but also (5.) From the fact that the principle of imputation is in- volved in other great doctrines of the Bible. The assumption that one man cannot righteously, under the government of God, be punished for the sins of another, is not only contrary, as wo have seen to the express declarations of Scripture and to the administra- tion of the divine government from the beginning, but it is subver- sive of tiie doctrines of atonement and justification. The idea of the transfer of guilt or of vicarious punishment lies at the founda- tion of all the expiatory offerings under the Old Testament, and of the great atonement under the new dispensation. To bear sin, is in Scriptural language to bear the penalty of sin. The victim bore the sin of the offerer. Hands were imposed upon the head of the animal about to be slaughtered, to express the transfer of guilt. That animal must be free from all defect or blemish to make it the more apparent that its blood was shed not for its own deficiencies but for the sin of another. All this was symbolical and typical. There could be no real ti'ansfer of guilt made to an irra- tional animal, and no real atonement made by its blood. But these services were significant. They were intended to teach these great truths: (1.) That the penalty of sin was death. (2.) That sin could not be pardoned without an atonement. (3.) That atonement consists in vicarious punishment. The innocent takes the place of the guilty and bears the penalty in his stead. This is the idea attached to expiatory offerings in all ages and among all nations. This is the idea inculcated in every part of the Bible. And this is what the Scriptures teach concerning the atonement of Christ. He bore our sins ; He was made a curse for us ; He suffered the penalty of the law in our stead. All this proceeds on the ground that the sins of one man can be justly, on some ade- quate ground, imputed to another. In justification the same radi- cal idea is included. Justification is not a subjective change in the moral state of the sinner ; it is not mere pardon ; it is not simply pardon and restoration to favour, as when a rebel is forgiven and lestored to the enjoyment of his civil rights. It is a declaration that the demands of justice have been satisfied. It proceeds on the assumption that the righteousness which the law requires belongs either personally and inherently, or by imputation, to the person who is justified, or declared to be just. There is a logical con- nection, therefore, between the denial of the imputation of Adam's sin, and the denial of the Scriptural doctrines of atonement and justification. The objections urged against the former bear equally against the latter doctrines. And it is a matter of history that those who reject the one, reject also the others.
202 PART n. Cn. VIII. — SIN.
Argument from Romans v. 12-21. The Apostle in Romans v. 12-21 teaches tins doctrine in the most formal anti explicit manner. Tiie design of that passage is to illustrate the method of salvation. The Apostle had tauglit that all men are sinners, and' the whole world guilty before God. All men being under tlie condemnation of the law, it is impossible that they should be justified by the law. The same law cannot both just- ify and condemn the same persons. As therefore no flesh can be justified by the works of the law, God sent his Son for our salvation. He assumed our nature, took our place, and obeyed and suffered in our stead, and thus wrought out for us a perfect and infinitely meritorious righteousness. On the ground of that righteousness, God can now be just in justifying the ungodly, if, renouncing their own righteousness, they receive and trust upon this rigliteuusness of God, freely offered to them in the Gospel. The fundamental doctrine of the Epistle to the Romans, as it is the fundamental doctrine of the Gospel, is, tlierefore, that the righteousness of one man, even Christ, can be and is so injputed to believers as to be the meritorious ground of their justification at the bar of God. To make this doctrine the more plain to his readers, the Apostle refers to the analogous case of the condemnation of the human race for the sin of Adam ; and shows that as the sin of Adam is the judi- cial ground of the condemnation of all who were in him, i. e., of all represented by him, so the obedience of Christ is the judicial ground of the justification of all who are in Him. In the prose- cution of his plan he first asserts the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity. He then proves it. He then comments upon it. He then applies it ; and finally draws inferences from it. Thus in every possible way, as it would seem, he sets forth the doctrine as part of the revelation of God. The assertion of the doctiine is contained in the twelfth verse of the chapter. It was by one man, he says, that sin and death passed upon all men ; because all sinned. They sinned through, or in, that one man. His sin was the sin of all in virtue of the union between them and him. Tlie jn-oof of this doctrine is contained in verses thirteen and fourteen. The Apostle argues thus: Punishment supposes sin ; sin sup])oses law; for sin is not imputed where there is no law. All men are pun- ished ; they are all subject to penal evils. They are, therefore, all chargeable with sin, and consequently are all guilty of violation of law. That law cannot be the law of Moses, for men died (?'. e., were subject to the penalty of the law) before that law was given,