of the mission of the Holy Spirit, and of all other saving blessings, that it cannot be ignored in any view of the plan and purpose of salvation. With this representation every other statement of the Scriptures must be consistent ; and therefore the theory which denies this great and precious truth, and which assumes that the love which secured the gift of God's eternal Son, was mere benevo- lence which had all men for its object, many of whom are allowed to perish, must be unscriptural.
Argument from the Believer^ s Union with Christ.
5. Another argument is derived fi'om the nature of the union between Christ and his people. The Bible teaches, (1.) That a certain portion of the human race were given to Christ. (2.) That they were given to Him before the foundation of the world. (3.) That all thus given to Him will certainly come to Him and be saved. (4.) That this union, so far as it was from eternity, is not a union of nature, nor by faith, nor by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It was a federal union. (5.) That Christ, therefore, was a federal head and representative. As such He came into the •world, and all He did and suffered was as a representative, as a substitute, one acting in the place and for the benefit of others. But He was the representative of those given to Him, i. e., of those who were in Him. For it was this gift and the union consequent upon it, that gave Him his representative character, or constituted Him a federal head. He -was therefore the federal head, not of the human race, but of those given to Him by the Father. And, therefore, his work, so far as its main design is concerned, was for them alone. Whatever reference it had to others was subordinate and incidental. All this is illustrated and proved by the Apostle in Romans v. 12—21, in the parallel which he draws between Adam and Christ. All mankind were in Adam, He was the federal head and representative of his race. All men sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression. The sentence of condemna- tion for his one offence passed upon all men. In like manner Christ was the representative of his people. He acted for them. What He did and suffered in their place, or as their representative, they in the eye of the law, did and suffered. By his obedience they are justified. As all in Adam died, so all in Christ are made alive. Such is the nature of the union in both cases, that the sin of the one rendered certain and rendered just the death of all united to Adam, and the righteousness of the other rendered certain and just the salvation of all who are in Him. The sin of Adam did not make
552 PART III. Cii. 7III. — FOR WHOM DID CHRIST DIE?
the condemnation of all men merely possible ; it was the ground of their actual condemnation. So the righteousness of Christ did not make the salvation of men merely possible, it secured the actual salvation of those for whom He vv'^rought. As it would be unrea- sonable to say that Adam acted for those who were not in him ; so it is unscriptural to say that Christ acted for those who were not in Him. Nevertheless, the act of Adam as the head and repre- sentative of his race, was fruitful of evil consequences, not to man only, but to the earth and all that it contains ; and so the work of Christ is fruitful of good consequences to others than those for whom He acted. But this does not justify any one in saying that Adam acted as much as the representative of the brute creation, as of his posterity ; neither does it justify the assertion that Christ died for all mankind in the same sense that He died for liisown people. This is all so clearly revealed in Scripture that it extorts the assent of those who are decidedly opposed to the Augustinian system. One class of those opponents, of whom Whitby may be taken as a representative, admit the truth of all that has been said of the representative character of Adam and Christ. But they maintain that as Adam represented the whole race, so also did Christ : and as in Adam all men die, so in Christ are all made alive. But they say that this has nothing to do with sjiiritual death in the one case, or with the salvation of the soul in the other. The death which came on all men for the sin of Adam, was merely the death of the body; and the life which comes on all throuo-h Christ, is the restoration ot tlie life of the body at the resurrection. The Wesleyans take the same view of the representative charac- ter of Christ and of Adam. Each stood for all mankind. Adam brings upon all men the guilt of his first sin and corruption of na- ture. Christ secures the removal of the guilt of original sin and a seed of grace, or principle of spiritual life, for all men. So also one class of Universalists hold that as all men are condemned for the sin of Adam, so all are actually saved by the work of Christ. Rationalists also are ready to admit that Paul does teach all that Augustiuians understand him to teach, but they say that this was only his Jewish mode of presenting the matter. It is not absolute truth, but a mere transient form suited to the age of the Apostles. In all these cases, however, the main fact is conceded. Christ did act as a representative ; and what He did secured with certainty the benefits of his work for those for whom He acted. This beinff conceded, it of course follows that He acted as the representative and substitute of those only who are ultimately to be saved.