§ 1.
The Orthodox View. § 2.
Doctrine of some of the Fathers.
§ 3.
The Moral Theory.
§ 4.
The Governmental Theory.
§ 5.
The Mystical Theory. § 6.
Concluding Remarks.
THE history of this doctrine is commonly divided into three per nods,
the Patristic; the Scholastic; and the time of the Reformation and from that
event to the present day. The method which the writers on this subject have
usually adopted, is to pass in review in chronological order the distinguished
theologians living during these several periods, and present a general outline
of the teaching of each.
The two great objects to be accomplished by the work of Christ are, the
removal of the curse under which mankind laboured on account of sin; and their
restoration to the image and fellowship of God. Both these are essential to
salvation. We have guilt to be removed, and souls dead in sin to be quickened
with a new principle of divine life. Both these objects are provided for in
the doctrine of redemption as presented in the Scriptures and held in the
Church. In the opposing theories devised by theologians, either one of these
objects is ignored or one is unduly subordinated to the other. It was
characteristic of the early Greek church to exalt the latter, while the Latin
made the former the more prominent. In reviewing the history of the doctrine
it will be found that there are five general theories which comprise all the
numerous forms in which it has been held.
§ 1. The Orthodox View.
The first is that which has been for ages regarded as the orthodox
doctrine; in its essential features common to the Latin, Lutheran, and
Reformed churches. This is the doctrine which the writer has endeavoured to
exhibit and vindicate in the preceding pages. According to this doctrine the
work of Christ is a real satsfaction, of infinite inherent merit, to the
vindicatory justice of God; so that He saves his people by doing for them, and
in their stead, what they were unable to do for themselves, satisfying the
demands of the law in their behalf, and bearing its penalty in their stead;
whereby they are reconciled to God, receive the Holy Ghost, and are made
partakers of the life of Christ to their present sanctification and eternal
salvation.
This doctrine provides for both the great objects above mentioned. It
shows how the curse of the law is removed by Christ's being made a curse for
us; and how in virtue of this reconciliation with God we become, through the
Spirit, partakers of the life of Christ. He is made unto us not only
righteousness, but sanctification. We are cleansed by his blood from guilt,
and renewed by his Spirit after the image of God. Having died in Him, we live
in Him. Participation of his death secures participation of his life.
§ 2. Doctrine of some of the Fathers.
The second theory is that which prevailed extensively among the
fathers. It was intended only as a solution of the question how Christ
delivers us from the power of Satan. It contemplated neither the removal of
guilt nor the restoration of divine life; but simply .our deliverance from the
power of Satan. It was founded on those passages of Scriptures which represent
man since the fall as in bondage to the prince of darkness. The object of
redemption was to deliver mankind from this bondage. This could only be done
by in some way overcoming Satan and destroying his right or power to hold men
as his slaves. This Christ has effected, and thus becomes the Redeemer of men.
This general theory is presented in three different forms. The first appeals
to the old principle of the rights of war, according to which the conquered
became the slaves of the conqueror. Satan conquered Adam, and thus became the
rightful owner of him and his posterity. Hence he is called the god and prince
of this world. To deliver men from this dreaded bondage, Christ offered
Himself as a ransom to Satan. Satan accepted the offer, and renounced his
right to retain mankind as his slaves. Christ, however, broke the bonds of
Satan, whose power was founded upon the sinfulness of his subjects. Christ
being divine, and without sin, could not be held subject to his power. In
answer to the question, How Satan could accept Christ as the ransom for men,
if he knew Him to be a divine person? it was said that he did not know Him to
be divine, because his divinity was veiled by his humanity. And then in answer
to the question, How he could accept of Him as a ransom, if he regarded Him as
merely a man? it is said that he saw that Christ was unspeakably superior to
other men, and perhaps one of the higher order of angels, whom he might hope
securely to retain. The second form of this theory does not regard Christ as a
ransom paid to Satan, but as a conqueror. As Satan conquered mankind and made
them his slaves; so Christ became a man, and, in our nature, conquered Satan;
and thus acquired the right to deliver as from our bondage and to consign
Satan himself to chains and darkness.
The third form of the theory is, that as the right and power of Satan
over man is founded on sin, he exceeded his authority when he brought about
the death of Christ, who was free from all sin; and thus justly forfeited his
authority over men altogether. This general theory that Christ's great work,
as a Redeemer, was to deliver man from bondage to Satan, and that the ransom
was paid to Him and not to God; or that the difficulty in the way of our
salvation was the right which Satan had acquired to us as slaves, which right
Christ in some way cancelled, was very prevalent for a long time in the
Church. It is found in Irenaeus, Origen, Theodoret, Basil, Cyril of Jerusalem,
Augustine, Jerome, Hilary, Leo the Great, and others.1
The Scriptural foundation for this view of the work of Christ is very slight.
It is true that men are the captives of Satan, and under his dominion. It is
true that Christ gave Himself as a ransom; and that by the payment of that
ransom wc are freed from bondage to the prince of darknesL But it does not
follow that the ransom was paid to Satan, or that he had any just claim to his
authority over the children of men. What the Scriptures teach on this subject
is, --
1. That man by sin became subject to the penalty of the divine law.
2. That Satan has the office of inflicting that penalty in so far as he
is allowed to torment and degrade the children of men.
3. That Christ by his death having satisfied the penalty of the law, of
course has delivered us from the power of Satan. See especially Hebrews ii.
14. But this gives no ground for the doctrine that Satan had any claim in
justice to hold mankind as his slaves; or that Christ offered Himself as a
ransom to the prince of this world. This doctrine was strenuously opposed in
the early Church by Gregory of Nyssa, and has long since passed into oblivion.
The only interest which it now has is as a matter of history. It is of course
not to be supposed that the great lights of the Church above mentioned
believed that the whole work of Christ as the Saviour of men consisted in his
delivering us from the power of Satan; that they ignored his office as a high
priest unto God, or denied the effect of his death as an expiation for sin, or
forgot that He is to us the source of spiritual life. These doctrines are as
clearly asserted by them from time to time as are their peculiar views as to
our deliverance from the bondage of Satan. Even Origen, so unrestrained in his
thinking, and so disposed to explain Christian truths philosophically, teaches
the catholic doctrine with perfect distinctness. In his comment on Romans iii.
25, 26, he says,2
"Cum dixisset, quod pro omni genere humano redemptionem semetipsum dedisset, .
