Atonement and Intercession: The Inverse Argument
OF the transition from the Atoning Sacrifice to the
Intercession is such as we have attempted to establish; if the Intercession is simply the same official action carried forward in its triumph from the field of suffering and humiliation into that of exaltation and heavenly glory, — fundamentally the same priestly activities being in operation still; what evidence is there that these priestly activities have in the moment of their triumph, and because of it, been narrowed and contracted from the wide limits, or rather the want of limits, of an indefinite and universal atonement into an intercession, which, on all hands, is admitted to concern those only who are ultimately benefited and saved by it? Surely this is a question which may well give pause to the advocates of an unlimited atonement. We may well ask them to produce from Scripture some indication of this strange result, if not some justifying reason for a restriction so curious and ungracious occurring in Christ’s priestly function in the very moment of its victory. Assuredly it would be extremely strange, if exactly when the priestly work of Christ passes through
its one terrible ordeal of the Cross, it should emerge with its limits enormously contracted; if henceforth, in its dignity and triumph, it should be far narrower in its relations and actings than when it had to contend with circumstances of conflict, and shame, and woe. Strange, if, — whereas, while it was clouded and burdened with the darkening and crushing curse due to sin, it had equal regard to all who were in that same condition, — now, when it is liberated from the burden, and has emerged from the cloud, vast multitudes, to whom an interest in the conflict had been assigned, are excluded from all interest in the victory! Does this look like a triumph of grace? Does a king count a campaign glorious from which he emerges with a narrower national territory than before ? — We profess ourselves unable to see wherein this simple illustration does injustice to the doctrine we are criticising.
There is, in fact, no escape from the awkward predicament in which that doctrine is thus landed, except by denying that the relation between Atonement and Intercession is such as we have represented, and by finding some other bridge of transition by which to pass over from the one to the other. What that may be, we profess ourselves incompetent to discover. The advocates of universal atonement, we are persuaded, will find it difficult alike to discover or invent; and we trust, in the meantime, to show reason to preclude all argument in any such direction. And this we hope to accomplish by inverting the argument which connects the Atonement and the Intercession, and by showing what features an intercession that is worthy of the character of God, must postulate in that atonement with which it professes to be related, and on which it professes to be based.
Resigning, then, all benefits from what we may believe we have established concerning the true nature of the Atonement; and beginning with such simple affirmation of Christ’s Intercession as that of Paul,. when he says, that “He maketh intercession for us;” let us see how, from this starting-point, we reach by another route the Scriptural theory of a proper and definite propitiation for sin.
The most general conception we can form of Intercession is that of an intervention, or interposition, or beneficent ministration, designed for the procurement and bestowal of advantages not otherwise to be obtained, or not otherwise so readily or so fully. If it be admitted that they are not otherwise to be obtained at all — and in the present case that ought clearly to be the assumption — the argument is rendered so much the easier. Coming nearer to the point, and seeking a more distinct and specific conception of the actual Intercession of our Lord, it would seem that there are only two alternative ideas of its exact nature possible. Hither, first, Ghrist exercises influence with God; or, secondly, He presents a plea, which, according to God’s own appointment, He has officially brought into existence as a ground or reason, in virtue of which it is consistent with righteousness for God to bestow blessings which could not otherwise be bestowed,
These seem to be the two alternatives; and they are to be considered as contrasted and mutually exclusive of each other. No doubt, in vague use of language, the presentation of such a plea as that contemplated in the second alternative might be called, in a sense, an exercise of influence. But it would be an improper use of the phrase. And, at all events, the phrase is used here as excluding a very precise predicament which is contrasted with what the vague idea of influence implies. We shall attempt to show that the first of these views of the Intercession is inadmissible, being wholly unworthy of the Divine character; that we are therefore shut up to the second alternative idea of the Intercession; and we shall then show that all the false and defective views of the Atonement have this common feature, that they fail to provide such a plea or ground as the only admissible idea of Intercession demands, and that they shut up their advocates to the inadmissible theory of mere influence.
