character, teachings, and acts. On this account it is usually des- ignated the " moral view of the atonement." The assumption is that there is no such attribute in God as justice ; i. e., no per- fection which renders it necessary, or morally obHgatorv, that sin should be punished. If this be so, there is no need of expiation in order to forgiveness. All that is necessary for the restoration of sinners to the favour of God is that they should cease to be sin- ners. God's relation to his rational creatures is determined by their character. If they are morally corrupt they are repelled from his presence ; if restored to holiness, they become the objects of his love and the recipients of his favours. All that Christ as the Saviour of men, therefore, came to accomplish was this moral ref- ormation in the character of men. Here, as so generally elsewhere, errors are half truths. It is true that God's relation to his rational creatures is determined by their character. It is true that He repels sinners, and holds communion with the holy. It is true that Christ came to restore men to holiness, and thus to the favour and fellowship of God. But it is also true that to render the restora- tion of sinners to holiness possible it was necessary that the guilt of their sins should be expiated, or that justice should be satisfied. Until this is done, they are under the wrath and curse of God. And to be under the curse of God is to be shut out from the source of all holiness.
Some of the advocates of this view of the work of Christ do indeed speak freely of the justice of God. They recognize Him as a just Being who everywhere and always punishes sin. But this is done only by the operation of eternal laws. Holiness, from its nature, produces happiness; and that is its reward. Sin, from its nature, produces misery; and that is its punishment. Remove the sin and you remove the punishment. The case is analogous to health and disease. If a man is well, he is physically happy ; if diseased, he is in a state of suffering. The only way possible to remove the suffering is to remove the disease ; and further than this nothing can be required. This is the view presented by John Young, D. D.^ He says, "There is no such attribute in God [as rectilineal justice.] But the inevitable punishment of moral evil always and everywhere, is certain nevertheless. The justice of the universe is a tremendous fact, an eternal and necessary fact which even God could not set aside. There is an irresistible, a real force springing out of its essential constitution whereby sin punishes sin. This is the fixed law of the moral universe, a law in perfect har-
1 Life and Liyht of Mm, London and New York, 1866, pp. 115, 116.
5G8 PART III. Ch. IX. — theories OF THE ATONEMENT.
mony with the eternal will, and which never is and never can he broken. God's mercy in our Lord Jesus Christ does not in the least set aside this justice ; what it does is to remove and render non-existent tlie only ground on which tiie claim of justice stands. Instead of arbitrarily withdrawing the criminal from punishment, it destroys in his soul that evil which is the only cause and reason of punishment, and which being removed punishment ceases of itself." The same doctrine is taught by Dr. Bushnell.^ Speaking of Christ, he says, "■ His work terminates, not in the release of penalties by due compensation, but in the transformation of character, and the rescue, in that manner, of guilty men from the retributive causa- tions provoked by their sins." Remission is declared to be " spir- itual release ; " a deliverance from sin which secures exemption from the natural effects of transgression. This system necessarily excludes the idea of forgiveness in the ordinary sense of the word. To subdue inflammation in a wound removes the pain ; to remove sin from the soul secures exemption from the pain which sin neces- sarily produces. The idea of pardon, in the latter case, is as in- congruous as in the former. The Bible, however, is full of the promises of forgiveness and of the prayers of the penitent for par- doning mercy. It is very plain, therefore, that this scheme does not agree with the Scriptures ; and it is equally plain that it is not a religion suited to those who feel the need of forgiveness.
Coleridge, in his " Aids to Reflection," presents the same view. In a note at the end of that work he gives the following illustration of the subject. A widow has a prodigal son, who deserts her and leaves her desolate. That son has a friend wdio takes his place and performs all filial duties to the unhappy mother. The prodigal, won by the exhibition of goodness on the part of his friend, returns to his home penitent and reformed. How unreasonable and revolting, says Coleridge, would it be to say that the friend had made expia- tion or rendered a satisfaction to justice for the sins of the prodigal.
This moral view of the atonement, as it is called, has been pre- sented in different forms. In the first form the work of Christ in the salvation of men is confined to his office of teacher. He intro- duced a new and higher form of religion, by which men were re- deemed from the darkness and degradation of heathenism. This was so great a good, and so patent to the eyes of those who them- selves were converts from heathenism, and who were surrounded by its evils, that it is not wonderful that some of the fathers ex-
1 l^cari<nis Sacrifice grounded in Principles of Universal Obligation, edit. New York 1866, p. 449.
Si 3.] MORAL THEORY. 569
alted this function of Christ as a saviour, almost to the neglect of every other. In the early Church, however, frequent as were the recognitions of the obligations of men to Chi'ist as the Redeemer from heathenism, He was still regarded by all Christians as a sacri- fice and a ransom. In later times these latter aspects of his work were rejected and the former only retained.
A second form of this theory, while it retains the idea that the real benefit conferred by Christ was his doctrine, yet ascribes his title of Saviour principally to his death. As the Scriptures so constantly assert that we are saved by the blood, the cross, the sufferintTS of Christ, this feature of the Scriptural teaching cannot be overlooked. It is therefore said that He saves us, not as a sacri- fice, but as a martyr. He died for us. By his death his doctrines were sealed with blood. Not only, therefore, as attesting his own sincerity, but as giving assurance of the truths which He taught, especially the truths concerning a future life, the love of God, and his willingness to forgive sin, and as confirming to us the truth of those doctrines He is entitled to be regarded as the Saviour of men.
Thirdly, others again regard the power of Christ in saving men from sin, as not due to his teaching, or to his sealing his doctrines with his blood, but to the manifestation which He made of self- sacrificing love. This exerts a greater power over the hearts of men than all else besides. If the wicked cannot be reclaimed by love, which manifests itself not only in words of gentleness, by acts of kindness, and by expressions of sympathy, but also by en- tire self-sacrifice, by the renunciation of all good, and by voluntary submission to all evil, their case must be hopeless. As such love as that of Christ was never before exhibited to men ; as no such instance of self-sacrifice had ever before occurred, or can ever occur again. He is tiie Saviour by way of eminence. Other men, who through love submit to self-denial for the good of men, are within their sphere and in their measure, saviours too ; the work of salvation by the exhibition of self-sacrificing love, is going on around us continually, and from eternity to eternity, so long as evil exists, in the pi-esence of beings imbued with love. Still Christ in this work occupies a place peculiar and preeminent, and therefore we are Chi'istians ; we recognize Christ as the greatest of Sav- iours.
Such is the view elaborately presented }y Dr. Bushnell in the work just referred to. Toward the end ol his book, however, he virtually takes it all back, and lays down his weapons, conquered
570 PART m. Ch. IX. — theories of the atonement.