Atonement and law; or, Redemption in harmony with law as revealed in nature

Front matter

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Preface

The views presented in this volume have not been hastily adopted. They are the result of many years of patient and absorbing study. They have, moreover, been fully submitted to the judgment of many eminent scholars and theologians, and have received their unequivocal and hearty approval. While I have been led strongly to dissent from certain views and statements with which the scriptural doctrine of Atonement has been overlaid, that doctrine in its historical evangelical form will be found to be maintained in these pages. The views here presented indicate the ground from which the orthodox doctrine of the Great Satisfaction must at last be defended.

That the Great Redemption was wrought out in perfect accordance with law as revealed in Nature and in Providence; that it was no departure from the divinely ordained order in the administration of law ; that it

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PREFACE was merely the highest exemplification of principles recognized everywhere throughout the Divine government, are conclusions toward which Christian thought has been tending in all the ages past. The earnestness and the hopefulness with which the greatest and most devout minds have ever reached out towards this result may be seen in such passages as the following :

“ Though something of Christ be unfolded in one “ age and something in another, yet eternity itself can- “ not fully unfold him. 1 1 see something,’ said Luther, “ 1 which blessed Augustine saw not, and those that “ come after me will see that which I see not.’ It is in “ the studying of Christ as in the planting of a new- “ discovered country ; at first men sit down by the sea- “ side upon the skirts and borders of the land, and there “ they dwell ; but by degrees they search farther and “ farther into the heart of the country. Ah, the best “ are yet but upon the borders of this vast continent.”*

“The parable, or other analogy to spiritual truth ap- “ propriated from the woild of nature or man, is not “ merely illustration, but also in some sort proof. It is “not merely that these analogies assist to make the “ truth intelligible, or, if intelligible before, present it “ more vividly to the mind, which is all that some will

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“ allow tliem. Their power lies deeper than this, in the “harmony unconsciously felt by all men, and by deeper “ minds continually recognized and plainly perceived, “ between the natural and spiritual worlds, so that anal- “ ogies from the first are felt to be something more than “illustrations, happily but yet arbitrarily chosen. “ They are arguments, and may be alleged as witnesses.

“For it is a great misunderstanding of the matter to “ think of these as happily, but yet arbitrarily, chosen “ illustrations, taken with a skilful selection from the “ great stock and storehouse of unappropriated images ; “ from whence it would have been possible that the “same skill might have selected others as good or nearly “ as good. Bather they belong to one another, the type “ and the thing typified, by an inward necessity ; they “ were linked together long before by the law of a se- “ cret affinity.

“ Besides his revelation in words, God has another “ and an elder, and one indeed without which it is in- “ conceivable how that other could be made, for from “this it appropriates all its signs of communication. “ This entire moral and visible world from first to last, “with its kings and its subjects, its parents and its chil- “ dren, its sun and its moon, its sowing and its harvest, “its light and its darkness,- its sleeping and its waking, “ its birth and its death, is from beginning to end a

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PREFACE

“ mighty parable, a great teaching of supersensuous “ truth, a help at once to our faith and to our under- “ standing.”*

“ Miracles are not to be considered as against nature “ in any other sense than that in which ‘ one natural “ agent may be against another — as water may coun- “ teract fire.’ ”f

“ Any expedient for the salvation of man which im- “ plies a violation of justice, or a relaxation of it, or “ the modification of it by any other attribute, or the “reversal of any of its judgments, is necessarily false “ and incompetent.

“ The principle of compensatory satisfaction or “ atonement underlies and pervades the whole system of “human association, and is indispensable to its order if “ there is to be mercy extended to offenders.

“ The person of the Mediator is the sole new ele- “ment introduced.

“There is nothing new, nothing abnormal, in the “ principles of the Great Atonement.”:):

CONTENTS,

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

“ THE GREAT EXCEPTION.”