Dut First. Intercession considered as an Exercise of Influence.
The idea that Christ’s Intercession is not the presentation of a righteous objective plea, but the exercise of a subjective influence, is one which we must resolutely repudiate, and which, with that view, we must relentlessly examine and expose. We would account this unnecessary, were it not that we mean to show that such a view of the Intercession is logically the inevitable landing-place of all erroneous doctrines of the Atonement. But, in order to render it plain that that alone is conclusive evidence of their erroneousness, we shall not consider it superfluous to follow out this false view of the Intercession to its inevitable and fatal consequences.
Those who regard Christ in His Intercession as exercising some influence with the Father are, of
course, shut up to the dilemma that the Father was either antecedently willing, or antecedently unwilling, to bestow whatever this influence is exerted to procure. And it seems to matter little which horn they elect.
I. Is it said that the Father, apart from, and prior to, this exercise of influence on the part of the Son, is unwilling? Then —
(1.) Such a relation as this implies may be consistent with the nature and character of created finite beings — diverse in will, and deficient or limited in goodness, power, and wisdom; but it is destructive of our idea of Divine persons. The Father and the Son, with the Holy Spirit, are three persons in the unity of the Godhead, of one substance, power, and eternity. The Incarnation of the eternal Word is without prejudice to this, the inviolable constitution of the Godhead; so also is His office, in all its range, and every one of its functions or actings. It is inconceivable that He should assume any office or position that could prejudice the great truth which, in the days of His flesh, and while exercising His office, He sedulously affirmed: “I and my Father are one.” God is “of one mind, and who can turn Him?” But if God the Son could turn the mind of God the Father, then God is not of one mind: neither are the Son and the Father one.
(2.) Such Influence is inconsistent with the idea of office, authorization, and appointment. It is inconceivable that the unwilling Father should appoint His Son to the office of rendering Him willing to do that which He is antecedently unwilling to do. Such procedure is not only inconceivable in the case of Divine persons, but in the case even of rational created beings. An intercession of mere influence, therefore, represents the Son, the man Christ Jesus, as glorifying Himself to be made an Intercessor. But this is in flagrant contradiction to the general allegation of the Holy Spirit, that “xo man taketh this office upon him, save he that is called of God, as was Aaron,” as well as the express application of that indispensable requisite to this Divine Intercessor in particular: “So Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest, but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee” (Heb. v. 4, 5). Surely it is unnecessary to affirm that Christ’s covenant appointment to the priesthood proves that the Father was willing to bestow all that should be sued out by the priestly Intercessor, and required no influence, and, indeed, no intercession, to render Him willing.
(3.) Such Influence is derogatory to the Divine goodness, beneficence, and mercy. It presupposes the Divine Father as needing to be mollified, pleaded with, and prevailed upon, to entertain placable disposition and merciful designs toward His creatures. Whatever ideas of salvation, as something good and merciful, it can contemplate, it represents them as not originating with the Godhead, but as requiring to be urged upon God’s notice, His acceptance, His concurrence, and His will. This is the view of the Divine character which many opponents of the doctrine of the Atonement charge that doctrine with countenancing. Against that doctrine it is groundlessly and slanderously alleged. Of their own views it is a necessary consequence. And we shall prove that, when we show that their views shut them up to this Influence theory of the Intercession.
(4.) Such Influence is derogatory to the Divine justice. It is a dictate of the moral sense of mankind that the action of justice is deranged when personal influence is admitted to have play in affecting its administration. It is one of the plainest and most obvious forms of the corruption of justice. It is only when justice is not traversed, and, indeed, is not concerned, that even among finite creatures personal influence is considered as admissible. There is nothing of which the Minister of Justice is more jealous to purge himself, than just the idea that he could be supposed open to such influence on the part of others, or willing to exercise it himself. When the sentence of condemnation which has been passed is sought to be cancelled, it is not by the exercise of personal influence on the Monarch, but because the interceding Minister of State urges that, since the trial, evidence of innocence has come to light, or doubt at least has been thrown upon the guilt imputed. If it be otherwise, the nation feels that the fountain of justice has been corrupted. And if this could be imagined to be possible in the administration of God, “then how should God judge the world?” (Rom, iii. 6.)