. . nunc addit aliquid sublimius et dicit, quia 'proposuit eum Deus
propitiationem per fidem in sanguine ipsius:' quo scilicet per hostiam sui
corporis propitium hominibus faceret Deum, et per hoc ostenderet
justitiam suam. . . . Deus enim justus est, et justus justificare non
poterat injustos, ideo interventum voluit esse propitiatoris, ut per ejus
fidem justificarentur qui per opera propria justificari non poterant." No one
of the Reformers gives a clearer utterance to the truth than is contained in
these words. So also he says,3
"Posuit ergo et manum suam super caput vituli: hoc est peccata generis humani
imposuit super caput suum. Ipse est enim caput corporis ecclesliae suae." In
all ages of the Church, by the early fathers as well as in subsequent periods,
the language of the New Testament in reference to Christ and his work is
retained. He is familiarly called priest, and high priest, and held up as a
sacrifice for sin, as a redeemer, as a ransom, and as one who cancelled our
debts. As the early fathers were conversant with sacrifices, and knew the
light in which they were regarded by the ancient world, that both heathen and
Jewish sacrifices were expiatory, there is little doubt that the fathers, in
calling Christ a sacrifice, meant to recognize Him as an expiation for our
sins, although it is admitted that great vagueness, variety, and inconsistency
prevail in their utterances on this subject. The whole activity of the
cultivated minds was in the early ages directed first to the doctrines of the
Trinity and of the person of Christ, and subsequently to those concerning sin
and grace.
§ 3. The Moral Theory.
A third general theory concerning the work of Christ is that which
rejects all idea of expiation, or of the satisfaction of justice by vicarious
punishmend, and attributes all the efficacy of his work to the moral effect
produced on the hearts of men by his character, teachings, and acts. On this
account it is usually desigriated the "moral view of the atonement." The
assumption is that there is no such attribute in God as justice; i. e., no
perfection which renders it necessary, or morally obligatory, 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 sinners 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
reformation 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 restoration 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.4
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 harmony
with the eternal will, and which never is and never can be 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 the only ground on which the 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.5
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 causations provoked
by their sins." Remission is declared to be "spiritual 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 necessarily produces.
The idea of pardon, in the latter case, is as incongruous as in the former.
The Bible, however, is full of the promises of forgiveness and of the prayers
of the penitent for pardoning 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 who 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 expiation or rendered a satisfaction to justice for the sins of the
prodigal.
This moral view of the atonement, as it is called, has been presented
in different forms. In the first form the work of Christ in the salvation of
men is confined to his office of teacher. He introduced a new and higher form
of religion, by which men were redeemed from the darkness and degradation of
heathenism. This was so great a good, and so patent to the eyes of those who
themselves were converts from heathenism, and who were surrounded by its
evils, that it is not wonderful that some of the fathers exalted 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 Christ as the Redeemer from heathenism, He was still regarded by all
Christians as a sacrifice and a ransom. In later times these latter aspects cf
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 sufferings of Christ, this feature
of the Scriptural teaching cannot be overlooked. It is therefore said that He
saves us, not as a sacrifice, 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 entire 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 the
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 presence of beings imbued with love. Still Christ in his work
occupies a place peculiar and preeminent, and therefore we are Christians; we
recognize Christ as the greatest of Saviours.
Such is the view elaborately presented by 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 by the instincts of his own
religious nature and by the authority of the Word of God. He says, "In the
facts [of our Lord's passion], outwardly regarded, there is no sacrifice, or
oblation, or atonement, or propitiation, but simply a living and dying thus
and thus. The facts are impressive; the person is clad in a wonderful dignity
and beauty; the agony is eloquent of love; and the cross a very shocking
murder triumphantly met. And if then the question arises, how we are to use
such a history so as to be reconciled by it, we hardly know in what way to
begin. How shall we come unto God by help of this martyrdom? How shall we turn
it, or turn ourselves under it, so as to be justified and set in peace with
God? Plainly there is a want here, and this want is met by giving a
thought-form to the facts which is not in the facts themselves. They are put
directly into the moulds of the altar, and we are called to accept the
crucified God-man as our sacrifice, an offering or oblation for us, our
propitiation; so as to be sprinkled from our evil conscience, washed, purged,
purified, cleansed from our sin. Instead of leaving the matter of the facts
just as they occurred, there is a reverting to familiar forms of thought, made
familiar partly for this purpose; and we are told, in brief, to use the facts
just as we would the sin-offerings of the altar, and make an altar grace of
them, only a grace complete and perfect, an offering once for all. . . . So
much is there in this that, without these forms of the altar, we should be
utterly at a loss in making any use of the Christian facts, that would set us
in a condition of practical reconciliation with God. Christ is good,
beautiful, wonderful, his disinterested love is a picture by itself, his
forgiving patience melts into my feeling, his passion rends open my heart, but
what is He for, and how shall He be made unto me the salvation I want? One
word -- HE IS MY SACRIFICE -- opens all to me, and beholding Him, with all my
sin upon Him, I count Him my offering, I come unto God by Him and enter into
the holiest by his blood." "We want to use these altar terms just as freely as
they are used by those who accept the formula of expiation or judicial
satisfaction for sin; in just their manner too, when they are using them most
practically." "We cannot afford to lose these sacred forms of the altar. They
fill an office which nothing else can fill, and serve a use which cannot be
served without them."6
Objections to this Theory.
The obvious objections to this moral view of the atonement in all its
forms, are, --
1. That while it retains some elements of the truth, in that it
recognizes the restoration of man to holiness and God, as the great end of the
work of Christ, and regards his work as involving the greatest possible or
conceivable manifestation of divine love, which manifestation is the most
powerful of all natural influences to operate on the hearts of men; yet it
leaves out entirely what is essential to the Scriptural doctrine of atonement.
The Bible exhibits Christ as a priest, as offering Himself a sacrifice for the
expiation of our sins, as bearing our sins in his own body on the tree, as
having been made a curse for us, and as giving Himself is a ransom for our
redemption. The Scriptures teach that this expiation of guilt is absolutely
necessary before the souls of the guilty can be made the subjects of renewing
and sanctifying grace. Before this expiation they are spiritually dead under
the penalty of the law, which is death in all its forms. And therefore while
thus under the curse, all the moral influences in the world would be as
useless as noonday light to give sight to the blind, or sanitary measures to
raise the dead. In rejecting, therefore, the doctrine of expiation, or
satisfaction to justice, this theory rejects the very essence of the
Scriptural doctrine of atonement.
2. This theory does not meet the necessities of our condition. We are
sinners; we are guilty as well as polluted. The consciousness of our
responsibility to justice, and of the necessity of satisfying its demands, is
as undeniable and as indestructible as our consciousness of pollution.
Expiation for the one is as much a necessity as sanctification for the other.
No form of religion, therefore, which excludes the idea of expiation, or which
fails to provide for the removal of guilt in a way which satisfies the reason
and conscience, can be suited to our necessities. No such religion has ever
prevailed among men, or can by possibility give peace to a burdened
conscience. It is because the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed as a propitiation
for our sins, as bearing in our stead the penalty which we had incurred, that
his blood cleanses us from all sin, and gives that peace which passes all
understanding.
The idea that there is no forgiveness with God; that by inexorable law
He deals with his creatures according to their subjective state and character,
and that therefore the only salvation necessary or possible is sanctification,
is appalling. No man is in such an inward state, either during life or at
death, that he can stand before God to be dealt with according to that state.
