of God. The handwriting {x^tp6ypa4,ov, the bond, Schuldbrief) Christ has cancelled, by nailing it to his cross. His complete sat- isfaction to the law, freed us as completely as the debtor is freed when his bond is legally cancelled.
Expiation a Heathenish Idea.
4. The idea of expiation, the innocent suffering for the guilty, and God being thereby propitiated, is declared to be heathenish and revolting. No man has the right to make his taste or feelings the test of truth. That a doctrine is disagreeable, is no sufficient evidence of its untruth. There are a great many terribly un- pleasant truths, to which we sinners have to submit. Besides, the idea of expiation is not revolting to the vast majority of minds, as is proved by its being incorporated in all religions of men, whether pagan, Jewish, or Christian. So far from being I'evolting, it is cherished and delighted in as the only hope of the guilty. So far from the innocent suffering for the guilty being a revolting spectacle, it is one of the sublimest exhibitions of self-sacrificing love. All heaven stands uncovered before the cross on which the Son of God, holy and harmless, bore the sins of men. And God forbid that redeemed sinners should regard the cross as an offence. God is not won to love by the death of his Son, but that death renders it consistent with moral excellence that his infinite love for sinful men should have unrestricted sway.
Satisfaction to Justice unnecessary.
5. It is objected that the doctrine of satisfaction to justice by means of vicarious punishment is unnecessary. All that is needed for the restoration of harmony in the universe can be effected by the power of love. The two great ends to be accomplished are a due impression on rational minds of the evil of sin, and the refor- mation of sinners. Both these objects, it is contended, are secured without expiation or any penal suffering. According to some, the work of Christ operates sesthetically to accomplish the ends de- sired ; according to others, it operates morally through the exliibi- tion of love or by example, or by the confirmation of truth ; and ac- cording to others, the operation is supernatural or mystical. But in any case his work was no satisfaction to justice or expiation for sin. It is enough to say in answer to all this, —
i. That such is not the doctrine of the Bible. The Scriptures teach that something more was necessary for the salvation of men than moral influences and impressions, or the revelation and con*
542 PART m. Ch. VII. — satisfaction of CHRIST.
firmation of truth, something very different from mystical influ- ence on the nature of man. What was necessary was precisely what was done. The Son of God assumed our nature, took the place of sinners, bore the curse of the law in their stead, and there- by I'endered it possible that God should be just and yet the justi- fier of the ungodly. If such be the Scripture doctrine, all these schemes of redemption may be dismissed without consideration.
2. These schemes are not only unscriptural, but they are inoper- ative. They do not meet the necessities of the case, as those necessities reveal themselves in the consciousness of men. They make no provision for the removal of guilt. But the sense of guilt is universal and ineradicable. It is not irrational. It is not founded on ignorance or misconception of our relation to God. The more the soul is enlightened, the more deep and painful is its sense of guilt. There are some philosophers who would persuade us that there is no such thing as sin ; that the sense of moral pollution of which men complain, and under which the holiest men groan as un- der a body of death, is all a delusion, a state of mind produced by erroneous views of God and of his relation to his creatures. There are others, theologians as well as philosophers, who while admit- ting the reality of moral evil, and recognizing the validity of the testimony of consciousness as to our moral pollution, endeavour to persuade us that there is no such thing as guilt. Responsibility to justice, the desert of punishment, the moral necessity for the pun- ishment of sin, they deny. The one class is just as obviousl}'- wrong as the other. Consciousness testifies just as clearly and just as universally to the guilt, as to the pollution. It craves as importunately deliverance from the one as from the other. A plan of salvation, therefore, which makes no provision for the removal of guilt, or satisfaction of justice, which admits no such thing as the vicarious punishment of sin, is as little suited to our necessities as though it made no provision for the reformation and sanctifica- tion of men.
3. A third remark on these humanly devised schemes of re- demption is, that while they leave out the essential idea of expia- tion, or satisfaction to justice by vicarious punishment, without which salvation is impossible, and reconciliation with a just God inconceivable, they contain no element of influence or power which does not belong in a higher degree to the Scriptural and Church doctrine. Whatever there is of po.ver in a perfectly sinless life, of a life of self-sacrifice and devotion to the service of God and the good of man, is to be found in the Church doctrine. Whatever