II. But suppose, now, on the other hand, that God is antecedently willing to avert the evils which this Intercession is designed to deprecate, and to bestow the blessings which it is designed to solicit and procure.
This, no doubt, conserves the Divine organization and appointment of the Intercession. For, on this supposition, it may be consistently set forth as originating in the love of God, and as appointed by the
Divine authority. But if the Intercession is fundamentally an exercise of influence, the Divine willingness, though it may account for its origin and appointment, militates fatally against its necessity and real serviceableness. If the Intercession is the presentation of a righteous ground and plea which the Intercessor has brought, and was appointed to bring, into existence, and which enables the Divine Judge and Sovereign righteously to do what, without the existence of that ground or plea, He mercifully desired to do, but could not do consistently with justice: then there is no derogation from, or impeachment of, either the justice or beneficence of God, but rather the reverse; while the wisdom of God suffers no reflection on the charge of bringing forward an evolution that is superfluous and unnecessary. On such a view of the Intercession all is plain. But where is the wisdom of conceding only to the exercise of influence that which God is antecedently desirous of bestowing? and where the wisdom — of appointing the exercise of an influence, the exercise of which the very supposition represents as unnecessary?
Is it said that such an appointed intervention is requisite to prevent evil effects that would follow were the intervention of the Intercessor dispensed with? That is perfectly intelligible and relevant if the Intercession be of that nature which we advocate, and of that necessity which such an Intercession implies. In that case, on the supposition of no Intercession, evil effects would indeed follow, — to such extent, and of such kind, as proves that, without the Intercession, the beneficent willingness of God can take no accomplishment. ‘Traversing os the righteousness of the
Divine administration; violations of the principles of the Divine government; dishonor to the Divine law; inevitable misrepresentation of the Divine character; and disorganization of the moral universe; — all these evil effects must follow, from sin being passed by without Atonement and Intercession, such as those we plead for. But to advocate the necessity of an Intercession of mere Influence in order to prevent evil consequences following from the fact of God bestowing blessings which it requires no new ground or plea to be brought into existence to enable Him righteously to bestow, is simply absurd.
What are the evil consequences to be dreaded on such an assumption, and which an Intercession of Influence must be brought in in order to avert? Is it that men will be in danger of taking wrong views of the Divine character? And if so, how will this Intercession rectify them?
Let us consider. As to what aspect of the Divine character, or what department of the Divine administration, will there be false views likely to arise? Will it be in reference to the Divine justice? That cannot be. At least it ought not to be; for the supposition ts, that it is antecedently perfectly just on the part of — God to act as He antecedently, in His beneficence, desires to act. And if the reality of the case, as it is thus supposed to be, does not prevent men from taking false views in this direction, the intervention of an intercession of influence will not prevent them; for as it does not profess to render God’s procedure more just, so neither can it have the very slightest effect in more fully manifesting its justice.
Or again, is it in the direction of the Divine beneficence that false views are likely to arise, and an intercession of influence must intervene to prevent them? Surely such an intervention is a very awkward expedient in the case supposed. Its obvious and inevitable tendency must be the very reverse of what this theory attributes to it. The supposition is that there is a complete, antecedent, beneficent desire and will on the part of God — that there is nothing in that direction to prevent the direct and immediate bestowment of saving blessings. Surely, then, the inbringing of any ministry of influence, — the suspension, indeed, of the beneficent action of the Divine will upon any intermediate agency of any sort whatsoever, and more particularly on a ministry of influence, which must be utterly unreal, except in so far as it pleads with and prevails on God to exercise His beneficent desire and will, — cannot but cloud the evidence of precisely the Divine beneficence itself, and just promote those false views of the Divine character in reference thereto, which it is pretended to foreclose and prevent.