His only hope is that God will, and does, deal with his people, not as they
are in themselves, but as they are in Christ, and for his sake; that He loves
and has fellowship with us although polluted and defiled, as a parent loves
and delights in a misshapen and unattractive child. We should be now and
always in hell, if the doctrine of Dr. Young were true, that justice by an
inexorable law always takes effect, and that sin is always punished wherever
it exists, as soon as it is manifested, and as long as it continues. God is
something more than the moral order of the universe; He does not administer
his moral government by inexorable laws over which He has no control. He can
have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and compassion on whom He will have
compassion. He can and does render sinners happy, in spite of their sin, for
Christ's sake, remitting to them its penalty while its power is only partially
broken; fostering them, and rejoicing over them until their restoration to
spiritual health be completed. Anything that turns the sinner's regard inward
on himself as a ground of hope, instead of bidding him took to Christ, must
plunge him into despair, and despair is the portal of eternal death. In any
view, therefore, whether as bold rationalistic Deism, or as the most
high-toned portraiture of divine love, the moral theory of the atonement
presents no rational, because no Scriptural, ground for a sinner's hope toward
God. He must have a better righteousness than his own. He must have some one
to appear before God in his stead to make expiation for sin, and to secure for
him, independently of his own subjective state, the full pardon of all his
offences, and the gift of the Holy Ghost.
3. All the arguments presented on the preceding pages, in favour of the
doctrine of expiation, are of course arguments against a theory which rejects
that doctrine. Besides, this theory evidently changes the whole plan of
salvation. It alters all our relations to Christ, as our head and
representative, and the ground of our acceptance with God; and consequently it
changes the nature of religion. Christianity is one thing if Christ is a
sacrifice for sin; and altogether a different thing if He is only a moral
reformer, an example, a teacher, or even a martyr. We need a divine Saviour if
He is to bear our iniquities, and to make satisfaction for the sins of the
world; but a human saviour is all that is needed if the moral theory of the
atonement is to be adopted. Gieseler says, what every Christian knows must be
true without being told, that the fathers in treating of the qualificationa of
Christ as a Saviour, insisted that He must be, (1.) God; (2.) a man; and (3.)
as man free from sin.7
It is a historical fact that the two doctrines of the divinity of Christ, and
expiation through th blood of the Son of God, have gone hand in hand. The one
has seldom been long held by those who deny the other. The doctrine of
expiation, therefore, is so wrought into the whole system of revealed truth,
that its rejection effects a radical change, not only in the theology but also
in the religion of the Bible.
§ 4. The Governmental Theory.
This theory was introduced into the Church by Grotius, in the
seventeenth century. He wrote in opposition to the Socinians, and therefore
his book is entitled: "Defensio fidei catholicae de satisfactione Christi." It
is in point of learning and ability all that could be expected from one of the
greatest men of his generation. The design with which the book was written,
and the universally received formulas of expression at that time prevailing,
to the use of which Grotius adheres, give his work an aspect of orthodoxy. He
speaks of satisfaction to justice, of propitiation, of the penal character of
our Lord's sufferings, of his death as a vicarious sacrifice, and of his
bearing the guiltof our sins. In short, so far as the use of terms is
concerned, there is hardly any departure from the doctrine of the Reformed
Church, of which he was then a member. Different principles, however,
underlaid his whole theory, and, therefore, a different sense was to be
attached to the terms he used. There was, after all, no real satisfaction of
justice, no real substitution, and no real enduring of the penalty of the law.
His Socinian opponents, when they came to answer his book, said that he had
given up all the main principles in dispute. Grotius was a jurist as well as a
theologian, and looked at the whole subject from a juridical standpoint. The
main elements of his theory are, --
1. That in the forgiveness of sin God is to be regarded neither as an
offended party, nor as a creditor, nor as a master, but as a moral governor. A
creditor can remit the debt due to him at pleasure; a master may punish or not
punish as he sees fit; but a ruler must act, not according to his feelings or
caprice, but with a view to the best interests of those under his authority.
Grotius says that the overlooking the distinctions above indicated is the
fundamental error of the Socinians.8
In opposition to this view, he says: "Omnio hic Deum considerandum, ut
rectorem. Nam poenas infligere, aut a poenis aliquem liberare, quam punire
possis, quod justificare vocat Scriptura, non est nisi rectoris qua talis
primo et per se: ut, puta, in familia patris; in republica regis, in universo
Dei."9
2. The end of punishment is the prevention of crime, or the
preservation of order and the promotion of the best interests of the
community. "Justitiae rectoris pars est servare leges etiam positivas et a se
latas, quod verum esse tam in universitate libera quam in rege summo probant
jurisconsulti: cui illud est consequens, ut rectori relaxare legem non liceat,
nisi causa aliqua accedat, si non necessaria, certe sufficiens: quae itidem
recepta est a jurisconsultis sententia. Ratio utriusque est, quod actus
ferendi aut relaxandi legem non sit actus absoluti dominii, sed actus imperii,
qui tendere debeat ad boni ordinis conversationem."10
On a previous page, he had said, in more general terms: "Poena omnis
propositum habet bonum commune, ordinis nimirum conservationem et exemplum."
3. As a good governor cannot allow sin to be committed with immunity,
God cannot pardon the sins of men without some adequate exhibition of his
displeasure, and of his determination to punish it. This was the design of the
sufferings and death of Christ. God punished sin in Him as an example. This
example was the more impressive on account of the dignity of Christ's person,
and therefore in view of his death, God can consistently with the best
interests of his government remit the penalty of the law in the case of
penitent believers.
4. Punishment, Grotius defined as suffering inflicted on account of
sin. It need not be imposed on account of the personal demerit of the
sufferer; nor with the design of satisfying justice, in the ordinary and
proper sense of that word. It was enough that it should be on account of sin.
As the sufferings of Christ were caused by our sins, insomuch as they were
designed to render their remission consistent with the interest of God's moral
government, they fall within this comprehensive definition of the word
punishment. Grotius, therefore, could say that Christ suffered the punishment
of our sins, as his sufferings were an example of what sin deserved.
5. The essence of the atonement, therefore, according to Grotius
consisted in this, that the sufferings and death of Christ were designed as an
exhibition of God's displeasure against sin. They were intended to teach that
in the estimation of God sin deserves to be punished, and, therefore, that the
impenitent cannot escape the penalty due to their offences. "Nihil iniquitatis
in eo est quod Deus, cujus est summa potestas ad omnia per se non injusta,
null ipse legi obnoxius, cruciatibus et morte Christi uti voluit, ad
statuendum exemplum grave adversus culpas immensas nostrum omnium, quibus
Christus erat conjunctissimus, natura, regno vadimonio."11
Again: "Hoc ipso Deus non tantum suum adversus peccata odium testatum fecit,
ac proinde nos hoc facto a peccatis deterruit (facilis enim est collectio, si
Deus ne resipiscentibus quidem peccata remittere voluit, nisi Christo in
poenas succedente, multo minus inultos sinet contumaces) verum insigni modo
insuper patefecit summum erga nos amorem ac benevolentiam: quod ille scilicet
nobis pepercit, cui non erat avdi,aforon,
indifferens, punire peccata, sed qui tanti id faciebat, ut potius quam
impunita omnino dimitteret, Filium suum unigenitum ob illa peccata, poenis
tradident."12
It thus appears that, according to this theory, the work of Christ was purely
didactic. It was designed to teach, by way of an example, God's hatred of sin.
