The Atonement: In Its Relations to the Covenant, the Priesthood, the Intercession of Our Lord

[ we would investigate the very doctrine of Atonement which God’s Word sets forth, — avoiding arbitrary and capricious speculations, and illegitimate and useless trains of thought, — it must be laid down at the outset, as a proposition of transcendent importance, —

That the Doctrine of the Atonement ought to be discussed and defended as inside the Doctrine of the Covenant of Grace.

I. It will not be denied nor doubted that the doctrine of the Covenant of Grace is a larger category than the doctrine of the Atonement. It is wider; comprehending the Atonement within its provisions; affording to it also both explanation and support.

Now it surely is extremely injudicious and impolitic for defenders of the faith to discuss any scriptural

doctrine, and particularly to profess to do so fully and exhaustively, outside of any greater category to which the doctrine properly and natively belongs. For by doing so they place it in a position of unnecessary danger, and assign to themselves a greater difficulty in defending it than Scripture assigns to them. They rob it of the illustration, and they rob it of the protection, which the higher category affords. They deprive it of the benefit of scriptural considerations in the light of which their defence might be comparatively easy, and would be found, indeed, presented to their hand; and, by the isolated position to which they have consigned it, they give advantages to the enemy which the abler and more acute of their number are not slow to seize. For instance: The plausible objection against a truly expiatory sacrifice, to the effect that it is unjust that the innocent should suffer that the guilty may escape, is seen to be a mere misrepresentation when the doctrine of the Covenant has been put forward as explaining and-conditioning the Atonement; the objection losing its plausibility in the light of Christ’s covenant-headship and responsibility, and of the covenant oneness with Him of those whose sins He expiates by dying in their stead and room. Moreover, by this impolitic and unscientific procedure, theologians place themselves under the necessity — or at least subject themselves to the strong temptation — of betaking themselves to general and abstract reasoning to an extent that is extremely riskful, and for which not the doctrine but themselves are responsible. We have no desire to exclude all abstract reasoning from the discussion of those great scriptural themes which must ever exercise all earnest minds and are found to fascinate so many. Abstract reasoning is in many cases eminently serviceable in showing the thorough consistency of theological truth with philosophy and science truly so called. And the wise defenders of the faith will be forward to show that there is no incongruity, and indeed no want of mutual support, between theology, the Queen of Sciences, and her many handmaids in every department of solid thought and legitimate investigation. And when a great ultimate scriptural truth is set forth in its own magnificent proportions, and on its own appropriate evidence, it is one of the worthiest exercises of the human intellect to show that it conflicts with nothing that the intellect of man has discovered or trustworthily accepted. This is to assign to theology its own proper sphere, and to leave theology in its own unaided majesty.

But it is a totally different thing when a scriptural doctrine, isolated from the place which it holds in the great scheme of revelation, has been inadequately discussed, — as in such a case inadequately discussed and still more inadequately defended it must inevitably be, — it is a totally different thing in such a case to introduce abstract and philosophical discussion in order to supplement a deficiency which theology herself, when rightly questioned, is found to have abundant materials at hand to supply. This is not to illustrate the harmony of philosophy and theology, thereby providing some confirmation of theological truth from philosophical considerations. It is, in so far, to turn theology into a philosophy — a very different matter indeed, and a course of procedure against which theologians would always do well to be upon their guard. The science of theology is perfectly competent within her own sphere for discharging all the duty- which lies to her hand. She is under no necessity to confess inadequacy of materials in her own proper department for her own proper work: and when she is tempted to feel under any such necessity, it must be either because she has carried her investigations and efforts outside her own proper sphere, or. has not exhausted the materials within it.

II. Remarkable instances of the truth and value of these considerations are to be met with in Dr. Cun-NINGHAM’S magnificent work on Historical Theology. Two in particular occur to us.

The first is his sagacious declinature to receive help in establishing the fundamental truths of Calvinism from the doctrine of what is called philosophical necessity. He wisely declines binding up the validity of a purely theological demonstration with the fate or the foundations of a philosophical theory. But the second instance is more directly in point to our present purpose, because in it we have this great theologian discarding a philosophical or metaphysical defence of divine truth, and falling back for the only real and satisfying defence of it upon the doctrine of federality. It occurs in his chapter on the Bondage of the Will. He has been considering the objection — so ready to be raised against the doctrine of man’s total inability to will any spiritual good accompanying salvation — to the effect, namely, that such inability would be incompatible with responsibility. And he has subjected to a very searching and very beautifully acute investigation the distinction that has so often been relied upon in answering this objection — the distinction between natural and moral inability. Admitting this distinction as a real distinction, and in its own place important, he expresses himself as dissatisfied with it, as not affording any real answer to the objection, or solution of the difficulty. He says: — “I am not persuaded that any solution meets the difficulty of asserting that man is responsible for his sins and shortcomings notwithstanding his inability to will and to do what is good, except by showing that he is responsible for his inability.” And to provide this answer — which his subtlety and sagacity and ingenuousness all combine to lead him to see and acknowledge to be fairly desiderated — he falls back on the covenant oneness of the race in Adam. “We are satisfied,” he says, “that the principle which contributes more fully than any other to furnish an answer to the objection — an explanation of the difficulty — is just the scriptural doctrine which leads us to regard. man in his whole history, fallen and unfallen, or the whole human race collectively in their relation to God, as virtually one and indivisible, so far as regards their legal standing and responsibilities — to contemplate the whole history of the human race as virtually the history of one and the same man, or, what is substantially and practically the same thing, to regard the inability of will to anything spiritually good — which can be proved to attach to man de facto — — as a penal infliction, a punishment justly imposed upon account of previous guilt — the guilt, of course, of Adam’s first sin imputed to his posterity.” “And with respect to the difficulty about responsibility, the substance of our position in answer to the objection is just this:

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