The scientific objection to the prevalent theory of Redemption. The real question at issue : Is Redemption the Great Exception ? Recognized analogies and correspondences. — Scripture Emblems. — False theories of Atonement fore-doomed. — No relaxation of Law in accepting the Satisfaction of Christ. — Sovereignty in Redemption as in Creation. — The Miracle of Redemption, like all Miracles, by Intervention of adequate Power, not by Suspension of Law. . . . Page 15

Chapter I. Motion, Force And Life

Relation of Natural and Moral Law to the Lawgiver. — Motion as exemplifying Natural law. — Motion essential to our knowledge of Space and Duration. — All Motion traceable to Force, all Force to Life. — Motion, Force and Life in the Vegetable Kingdom. — Observable Motion in Plant Life. — The Modern

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Contents

Microscope. — Motion in the vital seed. — Motion in and by vital Organisms in the Animal Kingdom. — Vast aggregate of Motion directly traceable to vital force. — The Motion traceable to vital force of hand and brain. — The Arrow. — The Ocean Steamer. — Motion of Heavenly Bodies in Space. — The Measure of Duration. — Motion proof of the Universality of Law. — Direct proof of the Ever-present Lawgiver. ... 33

Chapter II. The Latest Idol “ The Nature Of Things."

Space and Duration. — Axioms in the realms of Law Moral and Natural. — Their relation to the Self-existent Lawgiver. . 47

Chapter III. The Nature Of Moral Law

Law never for an instant separated from God. — Law as Force and Law as Commandment. — Moral Law the Will of God in Commandment. — Cannot be implanted within, but must be made known unto moral beings. — God alone is law to Himself. — The One Great Mistake of our race. — Christ obeyed Commandment, not the promptings of his sinless humanity. — Conscience, its relation to Law. — Confirmation by the One Divine Subject of Law. — All in Heaven and in Earth to be gathered unto Him. — Surrender of the Will a necessity. — Christ’s surrender not anomalous, but the Great Example. 68

CHAPTER IY.

THE WILL.

The Source and the Subject of Law. — Necessarily Self-asserting. — Testimony of all History. — Voice of Consciousness. — The God-like in man renders him capable of serving God. —

CONTENTS

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Every Subject of Law also a Source of Law. — The Image of the Divine Sovereignty.— The Desire, PI ope and Promise of Dominion. — Dominion the Reward of Obedience. — The Will free from Invasion. — Responsible to God alone. — The Will, most Completely Surrendered to God, left in Utmost Freedom and Honor. 87

Chapter I. No Salvation Without Atonement

The assumption that Moral Law, unlike Natural, maybe relaxed. — The non-execution of Deserved Penalty cannot ensure bliss. — Cannot ensure exemption from Limitless Evil. — Conscience Satisfied only when Law is Satisfied. — Conscience indestructible. — The same Atonement, Demanded by Law, Demanded by Conscience. 107

Chapter II. No Atonement By The Violator Of Law

One violation of Law renders Unrighteous. — Law requires Righteousness of Character. — Obligations of Law Continuous. Law requires of every subject of Law the utmost he can render. — Law is Mandatory as regards payment of penalty. — Voluntariness required in enduring the penalty, as well as in obeying the precept. — Law in its entireness Commandment. — Atonement by the Violator of Law a mere “ Castle in the Air.” 115

CONTENTS

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Section Fifth . — “Sovereign Prerogative,” “Dispensing Power,” “ Relaxation of Law,”

Section Stxth . — The Essential Conditions of True and Proper Suretyship or Substitution. . . 127

CHAPTER IY.

SUBSTITUTION OBEDIENCE TO LAW.

The Law of Helpfulness. — It extends to all subjects of Law. — No limit but that of the ability of the helper and the need of the helpless. — The element of substitution in all charitable works. — “ I was eyes to the blind, feet was I to the lame.” — Christ simply obeyed Law. — The result was Redemption. — “ Great-heart ” explains “ to Christiana, Mercy and the rest.” — No super-legal charity. — Room for highest virtue under Law. — The resources of Law revealed in Christ’s work. — The pyramid of virtue completed. — Heaven and Earth rejoice. . 203

CHAPTER Y.

