for.ndation of the world ; given to Him of the Father, to redeem from the estate of sin and misery, into which it was foreseen our race would by transgression fall. It was for the accomplish- ment of this purpose of mercy that He assumed our nature, was born of a woman, and did and suffered all that He was called upon to do and to endure in working out our salvation. He did not, therefore, come into the world for Himself. It was not to work out a righteousness of his own to entitle Him to the exaltation and power which in our nature He now enjoys. In virtue of the God- head of his personality, He was of necessity infinitely exalted above all creatures. He came for us. He came as a representative. He came in the same relation to his people, which Adam, in the original covenant, boi^e to the whole race. He came to take their place ; to be their substitute, to do for them, and in their name, what they could not do for themselves. All He did, therefore, was vicarious ; his obedience and his sufferings. The parallel be- tween Adam and Christ, the two great representatives of man, the two federal heads, the one of all his natural descendants, the other of all given Him by the Father, is carried out into its details in Romans v. 12—21. It is assumed or implied, however, everywhere else in the sacred volume. What Adam did, in his federal capac- ity, was in law and justice regarded as done by all whom he repre- sented. And so all that Christ did and suffered as a federal head, was in law and justice done or suffered by his people. Therefore, as we were condemned for the disobedience of Adam, so we are justified for the obedience of Christ. As in Adam all died, so in Christ are all made alive. Hence Christ's death is said to be our death, and we are said to rise with Him, to live with Him, and to be exalted, in our measure, in his exaltation. He is the head and we are the body. The acts of the head, are the acts of the whole mystical person. The ideas, therefore, of legal substitution, of vicarious obedience and punishment, of the satisfaction of justice by one for all, underlie and pervade the whole scheme of redemp- tion. They can no more be separated from that scheme than the warp can be separated from the woof without destroying the whole texture.
2. In like manner these same truths are implied in what sinners are required to do in order to become the subjects of the redemp- tion of Christ. It is not enough that we should receive his doc- trines ; or endeavour to regulate our lives by his moral precepts ; or that we confide in his protection, or submit to his control as one into whose hands all power in heaven and earth has been com-
622 PARI m. Ch. VU. — satisfaction of CHRIST.
mitted. It is not enough that we should open our hearts to all the influences for good which flow from his person or his work. We must trust in Him. We must renounce our own righteousness, and confide in his for our acceptance with God. We must give up the idea that we can satisfy the demands of God's justice and law, by anything we can do, suffer, or experience, and rely exclu- sively on what He, as our representative, substitute, and surety, has done and suffered in our stead. This is what the gospel de- mands. And this, the world over, is precisely what every true believer, no matter what his theological theories may be, actually does. But this act of self-renunciation and of faith in Christ as the ground of our forgiveness and acceptance with God, supposes Him to be our substitute, who has satisfied all the demands of law and justice in our stead.
3. If we turn to the Scriptural account of the benefits which we receive from Christ, we find that this view of the nature of his work, is therein necessarily implied. We are justified through Him. He is our righteousness. We are made the righteousness of God in Him. But justification is not a subjective work. It is not sanctification. It is not a change wrought in us either naturallv or supernaturally. It is not the mere executive act of a sovereign, suspending the action of the law, or granting pardon to the guilty. It is the opposite of condemnation. It is a declaration that the claims of justice are satisfied. This is the uniform meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words employed in Scripture, and of the cor- responding words in all other languages, as far as those languages are cultivated to express what passes in the consciousness of men. But if God, in justifying sinners, declares that with regard to them the claims of justice are satisfied, it confessedly is not on the ground that the sinner himself has made that satisfaction, but that Christ has made it in his behalf.
The doctrine of sanctification also, as presented in the Scriptures, is founded on the substitution of Christ. Sanctification is not a work of nature, but a work of grace. It is a transformation of charactei effected not by moral influences, but supernaturally by the Holy Spirit ; although on that account only the more rationally. The first step in the process is deliverance from the curse of the law bv the body, or death of Christ. Then God being reconciled, He ad- mits us into fellowship with Himself. But as the sinner is only imperfectly sanctified, he is still in his state and acts far from being m himself an object of the divine complacency. It is only as united to Christ and represented by Him, that he enjoys the continuance