The cross was but a symbol.
Remonstrants.
The Synod of Dort met two years after the publication of the work in
which this theory was propounded. Grotius joined those who remonstrated
against the decisions of that Synod, and who on that account were called
Remonstrants. The Remonstrant theologians, however, did not as a class adhere
to Grotius's peculiar doctrine. They did not regard the work of Christ as a
governmental transaction, but adhered to the Scriptural mode of
representation. They spoke of his death as a sacrifice and ransom. They
rejected indeed the Church doctrine. They denied that what Christ did was a
satisfaction of justice; that He bore the penalty of the law; that He acted as
our substitute, fulfilling in our place all the demands of the law. As these
ideas have no part, according to their view, in the doctrine of sacrifices for
sin, so they have no place in the true doctrine concerning the work of Christ.
Under the Old Testament a sacrifice was not an equivalent for the penalty
incurred; it was not a satisfaction to justice; the victim did not do what the
offerer ought to have done. It was simply a divine ordinance. God saw fit to
ordain that the offering a sacrifice should be the condition of the pardon of
the violatons of the ceremonial law. So also He has seen fit to ordain that
the sacrificial death of Christ should be the condition of the pardon of sin
under the gospel. Even a ransom is no proper equivalent. The holder of a
captive may take what he pleases as the condition of deliverance. On this
point Limborch says: "In eo errant quam maxime, quod velint redemtionis
pretium per omnia aequivalens esse debere miseriae illi, e qua redemtio fit,
redemtionis pretium enim constitui solet pro libera aestimatione illius, qui
captivum detinet, non autem pro captivi merito. Ita pretium, quod Christus
persolvit, juxta Dei patris aestimationem persolutum est."13
This is the old Scholastic doctrine of "acceptatio;" a thing avails,
irrespective of its inherent value, for what God sees fit to take it. The
death of Christ was no more a satisfaction for sin, than that of bulls and of
goats under the old dispensation. God saw fit to make the latter the condition
of the pardon of violations of the ceremonial law; and He has seen fit to make
the former the condition of the pardon of sins against the moral law.
The Supernaturalists.
Although the Remonstrants as a body did not accept of the governmental
theory as proposed by Grotius, his main idea was frequently reproduced by
subsequent writers. This was done especially by the Supernaturalists in
Germany in their endeavour to save something from the destructive principles
of the Rationalists. They conceded that the work of Christ was not strictly a
satisfaction to justice. They taught that it was necessary as an example and a
symbol.14
It was designed as a manifestation of God's displeasure against sin; and,
therefore, necessary to render its forgiveness consistent with the interests
of God's moral government. This is true of Staudlin, Flatt, and even of Storr.
Speaking of the first of these writers, Baur says, "It was admitted that in
the New Testament doctrine concerning the death of Jesus the Old Testament
idea of a sin offering as a substitute and satisfaction was actually
contained, and therefore that the Church doctrine of satisfaction agreed with
the literal sense of the Scriptures; yet it was insisted upon that this
literal doctrine of the Bible involved difficulties affecting our moral
nature, and was evil in its practical effects, and inconsistent with what the
Scriptures themselves elsewhere taught of guilt, merit, imputation, and of
God's justice." Hence, he goes on to say, that to escape from this dilemma it
was taught that when in the New Testament it is said "that Jesus suffered
punishment in the place of men, and procured for them the forgiveness of sin,
this can only mean that God, through the death of Christ and the sufferings
therewith connected, declared himself to be the righteous judge of all evil."15
C. Ch. Flatt endeavoured to find "a middle way bctween the course of
those who introduced into the Scriptures their own philosophical opinions, or
the philosophy of the age in which they lived, and the strict grammatical,
historical interpretation of those who insisted on taking the words of
Scripture either in their etymological sense, or in that sense in which it can
he historically proved that at least a part of the contemporaries of the
sacred writers anderstood them, or which stupid Rabbinical literalists
attached to certain phrases without regard to the fact how often the meaning
of words, without a change of form, through higher culture and refinement of
moral feeling, is spiritualized and ennobled."16
This middle way, according to Flatt, leads to the conclusion that the main
design of Christ's death as viewed by Himself was effectually to correct the
false ideas of the Jews concerning the Messiah's kingdom as one of earthly
splendor, and to open the way for the entrance of his doctrine which taught
that blessedness is to be secured by moral excellence. This doctrine of Flatt
agrees with the governmental theory so far as it denies the Church doctrine of
a satisfaction to justice, and makes the design of Christ's death purely
didactic.
Storr, in all his works, and especially in his "Commentary on the
Epistle to the Hebrews," and his dissertation on the design of Christ's death,
makes the Scriptures his authoritative guide, and therefore approaches much
nearer to the Church doctrine than perhaps any German theologian of his
generation. He assumes that Christ as man was bound to render the same
obedience to the divine law as is due from all other men. But in virtue of the
union of his human with the divine nature He as man was entitled to all the
exaltation and blessedness of which humanity is capable. Any reward,
therefore, for his perfect obedience, are especially for his death on the
cross, must be some benefit granted to others for his sake. The salvation of
his people, therefore, is the Redeemer's reward. Such benefit, however, could
not consistently be bestowed on sinners unless the death of Christ had been a
vindication of the righteousness of God by being intended as an "example of
punishment;" a manifestation of God's hatred of sin and of his determination
to punish it.17
American Theologians.
The governmental theory of the atonement seems to have had an entirely
independent origin in this country. It was the necessary consequence of the
principle that all virtue consists in benevolence. If that principle be
correct, all the moral attributes of God are modifications of benevolence.
There is no such perfection in God as justice other than the purpose and
disposition to promote happiness. The death of Christ, therefore, could have
no other design than to render the forgiveness of sin consistent with the best
interests of the moral government of God. This theory was elaborated by the
younger President Edwards, presented in full in Dr. Beman's work on the
Atonement, and adopted by that numerous and highly influential class of
American theologians who embraced the principle on which the theory, as held
in this country, is founded. In the work of Dr. E. A. Park, of Andover, on the
Atonement, there is a collection of discourses from the pens of the most
distinguished teachers of this doctrine. In the introduction to that volume
Professor Park gives an interesting history of the development of this view of
the atonement as held in this country.