INTERVENTION.

All danger or evil from Yiolated Law. — No escape or deliverance by suspension or relaxation of law or mitigation of its penalty. — Deliverance only by intervention of adequate power. — The kind of intervention determined by the kind and extent of the

COTNENTS

XIII daDger. — These truths illustrated and confirmed in nature and in the history of mankind. — Falling stones and rubbish. — “ The shorn lamb.” — The serpent. — The Corliss Engine. — Revolving Wheels. — Tbe generator of electric light. — The Monarch of Babylon. — The Reign of Law and the Reign of Grace. — The last appeal to Jerusalem. — Salvation by Atonement excludes boasting. — The infinite debt of gratitude. — “ The Gospel of Christ the power of God.” — Miracles intervention of adequate power. — Unity of plan to be assumed. — Evidence accumulating continually. — Sun of Righteousness more and more fully revealed from age to age 215

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

Redemption has been almost universally regarded as “ The Great Exception.” As such it has been attacked, and as such defended, for the most part, in the centuries past.

With undisguised contempt, the scientist, and with extreme suspicion, the Christian, have regarded all the manifold and varied attempts in late years, to reconcile the teachings of science with the accepted doctrines and theories of Redemption. Neither the contempt nor the suspicion was wholly deserved. Something has been done in the way of showing how many of the cardinal doctrines of Redemption are in beautiful harmony with all that is taught in Nature. Nearly all the great teachers in the Christian church, in all ages, have recognized, more or less clearly, this harmony, yet their deliverances, as a matter of fact, have never taken hold of the mass of the Christian people, nor even of Christian theologians. The numerous and varied presentations of the harmony between the natural and the spiritual world, whether the fragmentary utterances of the great Christian teachers in all the centuries past, or the more direct efforts of distinguished authors in later times, have been accepted by Christian people with a certain degree of interest, and even delight, but they can not be said to have been accepted for their full value — rather always at a ruinous discount. At no period of the Christian era have there been so many reasons for giving careful and candid consideration to any view which tends to bring “religion within the sphere of law,” or in other words, to show that theology — the theology of Scripture — is not only in accord with all true science, but is itself the science which rises above, and, in a certain sense, includes all others.

The war between science and religion can not be indefinitely prolonged. Nor can it be a drawn battle. The centuries of conflict that went before were but preparatory to the conflict of the nineteenth century. In the estimation of many, it may seem that no decisive issue shall be reached. But so it is in all battles. At W aterloo or at Gettysburg how many of the combatants could know more than that there was terrible fighting and terrible carnage ? Conflict of thought, of doctrine, or of belief, is brought on by the necessities of the case. Its issue, also, it is difficult to forecast. It also can not be prolonged indefinitely, or terminated without decisive victory on the one side and utter defeat on the other. Since the world began, no conflict rose ever to such height, extended so widely, enlisted so many of mankind, or had involved in it so much that concerns the individual, the family, the race of mankind, so deeply, not merely for this life, hut for the life to come.

The question is one that includes in it all that is worth contending for in this world. It is none other than this : Has God provided and revealed to man an effectual, a perfectly credible, way by which conscious violators of law may be restored to righteousness and blessedness ? The form which this question has most assuredly assumed in late years is this : Is the scheme of redemption in harmony with what we learn and observe in nature ? If it be not, if its advocates admit or assert at the outset that it is not, the world of science now — whatever it may have done in the past — will not even listen to the evidence in its favor. All this is summed up in the pregnant and defiant utterance, “Science will hear nothing of a Great Exception.”

This attitude of unbelief some years past caused no little alarm and consternation in the ranks of the faithful. This challenge, like that made by him of Gath, caused the hosts of Israel to waver and retire. But like that challenge of old, it in the end but opens the way to complete victory. Every assault upon the Christian faith, since the dawn of the Christian era, has resulted in the better establishment, because in the better understanding, of the doctrine assailed. One by one the great doctrines of Christianity have been assailed and defended, always with the same result,

Instead of attacking the doctrines of redemption in detail, as in the days of Athanasius and onward, the enemy now attacks the scheme of Eedemption as a whole, charging that it is not merely wanting in sufficient evidence, but that, being severed from the teachings of nature, being professedly “ The Great Exception,” it is incredible as such.

