for us, but by his work in us. The eternal Son is incarnate not in the man Christ Jesus, but in the Church.
The Modern Views.
In the present period of the Church's history, this mystical theory of the person and work of Christ is probably more preva- lent than ever before. The whole school of German speculative theologians, with their followers in England and America, are on this ground. Of these theologians there are, as remarked above, two classes, the pantheistic and the theistic. According to the former, the nature of man at first was an imperfect manifestation of the absolute Being, and in the development of the race this manifestation is rendered complete ; but complete only as an eternal progress. According to the other, man has an existence and personality, in one sense, outside of God. Nevertheless God and man are substantially the same. This identity or sameness is shown perfectly in Christ, and through Him, is realized more and more perfectly in the Church as some teach, or, as others say, in the whole race.^
§ 6. Concluding Remarks.
In reviewing these several theories concerning the method of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, it is important to re- mark, —
1. That it is not to be inferred because certain writers are quoted as setting forth one particular theory, that they recognized the truth of no other view of the work of Christ. This remark is especially applicable to the patristic period. While some of the fa- thers speak at times of Christ's saving the world as a teacher, and others of them say that He gave himself as a ransom to Satan, and others again that He brings men back to the image of God, this does not prove that they ignored the fact that he was a sin offer- ing, making expiation for the guilt of the world. It is character- istic of the early period of the Church, before special doctrines had become matters of controversy, that the people and the theologians retain the common language and representations of the Bible ; wdile the latter, especially, dwell sometimes disproportionately on one mode of Scriptural representation, and sometimes dispropor- tionately on another. The fathers constantly speak of Christ as a "^riest, as a sacrifice, and as a ransom. They ascribe our salvation to his blood and to his cross. The ideas of expiation and propitia- 1 On these views see above the chapters on the Person and Work of Christ.
590 PART III. Ch. IX. — THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT.
tion were wrought into all the services of the early Church. These Scriptural ideas sustained the life of the people of God entirely independently of the speculations of philosophical theologians.
2. The second remark which the preceding survey suggests is, that the theories antagonistic to the common Church doctrine are purely philosophical. Origen assumed that in man there are the three constituent principles : body, soul, and spirit ; and that in analogy therewith, there are three senses of Scripture, — the his- torical, the moral, and the spiritual. The first is the plain mean- ing of the words which suggests itself to any ordinary, intelligent reader ; the second is the allegorical application of the historical sense for moral instruction. For example, what Moses commands about not muzzling an ox which treads out the corn, may be un- derstood as teaching the general principle that labour should be rewarded, and, therefore, may be applied as it is by the Apostle, to enforce the duty of supporting ministers of the Gospel. The third or spiritual sense, is the general philosophical truth, which is assumed to underlie the doctrines of the Scriptures ; of which truths the Scriptural doctrines are only the temporary forms. Thus Origen made the Bible teach Platonism. The object of most of the early apologists, was to show that Christianity had a philosophy as well as heathenism ; and that the philosophy of the former is identical with the philosophy of the latter so far as that of the latter can prove itself to be true. The trouble was, and always has been, that whatever philosophy was assumed to be true, the doctrines of Scripture were made to conform to it or were sublimated into it. The historical and moral senses of Scripture constitute the object of faith ; the spiritual sense is the object of gnosis or knowledge. The former is very well in its place and for the people ; but the latter is something of a higher order to which only the philosophically cultivated can attain. That the mystical theory of the person and work of Christ, especially, is the product of philosophical speculation is obvious — (1.) From the express avowals of its most distinguished advocates. (2.) From the nature of the theory itself, which reveals itself as a philosophy, i. e., as a speculative doctrine concerning the nature of being, the nature of God, the nature of man, and of the relation of God to the world, etc. (3.) From the fact that it has changed with the varying systems of philosophy. So long as Platonism was in vogue, the spiritual sense of Scripture was assumed to be Pla- tonism ; that system discarded, the schoolmen adopted the philoso- phy of Aristotle, and then the Bible taught the doctrines of