Objections to the Theory.
1. The first and most obvious objection to this theory is that it is
founded on an erroneous idea of the nature of punishment. It assumes that the
special design of punishment is the good of society. If the best interests of
a commnunity, either human or divine, a commonwealth of men or the moral
government of God, can be secured without the punishment of crime, then no
such punishment ought to be inflicted. But suffering inflicted for the good of
others is not punishment any more than suffering inflicted for the good of the
sufferer. The amputation of a crushed limb is not of the nature of punishment,
neither are the sufferings of martyrs, although intended to redound to the
good of the Church and of the world. The sufferings of Paul, which were so
abundant and so constant, although so fruitful of good, were not penal. And
the sufferings of Christ, if incurred in the discharge of his mission of
mercy, and not judicially inflicted in execution of the penalty of the law,
had no more tendency to show God's abhorrence of sin than the suffering of the
martyrs.
No evil is of the nature of punishment unless it be inflicted in
satisfaction of justice and in execution of the penalty of law. A writer in
the "British Quarterly Review" for October, 1866, says: "There is a story of
an English judge who once said to a criminal, 'You are transported not because
you have stolen these goods, but that goods may not be stolen.'" The reviewer
then adds, "No principle more false in itself or more ruinous to public
morality was ever announced from the English bench. The whole moral effect of
punishment lies in its being just. The man who suffers for the benefit of
others is a martyr and not a convict." It is on this false principle that the
whole governmental theory of the atonement is founded. It admits of no ground
of punishment but the benefit of others. And if that benefit can be otherwise
secured all necessity for punishment ceases, and all objection to the
dispensing of pardon is removed. If the fundamental principle of a theory be
false, the theory itself must be unsound.
2. The theory contradicts the intuitive moral judgments of men. The
testimony of every man's conscience in view of his own sins is that he
deserves to be punished, not for the good of others, but for his own demerit.
If not guilty he cannot justly be punished; and if guilty he cannot justly be
pardoned without satisfaction to justice. As this is the testimony of
conscience with regard to our own sins, it is the testimony of the
consciousness of all men with regard to the sins of others. When a great crime
is committed, the instinctive judgment of men is that the perpetrators ought
to be punished. No analysis of human consciousness can resolve this sentiment
of justice into a conviction of the understanding that the interests of
society demand the punishment of crime. That indeed is true. It is one of the
incidental benefits, but not the special design or end of punishment. Indeed,
the whole moral effect of punishment depends upon the assumption that it is
inflicted on the ground of ill desert, and not for the public good. If the
latter object be made prominent, punishment loses its nature and of course its
appropriate moral effect. A theory which ignores these intuitive convictions
of the mind is not suited to our state, and never can satisfy the conscience.
We know that we deserve to be punished. We know that we ought to be punished,
and therefore that punishment is inevitable under the government of a just
God. If it is not borne by a substitute in our stead, it must be borne by
ourselves. Where there is no expiation for sin there is inevitably a fearful
looking for of judgment.
3. All the arguments heretofore urged in proof that the justice of God
cannot be resolved into benevolence are valid arguments against the
governmental theory of the atonement. The doctrine that happiness is the
highest good, and that all virtue consists in the desire and purpose to
promote the greatest possible amount of happiness, is almost discarded from
the schools, and should be discarded from theology where it has wrought so
much evil. It is so inconsistent with our moral nature, to assert that there
is no difference between right and wrong except that between the expedient and
the inexpedient, that the doctrine could never have been adopted except as a
means of solving difficulties for the understanding, at the expense of the
conscience. This point has been already considered when treating of the
attributes of God and of the design of creation; and therefore it need not be
further discussed in this place.
4. A fourth argument against the governmental theory is that it is
unscriptural. The Bible constantly represents Christ as a priest, as a
sacrifice, as a propitiation, as an expiation, as the substitute and
representative of sinners; as assuming their place and sustaining the curse or
penalty of the law in their stead. All these representations are either
ignored or explained away by the advocates of this theory. Governments, civil
commonwealths, from which the principles and illustrations of this theory are
derived, know nothing of priests, sacrifices, and vicarious punishments. And,
therefore, these ideas do not enter, and cannot be admitted into the
governmental theory. But these ideas are the vital elements of the Scriptural
doctrine of the atonement; so that if we renounce them we renounce the
doctrine itself, or at least seriously impair its integrity and power. Whole
volumes on the atonement have been written in which the words priest, sacrice,
and propitiation hardly occur.
5. This theory, as well as the moral view of the atonement is false,
because defective. As it is true that the work of Christ is designed and
adapted to exert the most powerful moral influence on sinners to induce them
to return to God, so it is true that his work was designed and adapted to
produce the strongest possible impression on the minds of all intelligent
creatures of the evil of sin, and thus restrain them from the commission of
it, but neither the one nor the other was its primary design. It has this
moral impression on the sinner and upon the intelligent universe, because it
was a satisfaction to the justice of God, and the strongest of all proofs that
sin cannot be pardoned without an expiation, or adequate atonement.
§ 5. The Mystical Theory.
The fifth theory on this subject is the mystical. This agrees with the
moral view (under which it might be included), in that it represents the
design of Christ's work to be the production of a subjective effect in the
sinner. It produces a change in him. It overcomes the evil of his nature and
restores him to a state of holiness. The two systems differ, however, as to
the means by which this inward change is accomplished. According to the one it
is by moral power operating according to the laws of mind by the exhibition of
truth and the exercise of moral influence. According to the other it is by the
mysterious union of God and man, of the divine with the human nature, i. e.,
of divinity with humanity, brought about by the incarnation.
This general idea is presented in various forms. Sometimes the writers
quoted in favour of this mystical view teach nothing more ihan what has ever
been held in the Church, and what is clearly caught in the Scriptures.. It is
true that there is a moral and spiritual union between God and man effected by
the incarnation of the Son of God and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He
and his people are one. Our Lord prays to the Father, John xvii. 22, 23, that
those given to Him "may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in
me." And the Apostle Peter does not hesitate to say that we are made
"partakers of the divine nature." This, and no more than this, is necessarily
implied in the oft-quoted language of Athanasius in reference to Christ,
auvto.j evnhnqrw,phsen( i[na h`mei/j qeopoihqw/men.