Year by year the wiser and braver defenders of the Christian faith have been more and more prepared to accept the issue made by the enemy. Already it is apparent to all who comprehend the real nature of the conflict that it must be decided on this issue and on this alone. If the scheme of Eedemption taught in Scripture be, as nearly all the great Christian teachers in all ages have believed it to be, foreshadowed and typified in nature and in providence, this fact can not but be more and more clearly brought into view, unless, indeed, it be so that no progress is to be made in the study of Nature, Providence or Scripture.

As scientific inquirers ever assume that every part of a vital organism is placed there for a purpose, and for a purpose not only beneficent but connected with the perfection of the entire organism, and this even when they are wholly ignorant of its specific purpose and its real relation to the whole ; so we ought to assume that everything in the economy of Nature and Providence is connected with that all-embracing plan of which Eedemption is the great consummation, and this even while we are, as yet, unable to trace that connection. In fact, the discovery of the unity of plan in all tlie works and ways of God is tlie lesson set before the race of mankind, a lesson not to be fully learned even when the last trumpet shall sound, but one to be taken up anew, and under vastly more favorable conditions, in the life to come.

One of the greatest obstacles to the immediate and complete defense of Christianity against the assaults of the enemy is the deep and almost universal prejudice against any and all attempts to reconcile religion and science. It would be too much to say that these attempts have been wholly useless. It is not too much to say that they have neither satisfied the Christian world nor disturbed the non- Christian. The cannonade all along the fine has been treated rather as mock than real battle.

If it be asked why have well-meaning and able Christian Apologists been thus treated and regarded almost alike by friend and foe, I venture to affirm that the reason has been that the strategic vantageground from which Christianity is to make her defense and to win her grandest victories has not yet been seized by the Christian hosts, in fact has but been indicated by a few of the most courageous of the acknowledged leaders of Christian thought.

It will not do to close our eyes to the terrible “ decadence of religion in the world of science.” If the doctrine of Redemption, as set forth in Scripture, can not be vindicated as in harmony, in beautiful and exact harmony, with all that we discover in Nature and in Providence, we shall not soon witness any arrest of that decadence. Redemption is, and Redemption will yet be clearly shown to be, not the Great Exception, but the grand exemplification of a manifestly pre-determined plan, foreshadowed in Creation even from the first.

There has been, indeed, abundant discussion of analogies and of surprising correspondences. These have been presented, however, as beautiful curiosities. They have never been seriously or profoundly studied, either by the skeptical or the believing world, for after making the most of these resemblances and analogies from Nature, Christian Apologists have generally, in the face of the enemy, admitted that Revealed Religion is, in its main features, “ the Great Exception,” (revelation itself an exception — the fall of our race an exception- Redemption by intervention and by substitution an exception, that is, not provided for in the Nature of law;) yet an exception not such that it is wholly incredible, for in Nature behold this or that which faintly resembles it, or is “ somewhat analogous,” or is on “ analogous principles I”

There are mighty arguments in favor of a bolder course. The attack of the enemy will constrain the Christian hosts to seek firmer ground.

The charge that the revealed way of salvation is manifestly out of harmony with Nature, if it result in bringing to light, as never before, that perfect harmony, will be but another exemplification of the way in which the trial always leads to the triumph of faith.

It is safe to assume that what God purposed from eternity as tlie chief manifestation of his infinite perfections was foreshadowed in all his works and ways. Indeed, it is incredible that God’s utmost manifestation of His perfections in Redemption should be one to the evidence and illustration and support of which the universe itself, rightly interpreted, would not ultimately come.

