such a continued life. Kellowship with God constitutes a bond which death cannot sever. 'Immortality is the corollary of Religion. If there be religion, that is, if God be, there is immortality ' (Davidson, Job, Cambridge, 1884, p. 296). As JTesus Himself put it, interpreting and supporting this funda- mental OT source of the faith in immortality, God is ' not a God of dead people but of living ' (Mt 22-'-, Mk 1227, Lk 20^). And this immortality was for the Hebrew an immortality of the whole personal being of man, body as well as soul. The conception of a disembodied future life was entirely foreign to the OT — belonging to ethnic not to Hebrew thought. Such a destiny, indeed, could be for the
352 KESURRECTION OF CHRIST
RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
OT believer but a hope, a faith, a faith venture, tlioui;h involved in the verj' nature of religion aa fi'Uo\vshi|) with God. If certainty, if assured con- fidence ot such a full personal immortality, was to be attained, some more 'sure word' of God must be spoken ; and such a sure word the Apostolic Church found in the resurrection of Jesus. As the crowning example of a life liveii in fellowship with God, anil trusting God for the future, Jesus .supplied the test case, the crucial instance, of God's love.