But besides this Scriptural doctrue there has prevailed a mystical view of the
union of God and man to which the redemption of our race is ascribed, and in
which, by some of its advocates, it is made exclusiveiy to consist. So far as
the fathers are concerned, a clear distinction was made between redemption and
reconciliation; between the objective work of Christ in delivering us from the
curse of the law and from the power of Satan, and the subjective application
of that work. Both were ascribed to Christ. The former (our redemption), was
effected by his bearing our sins, by his being made a curse for us, by his
giving Himself as a ransom, and by his obedience bcing taken as a substitute
for the obedience which we had failed to render. Our reconciliation with God,
including restoration to his image and fellowship, was effected, not, as the
Church has ever taught, by the work of the Holy Spirit, but according to the
mystical theory, by the union of the divine nature with our fallen nature,
brought about by the incarnation. In all ages of the Church there have been
minds disinclined to rest in the simple statements of the Bible, and disposed
to strive after something more philosophical and profound. Among the early
fathers, Munscher says, there was an obscure and peculiar notion that in some
way the coming of Christ had produced a physical effect upon our race to
ennoble it and render it immortal.18
At times this idea is advanced in general terms and without any attempt to
explain philosophically how this effect was produced. As Adam was the cause of
the seeds of death and corruption being introduced into human nature, so
Christ was the means of introducing a principle of life and immortality which
operates as leaven in a mass of dough. Or, as any affection of one member of
the body, especially of the head, affects the whole system, so the
resurrection of Christ and his life has a physical effect upon the whole mass
of mankind. They regarded the human race as one mass which, inasmuch as Christ
had united Himself with it by his incarnation, was restored to its original
perfection and made immortal.19
This idea was more perfectly worked out by the realists. They held humanity to
be a generic substance and life, of which individual men are the modes of
existence; and they also held that it was this generic humanity, and not
merely a true body and a reasonable soul that Christ assumed into personal
union with his divine nature; thus an element of divinity was introduced into
humanity, by which it is restored and ennobled, and according to some, finally
deified.
Among the Platonizing fathers, however, the mystcal operation of the
incarnation was connected with their doctrine of the Logos. What the real
doctrine of the fathers and of Philo their predecessor and master in his
matter concerning the Logos was, has ever been a matter of dispute among the
learned. It is not at all even yet a settled matter whether Philo regarded the
Logos as a person or not. Dorner, one of the latest and most competent
authorities on this point, takes the negative side of the question. According
to him Philo taught that the Logos was (1.) A faculty of God, the
nou/j or understanding, and also the power of God.
The two are united; thought and power. (2.) The Logos is the activity of God;
not merely the power of thought and of creating, but also the actual activity
of God in thinking and creating. God first created by thinking an ideal world,
after which the actual world was to be fashioned. As a builder forms in his
mind the plan of a city in all its details, before he carries that plan into
execution; and as the dwelling-place of that ideal city is the understanding
of the builder, so the ideal world is in the mind of God, i. e, in the Logos.
(3.) According to Philo the Logos is not only the thinking prnciple which
forms this ideal world, but the ideal world itself. (4.) This plenitude of
ideas which constitutes the ideal world is the reality, life, and intelligence
of the actual world. The latter is (or becomes) by the union of the ideal with
matter, what it is. The ko,smoj nohto,j is realized
in the ko,smoj aivsqhto,j. The Logos, therefore (or
the divine intelligence and activity), is the life and intelligence of the
actual world. He is the reason in all rational creatures, angels and men.20
According to Philo the Logos was on the one hand identical with God, and on
the other identical with the world as its interior reality and life.
In the hands of the Platonizing fathers this doctrine was only
modified. Some of them, as Origen, held that the Logos was a person eternally
begotten of the Father; according to Clemens Alexandrinus, He was, as the
Logos evndia,qetoj, eternally in God as his wisdom,
and therefore impersonal; but as the Logos proforiko,j,
or united to the world as its formative principle, He became a person. In
applying these philosophical speculations to the explanation of the doctrine
concerning the person and work of Christ, there is no little diversity among
these writers, so far as the details are concerned. In substance they agree.
The eternal Logos or Son, became truly a man, and as such gave Himself as a
sacrifice and ransom for the redemption of men. He also by his incarnation
secures our recovery from the power of sin and restoration to the image and
fellowship of God. How this latter object is accomplished is the mystical part
of the theory. The Logos is the eternal Son of God; but He is also the
interior life and substance of the world. Rational creatures included in the
world, are endowed with personality and freedom. Some of them, both angels and
men, have turned away from the Logos which is their life. A renewed union of
the divine with the human restores them to their normal relation. The original
creation of man was imperfect. The divine element was not strong enough to
secure a right development, hence evil occurred. A larger infusion of the
divine element corrects the evil, and secures the restoration ultimately.
according to Origen, of all rational creatures to holiness and God. The Logos
is the Mediator, the High-Priest between God and man (or rather God and the
world). One with God, He is also one with the world. He unites the two, and
they become one. The system has a pantheistic aspect, although it admits the
freedom of rational creatures, and the separate existence, or an existence as
self of the world. The whole universe, however, God and world, is one vast
organism in which God is the only life and the only reason, and this life and
reason are the Logos. And it is by giving the Logos, the rational or spiritual
element, renewed power, that the world of rational creatures, who in the abuse
of their freedom have turned away from God, are brought back not only to a
real or substantial, but also to a cordial union with God, so that He becomes
all in all.
In the beginning of the ninth century John Scotus Erigena anticipated
most of the results of the highest modern speculation. Schelling and Hegel had
him for a predecessor and guide. With him "Creator et creatura unum est. Deus
est omnia, et omnia Deus." The creation is necessary and eternal; the
incarnation is necessary and eternal; and redemption is necessary and eternal.
All is process. An eternal unfolding of the infinite in the finite, and return
of the finite into the infinite. Erigena, from his place in history and his
relation to the Church, was forced to clothe his philosophy as much as
possible with the drapery of Christianity this secured for him an influence
which continued long after his death over later speculative theologians.
During the Middle Ages there was a succession of advocates of the
mystical theory. Some of them following Erigena adopted a system essentially
pantheistic; others were theistic. The one class strove to reduce Christianity
into a system of philosophy. They adopted the principle of Erigena, "Conficitur
inde, veram esse philosophiam veram religionem, conversimque, veram religionem
esse veram philosophiam." The two sources of knowledge are recta ratio
and vera auctoritas. Both are divine as coming from God. Reason
however, as first, is the higher, and nothing is to be admitted as true which
reason does not authenticate.21
The other class strove after fellowship with God. Both assumed rhat what
Munscher and Gieseler call the physical union of the divine and human
natures, was the normal and ultimate state of man. Whether this identity of
the two was effected by a perfect development of God in man and nature; or by
the elevation of the human until it is lost in the divine, the result is the
same. Man is deified. And therein is his salvation. And so far as Christ was
recognized as a Saviour at all, it was as the bond of union between the two,
or the channel through which the divine flows into the human. The incarnation
itself, the union of the divine and human natures, was the great saving act.
Christ redeems us by what He is, not by what He does. The race, say some, the
consummated Church, say others, is the God man, or God manifest in the flesh.
Almost all this class of writers held that the incarnation would have been
necessary, had man never sinned. The necessity arises out of the nature of God
and his relation to the world, and out of the nature and destiny of man.
Mystical Theory at the Time of the Reformation.