The Bible in its vast range of emblems and parable, teaches not merely faint resemblances, to be regarded as mere illustrations. The wealth of meaning in the abounding emblems of Scripture has by no means been exhausted. The time has come for a more profound and reverent study of that vast range of emblems from Nature to which Scripture on every page refers us. If we imagine we can grasp the spiritual truth, and turn away regardless of the emblem in which God sets it before us in His W ord, we dishonor alike the voice of God in Scripture and in Nature. If when God tells us, “ A man shall be as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land,” we answer. “Yes, we know that Christ protects us from all evil,” we have learned but part of the lesson this emblem was designed to teach. If we add to this our own theory that Christ protects us, not by meeting and enduring “ the actual execution in strict rigour of justice of the unrelaxed penalty of the law,” but by meeting and enduring that which, “ although it did not thoroughly discharge the obligation” and might for that reason have been refused, was graciously accepted, was “regarded as a satisfaction” — we reject part of the lesson taught in this emblem. No sovereign act of Dispensing Power was pnt forth that the great rock might protect those who took refuge under its shadow. Nor was any leniency (Turrettine’s Epieikeia) shown, but the sun’s fiercest rays fell sheer upon the massive rock.

The Bible more than any other book in the world appeals to Nature with boundless confidence. The proper study of Nature is quite as necessary to the proper understanding of the Bible as is the study of the Bible to the proper interpretation of Nature.

The volume I now submit to the judgment of the enlightened world, is the result of many years of deeply interesting study, during which I have been led on with ever increasing wonder and delight in the discovery of the beautiful harmony between God’s plan revealed in Scripture and in all Nature. I have endeavored to trace this harmony in these pages in outline, deeply impressed with the fact that a subject so vast and so overpowering could not be fully treated in a life-time — conscious of utter inability to do more than indicate those trains of thought into which I was led with boundless delight year after year. In all these studies I have ever returned to the inspired word, to find with surprise and delight that conclusions reached on independent lines, and often by long and circuitous trains of reasoning, were clearly and distinctly set forth in most familiar texts of Scripture.

The series of propositions which I was led to adopt, with the arguments in support of them, were all arranged without any view to the support of a pre-conceived theory of Redemption, but * simply because the study of each special topic led me to accept, as the very truth, the proposition itself. In fact, it was equal surprise and satisfaction to discover that every one of them did come directly to the support of the general proposition: Redemption not the Great Exception, but the supreme, final and most glorious exemplification of a plan which was in the mind of God from eternity, and is indicated, foreshadowed and exemplified in Nature and in Providence.

What I maintain in this treatise, while there is a phase of it that is new, is, taken as a whole, not only old but the logical support of the old. The doctrine, “ Christ did make a proper, real and full satisfaction,” needs for its support the doctrine, Substitution a normal provision of Law ; so that what, in a sense, is new comes to the support of the old — fits into it closely as nothing else does or can.

The perfection of Christ’s Atonement has been very imperfectly apprehended, even by the millions glorying in the Christian name. Half- awakened, and but emerging from the long night that for so many centuries brooded over our world, they as yet see it, for the most part, as in the twilight or under a cloud. It will not always be so. New phases of the excellent glory, the divine perfection, of The Great Atonement will be made to shine forth. False theories, like a heavy vail, have too long hidden from view its exquisite finish, its goodly proportions. But God’s time will come for the unvailing of “ Christ’s Finished Work ” before the eyes of all men. False theories have prevailed in Theology, but not a whit more than in other sciences. False theories in Theology, as in other sciences, must sooner or later come to grief. Theories of the Atonement constructed in defiance alike of Scriptural Truth and Natural Law, are fore-doomed. For Scripture and Nature are the upper and the nether mill-stones, prepared of God to grind them to powder. Nature, no more than Scripture, knows anything of Atonement that does not satisfy law.

