THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
fastens attention upon this aspect of his work (Matt, xx, 2S, xxvi, 28); and it is embedded in every important type of New Testament teaching, —as well in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ii, 17), and the Epistles of Peter (I, iii, 18) and John (I, ii, 2), as currently in those of Paul (Rom. viii, 3; I Cor. v, 7; Eph. v, 2) to whom, obviously, " the sacrifice of Christ had the significance of the death of an innocent victim in the room of the guilty " and who therefore " freely employs the category of substitution, involving the conception of imputation or transference " of legal standing (W- P. Paterson, art. Sacrifice in DB, iv, 343-345). Looking out from this point of view as from a center, the New Testament writers ascribe the saving efficacy of Christ's work specifically to his death, or his blood, or his cross (Rom. iii, 25-59; I Cor. x, 16; Eph. i, 7; ii, 13; Col. i, 20; Heb. ix, 12, 14; I Pet. i, 2, 19; I John i, 7, v, 6-8; Rev. i, 5), and this with such predilection and emphasis that the place given to the death of Christ in the several theories which have been framed of the nature of our Lord's work, may not unfairly be taken as a test of their scripturalness. All else that Christ does for us in the breadth of his redeeming work is, in their view, conditioned upon his bearing our sins in his own body on the tree; so that " the fundamental characteristic of the New Testament conception of redemption is that deliverance from guilt stands first; emancipation from the power of sin follows upon it; and removal of all the ills of life constitutes its final issue " (O. Kirn, art. Erlosung in Hauck-Herzog, RE, v, 464; see Redemption).
The exact nature of Christ's work in redemption was not made the subject of scientific investigation in the early Church. This was due partly, no doubt, just to the clearness of the New Testament representation of it as a piacular sacrifice; but in part also to the engrossment of the minds of the first teachers of Christianity with more immediately pressing problems, such as the adjustment of the essential elements of the Christian doctrines of God and of the person of Christ, and the establishment of man's helplessness in sin and absolute dependence on the grace of God for salvation. Meanwhile Christians were content to speak of the work of Christ in simple scriptural or in general language, or to develop, rather by way of illustration than of explanation, certain aspects of it, chiefly its efficacy as a sacrifice, but 2. Develop- also, very prominently, its working ment of the as a ransom in delivering us from Doctrine, bondage to Satan. Thus it was not until the end of the eleventh century that the nature of the Atonement received at the hands of Anselm (d. 1109) its first thorough discussion. Representing it, in terms derived from the Roman law, as in its essence a " satisfaction " to the divine justice, Anselm set it once for all in its true relations to the inherent necessities of the divine nature, and to the magnitude of human guilt; and thus determined the outlines of the doctrine for all subsequent thought. Contemporaries like Bernard and Abelard, no doubt, and perhaps not unnaturally, found difficulty in assimilating
at once the newly framed doctrine; the former ignored it in the interests of the old notion of a ransom offered to Satan; the latter rejected it in the interests of a theory of moral influence upon man. But it gradually made its way. The Victorines, Hugo and Richard, united with it other elements, the effect of which was to cure its onesidedness; and the great doctors of the age of developed scholasticism manifest its victory by differing from one another chiefly in their individual ways of stating and defending it. Bonaventura develops it; Aquinas enriches it with his subtle distinctions; Thomist and Scotist alike start from it, and diverge only in the question whether the " satisfaction " offered by Christ was intrinsically equivalent to the requirements of the divine justice or availed for this purpose only through the gracious acceptance of God. It was not, however, until the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith threw its light back upon the " satisfaction " which provided its basis, that that doctrine came fully to its rights. No one before Luther had spoken with the clarity, depth, or breadth which characterize his references to Christ as our deliverer, first from the guilt of sin, and then, because from the guilt of sin, also from all that is evil, since all that is evil springs from sin (cf. T. Harnack, Luther's Theologie, ii, Leipsic, 1886, 16-19, and Kirn, ut sup., 467). These vital religious conceptions were reduced to scientific statement by the Protestant scholastics, by whom it was that the complete doctrine of " satisfaction " was formulated with a thoroughness and comprehensiveness of grasp which has made it the permanent possession of the Church. In this, its developed form, it represents our Lord as making satisfaction for us "by his blood and righteousness"; on the one hand, to the justice of God, outraged by human sin, in bearing the penalty due to our guilt in his own sacrificial death; and, on the other hand, to the demands of the law of God requiring perfect obedience, in fulfilling in his immaculate life on earth as the second Adam the probation which Adam failed to keep; bringing to bear on men at the same time and by means of the same double work every conceivable influence adapted to deter them from sin and to win them back to good and to God, — by the highest imaginable demonstration of God's righteousness and hatred of sin and the supreme manifestation of God's love and eagerness to save; by a gracious proclamation of full forgiveness of sin in the blood of Christ; by a winning revelation of the spiritual order and the spiritual world; and by the moving example of his own perfect life in the conditions of this world; but, above all, by the purchase of the gift of the Holy Spirit for his people as a power not themselves making for righteousness dwelling within them, and supernaturally regenerating their hearts and conforming their lives to his image, and so preparing them for their permanent place in the new order of things which, flowing from this redeeming work, shall ultimately be established as the eternal form of the Kingdom of God.
Of course, this great comprehensive doctrine of " the satisfaction of Christ " has not been per-