At the time of the Reformation the same mode of apprehending and
presenting Christianity was adopted. While the Reformers held to the great
objective truths of the Bible, to a historical Christ, to the reality and
necessity of his obedience and satisfaction as something done for us and in
our place, i. e., to an objective redemption and justification, a class of
writers soon appeared who insisted on what they called the Christ within us,
and merged the objective work of Christ into a subjective operation in the
souls of his people; or at least subordinated the former entirely to the
latter. A work, entitled "Die Deutsche Theologie" (German Theology), was
published during the lifetime of Luther, which contained a great amount of
important truth, and to which the illustrious reformer acknowledged himself
greatly indebted. In that book, however, the mystical element was carried to a
dangerous extreme. While the historical facts respecting Christ and his
redeeming work were allowed to remain, little stress was laid upon them. The
real value of the blessings received from Christ, was the change effected in
the soul itself; and that change was not referred to the work of the Holy
Spirit, so much as to the union af the divine nature with our nature, in
virtue of the incarnation. The book teaches that if it were possible for a man
to be as pure and obedient as Christ, he would become, through grace, what
Christ was by nature. Through this obedience he would become one with God.
Christ is not merely objective, isolated in his majesty, but we are all called
that God should be incarnate in us, or that we should become God.
Osiander.
Osiander and Schwenkfeld, two contemporaries of Luther, were both
advocates, although in different forms, of the same theory. Men are saved by
the substantial union of the divine nature with the nature of man. According
to Osiander justification is not by the imputation, but by the infusion of
righteousness. And the righteousness infused is not the righteousness of
Christ wrought out here on earth. What Christ did centuries ago cannot make us
righteous. What we receive is his divine nature. This is the specific doctrine
for which Osiander was denounced in the Form of Concord. Man, according to
him, was originally created not after the image of God as such, nor of the Son
as such, but of the Son as He was to become man. Manhood was eternally
included in the idea and nature of the Son of God. His incarnation was,
therefore, due to his nature, and not to the accident of man's sinning. The
idea of the incarnation is eternal, and in reference to it the whole universe
was created and all things consist. Christ's human nature is only the vehicle
for conveying to us his divine nature. In the vine, he says, there are two
natures, the one is the nature of the wood, which it retains, even if it
should be withered up; the other is "plane occulta, fructifera et vinifera
natura." And as the clusters of grapes could not have the vinous nature,
unless they were wood of the wood of the vine; so neither can we partake of
the divine nature of Christ, unless we, by faith and baptism, are so
incorporated with Him, as to be flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. But
the human nature of Christ, without the divinc (si sine Deo esset), would be
of no avail.22
Schwenkfeld.
While Osiander makes the divine nature of Christ as communicated to us
our righteousness and life, and regards his humanity as only the means of
communication, Schwenkfeld exalts the human into the divine, and regards this
divine human nature as the source of life to us. He agreed with Osiander in
making justification subjective, by the infusion of righteousness; and also in
teaching that the righteousness which is infused is the righteousness of
Christ; but instead of depreciating the human nature and making it only the
channel for communicating the divine, he laid special stress on the humanity
of Christ. The human nature of Christ was not a creature. It was formed out of
the substance of God; and after its sojourn on earth, was even as to the body,
rendered completely or perfectly divine, so that whatever can be predicated of
God, can be predicated of the humanity of Christ. Nevertheless, the human
nature was not so absorbed into the divinity, that Christ had but one nature.
He continues God and man, but as man is God. And this divine human, or human
divine nature, is communicated to us by faith. Faith itself is the first
communication of the divine essence, the final result of which is the complete
deification of man. The substance of God is not communicated to the race of
men, so that God becomes thus identified with men in general. It is in the
regenerated that this union of the divine and human natures is consummated. It
cannot escape notice, that the views of this class of writers, so far as
results are concerned, differ but little from those of the modern speculative
theologians of Germany and their followers in England and America. The obvious
objection, that if salvation depends on the union of the divine nature with
ours, and if this union be due to the incarnation of Christ, those living
before his advent in the flesh must be excluded from the benefits of his
theanthropic nature, is very unsatisfactorily answered by the modern
theologians referred to. Schwenkfeld had no hesitation in cutting the knot. In
a Sendbrief written in 1532, in which he treats of the difference between the
Old and New Testament economies, he says, that under the former there was no
saving faith, and no justification, and that all the patriarchs had therefore
perished forever.
Schwenkfeld's followers were numerous enough to form a distinct sect,
which continues to this day. Some religionists, both in Germany and in this
country, are still called by his name. All the writers on the history of
doctrine give the authorities for the statements concerning the doctrines of
Osiander and Schwenkfeld derived from sources not generally accessible in this
country.
Oetinger.
The prominent representative of the mystical theory during the
eighteenth century, was Friedrich Christopher Oetinger, a distinguished
theologian of South Germany. He was born in 1702, and died in 1782. He enjoyed
every advantage of culture in science, theology, and philosophy, which he
diligently improvect After his death it was said, "When Octinger died a whole
academy of science died." Very early in life, he says, he adopted and avowed
the purpose, "to understand whatever he learnt." By this he meant that he
would receive nothing on authority. All that the Scriptures teach as doctrine,
must be sublimated into truths of the reason and received, as such. He avowed
it to be his purpose to furnish a philosophia sacra as a substitute for
the systems of profane philosophy. For this purpose he devoted himself to the
study of all previously received systems, extending his researches to the
cabala of the Jews, and the mystical writers of the Church; to alchemy awl to
all departments of science within his reach. He professed special reverence
for Jacob Bohme, the great unlettered theosophist of the preceding century, to
whom even Schelling and other of the leading modern philosophers bow as to an
acknowledged seer. Oetinger examined the several systems in vogue before or
during, his own period. Idealism and materialism, and realistic dualism were
alike unsatisfactory. He assumed life to be the primordial principle. Life was
the aggregate of all forces. These in God are united by a bond of necessity.
In things out of God the union of these forces is not necessary; and hence
evil may arise, and has, in fact, arisen. To remove this evil and bring all
things back to God, the eternal Logos became man. He adopted the old Platonic
idea, that in the Logos were the originales rerum antequam exstiterunt
formae: omnia constiterunt in ipso arehetypice sive actu. This plenitude
of the Godhead dwells in Christ and renders his humanity divine. The union of
the divine and human natures in Christ, secures the complete deification of
his human nature. The hypostatical union of the two natures in Christ is the
norm of the mystical union between Christ and his people. "Ut ibi adsumta caro
consistit evn lo,gw| per participationem
u`posta,sewj, ita hic nostra subsistit in Christo
per consortium gratiae et qei,aj fu,sewj.23
The second Adam having assumed humanity, says Oetinger, "Traxit carnem nostram
in plenitudinem Deitatis," so that our race again becomes possessed of the
divine nature in Him and in us; i. e., "unione tumu personali tum mystica."24
It is indeed plain, as Dorner says, that we find in Oetinger the ideas which
are the foundation of the philosophy of the present age. The nature of God and
the nature of man are so homogeneous that they may be united and constitute
one, which is divine human or human divine. We are saved not by the work of
Christ 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 prevalent than ever before. The
whole school of German speculative theologians, with their followers in
England and Amnerica, 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 soume teach, or, as others say, in the whole race.25
§ 6. Concluding Remarks.