The satisfaction theory of the Atonement is the only theory that can survive. Its survival is assured on the same grounds as the survival of Harvey’s theory of the circulation of the blood. It will survive not by compromise but by victory. The satisfaction theory of the Atonement, or the doctrine that “ Christ did make a proper, real and full satisfaction,” can be maintained only on the ground that substitution is provided for in the very nature of law. From any lower ground the Great Atonement must necessarily appear with more or less of penumbra resting upon it. Even the ablest theologians among the orthodox, if they assume that there was a “ relaxation of the law,”* “ a high act of sovereign dispensing power, dispensing in some respect with the law,”f “ an exercise of sovereign prerogative substituting person for person in order that Christ might make atonement for us, may call Christ’s atonement perfect ; may write “ De Satisfaction Christi

*Tur retine.

fSymington.

I Hodge.

but they do not, for they can not, believe that Christ’s work in our behalf “did thoroughly discharge the obligation.” That is, they do not maintain but surrender the doctrine of Satisfaction. For Christ’s work was not a satisfaction unless it was such that law, without “relaxation,” law in strict rigour of justice, could accept it.

The work of redemption was the result of the coming under law of one who was able to meet its full demands. Redemption is the highest instance of the one only way of deliverance from danger or evil threatening those who are violators of law, viz : Intervention of adequate power — the one only way taught in Scripture, in Nature and in Providence. When I maintain that the work of Redemption is carried forward under law, and in perfect accordance with law, I hasten to add that as to its origin, it is of the mere sovereignty of God. But even in this respect it is not The Exception, for sovereignty characterizes all beginnings.

Creation could be nothing else than a sovereign act. To deny sovereignty here, would be to deny sovereignty altogether ; for, if the created universe came into being, and is what it is, as a necessary consequence of the existence of a first cause, that first cause could not be a person, could not be endowed with freedom of will, could not be God. Besides, if the existence of the first cause necessitated the existence of the universe it must have done so from eternity. There could have been no beginning of the created universe.

Redemption, as well as creation, must also be a purely sovereign determination of the divine will. This is required by the necessities of the case, as well as plainly declared in Scripture. No doctrine of Redemption that in any way casts the slightest shadow over the high mountain of Divine Sovereignty can be tolerated for a moment. All theologies that in any manner teach or imply that there was any obligation upon God to do this or that for fallen, rebellious subjects of law, are unscriptural, unreasonable, if not blasphemous. Divine sovereignty is to be recognized in determining to save any fallen ones, in determining who should be saved, in “ choosing,” “ raising up ” and “ delivering up ” the Saviour, and in the Saviour’s giving of himself; but this Sovereign Redemption once determined, was wrought out under law and in exact accordance with law. God honored his own law in that this his supreme work was performed by 11 his own son " in the capacity of a 11 servant" and “ under law." Sovereignty consisted in determining to save, and in providing a Saviour. The Saviour once provided, and having freely come under law, thenceforward all was done in obedience to law. All that was needed for our Redemption the law itself then required of him who became our surety and who was under law and was “ mighty to save.”

It is here that divine sovereignty shines forth most gloriously, for here it is in its own proper sphere. To regard sovereignty as occupying this sphere alone, is not to limit but to assign to it utmost freedom. This is the region in which no limit can he found. Every effort men have made to free themselves from the difficulties that, in the nature of the case, cluster around sovereignty in its own glorious sphere above law, do but bring them, in the end, to vastly greater difficulties. For, denying sovereignty in its own sphere, they are, for that reason, brought face to face with it, in a region and under conditions a thousand fold more perplexing than those which cluster around it in its own glorious height about the throne of Him who is “ Higher than the highest.”

“God provided a Saviour for all men; no sovereign choice of part of our race ; God gave Christ to die, and Christ died, alike for all men.” Ah! Here is smooth sailing. Lo ! At one stroke of a very small magic wand, that largest and most awful yet most glorious storm-cloud that eye of man or angel ever beheld — one side of it radiant with the glory of the divine “ goodness,” the other dark unutterably with the terribleness of the divine “ severity — ” is swept away and the sky of the upper heaven, about the throne of God, is azure without a cloud !