Different views are held about the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews by modern critics, but its numerous points of contact with the other epistles of Paid must be recognised. In both the incompleteness f)f Judaism is dwelt on; redemption from sin and guilt is what religion has to do for men, and Ihis the law failed to secure. In both, reconciliation and forgiveness and a new moral power in the believers are the fruits of the work of Jesus. In the Epistle to the Pomans, Paul shows that the law failed to justify, and that faith in the blood of .Fesus must be the ground of justification. In the Epistle to the Hebrews the same result follows from an argument rather different: all that the Jewish system aimed to do is accomplished in Christ in a far more perfect manner. The (iospel has a better priest, more effectual sacrifices, a more profound peace. In the one epistle the law seems set aside wholly for the sys- tem of faith ; in the other the law is exalted and glori- fied in its Gospel sliape; but the aim is precisely the
same — to show the weakness of the law and the effectual fruit of the Gospel.
8. We are now in a position to see how far the teach- ing of the New Test, on the effects of the death of Jesus is continuous and uniform. Are the declarations of our Lord about himself the same as those of James and Peter, John and Paul? and are those of the apostles consistent with each other? The several points of this mysterious transaction may be thus roughly de- scribed :
(1.) God sent his Son into the world to redeem lost and ruined men from sin and death, and the Son willing- ly took upon him the form of a servant for this purpose; and thus the Father and the Son manifested their love for us.
(2.) God the Father laid upon his Son the weight of the sins of the whole world, so that he bare in his own body the wrath which men must else have borne, be- cause there was no other way of escape for them; and thus the atonement was a manifestation of divine justice.
(3.) The effect of the atonement thus wrought is that man is placeil in a new position, freed from the domin- ion of sin, and able to follow holiness; and thus the doc- trine of the atonement ought to work in all the hearers a sense of love, of obedience, and of self-sacrifice.
In shorter words, the sacrifice of the death of Christ is a proof of divine lore and of divine justice, and is for us a document of obedience.
Of the four great writers of the New Test., Peter, Paul, and John set forth every one of these points. Peter, the " witness of the sufferings of Christ," tells us that we are redeemed with the blood of Jesus, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot; says that Christ bare our sins in his own body on the tree. If w^e " have tasted that the Lord is gracious" (1 Pet. ii, 3), we must not rest satisfied with a contemplation of our redeemed state, but must live a life worthy of it. No one can well doubt, who reads the two epistles, that the love of God and Christ, and the justice of God, and the duties thereby laid on us, all have their value in them; but the love is less dwelt on than the justice, while the most prominent idea of all is the moral and practical working of the cross of Christ upon the lives of men.
With John, again, all three points find place. That Jesus willingly laid down his life for us, and is an advo- cate with the Father; that he is also the propitiation, the suffering sacrifice, for our sins; and that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin, for that who- ever is born of God doth not commit sin — all are put forward. The death of Christ is both justice and love, both a propitiation and an act of loving self-surrender; but the moral effect upon us is more prominent even than these.
In the epistles of Paul the three elements are all pres- ent. In such expressions as a ransom, a propitiation, who was " made sin for us," the wrath of God against sin, and the mode in which it was turned away, are presented to us. Yet not wrath alone. "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge that if one died for all, then were all dead : and that he died for all, that thej' which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again" (2 Cor. v, 14, 15). Love in him begets love in us, and in our reconciled state the holiness which we coidd not practice before becomes easy.
The reasons for not finding in James similar evidence we have spoken of already.
Now, in which of these points is there the semblance of contradiction between the apostles and their Master? In none of them. In the gospels, as in the epistles, Je- sus is held up as the sacrifice and victim, draining a cup from which his human nature shrank, feeling in him- self a sense of desolation such as we fail utterly to com- prehend on a theory of human motives. Yet no one takes from him his precious redeeming life; he lays it down of himself, out of his great love for men. But men arc to deny themselves, and take up their cross and