In reviewing these several theories concerning the method of salvation
through our Lord Jesus Christ, it is important to remark, --
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 fathers 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 offering,
making expiation for the guilt of the world. It is characteristic 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; while the latter, especially, dwell
sometimes disproportionately on one mode of Scriptural representation, and
sometimes disproportionately on another. The fathers constantly speak of
Christ as a priest, as a sacrifice, and as a ransom. They ascribe our
salvation to his blood and to his cross. The ideas of expiation and
propitiation 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 historical, the moral, and the spiritual. The first is the
plain meaning 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 understood 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 Platonism; that system discarded, the schoolmen
adopted the philosophy of Aristotle, and then the Bible taught the doctrines
of Peripateticism. Those of them who followed Scotus Erigena found Pantheism
in the Scriptures. When the philosophy of Leibnitz and Wolf dominated the
schools, that philosophy determined the form of all Scriptural doctrine. And
since the rise of the new speculative philosophy all that the Scriptures teach
is cast in its forms of thought. No man can be so blind as not to see that all
that is peculiar in what the modern theology teaches of the person and work of
Christ, is nothing more nor less than the application of modern speculative
philosophy to the doctrines of the Bible. This, indeed, is generally admitted
and avowed. This being the case, all these speculations are without authority.
They form no part of the truth as it is revealed as the object of faith. We
are bound to understand the Scriptures in their plain historical sense; and to
admit no philosophy to explain or modify that sense, except the philosophy of
the Bible itself; that is, those facts and principles concerning the nature of
God, the nature of man, of the world, and of the relation between God and the
world, which are either asserted or plainly assumed in the Scriptures. To
depart from this principle is to give up the Bible as a rule of faith; and to
substitute for it the teachings of philosophy. That form of Rationalism which
consists in giving a philosophical explanation of the truths of revelation, or
in resolving them into truths of the reason, is just as certain in the end to
teach for doctrines the speculations of men, as the most avowed skepticism.
After all, apart from the Bible, the best antidote to all these false
theories of the person and work of Christ, is such a book as Doctor Schaff's
"Christ in Song."26
The hymns contained in that volumne are of all ages and from all churches.
They set forth Christ as truly God, as truly man, as one person, a the
expiation for our sins, as our intercessor, saviour, and king, as the supreme
object of love, as the ultimate ground of confidence, as the all-sufficient
portion of the soul. We want no better theology and no better religion than
are set forth in these hymns. They were indited by the Holy Spirit in the
sense that the thoughts and feelings which they express, are due to his
operations on the hearts of his people.
Endnotes
1. The proof passages are given more or less at length in all the modern
histories of doctrine, as in Hagenbach's Dogmengeschichte, translated
by Dr. B. H. Smith; Munscher's and Neander's Dogmengeschichte, and
especially in the elaborate work of Baur of Tubingen, Die Lehre von der
Verschnung.
2. Works, edit. Benedictines, Paris, 1759, vol. iv. p. 513, B, a, b, c.
3. In Leviticum Homilia, I. 3. Works, edit. Paris, 1733, vol.
ii. p. 186, d.
4. Life and Light of Men, London and New York, 1866, pp. 115, 116.
5. Vicarious Sacrifice grounded in Principles of Universal Obligation,
edit. New York, 1866, p. 449.
6. Bushnell, On Vicarious Sacrifice, edit. New York, 1866, pp. 534,
535; p. 537; p. 545.
7. Dogmengeschichte, pp. 334, 335, being the sixth volume of his
Ecclesiastical History.
8. De Satisfactione, II. [Sec. 3]; Works, edit. London, 1679,
vol. iii. p. 307, a, 25-34. "Vult (Socinus) partem omnem offensam esse poenae
creditorem: atque in ea tale habere jus, quale aiii creditores in rebus sibi
debitis, quod jus saepe etiam dominii voce appelat: ideoque saepissime repitit
Deum hic spectandum, ut partem offensam, ut creditorem, ut dominum tria haec
ponens tanquam tantundem valentia. Hic error Soeini . . . per totam ipsius
tractationem diffusus . . . ipsius to. prw/ton yeu/doj
[est]."
9. Ibid. II. [Sec. 1]; p. 305, b, 20-24.
10. Ibid. V. [Sec. 11]; p. 317, b, 21-41.
11. Grotius, De Satisfactione, IV [Sec. 18]; vol. iii. p. 315, b, 9-14
12. Ibid. V. [Sec. 8]; p. 317, a, 12-24.
13. Limborch, Theologia Christiana, III. xxi. 8, edit. Amsterdam, 1715,
p. 262, a.
14. The word "symbol," however, is used in two senses. Sometimes it is
synonymous with sign. Thus it is common to say that the bread and wine in the
Lord's Supper are the symbols of Christ's body and blood. At other times, a
symbol is that which expresses the analogy between the outward and the inward.
Thus, in one view, the atoning death of Christ is symbolical of God's feelings
towards sinners. In another view, the struggles and triumph of our Lord in
conflict with physical evil are symbolical of the believer's struggles and
triumph in the conflict with sin. The former was an illustration of the
latter, and intended to encourage the people of God with the assurance of
success.
15. Lehre von der Versohnung, Tubingen, 1838, pp. 597, 598.
16. Von der Versohnun, Zweiter Theil, Suttgart, 1798, Vorrede, p.
xxxii.
17. G. Ch. Storr, Pauli Brief au die Hebraer. Zweiter Theil, uber den
eigentlichen Zweck des Todes Jesu. Tubingen, 1789.
18. Dogmengeschichte, II., vi. Sec. 122, 2d edit. Marburg, 1813, vol.
iv. p. 235.
19. Gieseler's Kirchengeschichte, iv. III. ii. 5, Sec. 97, edit. Bonn,
1855; vol. vi. p. 384. Munscher's Dogmengeschichte, vol. iv. p. 286.
20. See Dorner's Entwicklungesgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi.
2d editition. Stuttgart, 1845. Introduction, pp. 26-42.
21. De Divisione Naturae, I. 56, 66, 69.
22. De Unico Med. Jes. Christo et Justif. Fid. Confessio, Konigsberg,
1551, by count, pp. 144, 145.
23. See Dorner, Person Christi, 1st edit. Stuttgart, 1839, pp. 305-322.
24. Ibid. p. 317.
25. On these views see above the chapters on the Person and Work of Christ.
26. Christ in Song. Hymns of Immanuel: selected from all Ages, with Notes,
by Philip Schaff, D. D. New York, Anson D. F. Randolph and Co., 1869.