Perhaps it may be replied, that the design of this Intercession of Influence is to prevent men taking, in a sense, too large views of the goodness of God; to avert the danger of their confounding the Divine beneficence and placability with mere facility, and thereby putting in peril those affections of holy awe and veneration with which we ought always to contemplate the Great Supreme. False views of God in that direction are indeed very dangerous, and very natural, to the evil heart of unbelief; and their effectual prevention is a real problem which it concerns any holy gospel of salvation really to solve. In the case supposed, it is, however, utterly impossible to see how an
Intercession of mere influence can solve it. For, on the supposition, the antecedent willingness of God to bestow forgiveness and salvation, — without any new ground or plea being brought into existence to render such forgiveness righteous, and to declare God’s righteousness therein, — does either constitute and present good ground for those views of His character which the Intercession is supposed to be brought in in order to prevent, or it does not. Take then the two alternatives in their order.
If it does constitute and present good ground for such views, how can an intercession of influence prevent the intelligent from seeing it? or rather, how can it cause men who see it to shut their eyes to what they see? Such an intercession does not in the least alter, or pretend to alter, the ground there is for taking the view of God’s character concerned. It only represents influence as being exerted with God to do exactly what it is admitted constitutes and presents good ground for men entertaining a particular view of the Divine character. And yet it is pretended that such an exercise of influence is introduced precisely to prevent men from seeing the true nature of that which it is introduced to accomplish! That is to say, It is an intercessory influence with God, intended to have a blinding influence on men! It is hardly possible to imagine illogical bewilderment going further.
But we have the other supposition to deal with — namely, that God’s willingness to bestow forgiveness without an intercession of righteous representative priestly action, such as we plead for, constitutes and presents no ground for those views of the Divine goodness, which in that case are truly erroneous and false, but which men nevertheless will be in danger of adopting. If so, why introduce an intercession of influence? What possible object can it serve? It is not in things towards God — sa xpo¢ rov @cdv — that any ministry here is necessary or can be serviceable: it is in things towards man. Men are, by the supposition, taking views of the Divine character for which there is no real ground. Let them be dealt in the matter. Why desiderate an Intercession to deal with God? Let those who are taking groundless and false views of God be enlightened. It is not any ministry to harmonize God’s procedure with man’s foolish notions that is either necessary or possible; but a ministry of instruction on the hearts and intellects of men, to harmonize their views with the realities of the case, and to deliver them from views of God, for which His procedure affords no real ground. <A prophetic ministry towards man, not a priestly ministry towards God, is what is needed; not an influence exerted on Him, but an influence on those who are misunderstanding Him and His ways. An Intercession of Influence towards God is, in all the bearings of the case, an impertinence that reflects at once with dishonor on the character of God, and the scheme and idea of it with insult on the intelligence of man.
Dut Second. Intercession Considered as the Presentation of q Plea.
Turning now from the idéa that the Intercession of Christ is an exercise of subjective influence with the Father, let us consider it as the presentation rather of an objective plea.
Such a plea must evidently have reference to the things pertaining to God. The Intercessor is an “ordained” office-bearer “in things pertaining to God” (Heb. v. 1); a merciful and faithful high priest “in things pertaining to God” (Heb. ii. 17). On these “things” the intercession and its plea must have direct and immediate bearing, if that intercession be embraced, as we have seen it is embraced, in the priestly office. What, then, are the “things pertaining to God” — the deep things of God which the Spirit searcheth? (1 Cor. 11.10.) They are the Divine nature and perfections, particularly the holiness and justice of God; the Divine Sovereignty, with its purposes and designs of grace and love; the Divine law, in its subject-matter, its obligations, and its sanctions; and the Divine government, in its interests, requirements, and stability. These are the things pertaining to God; the things towards God — +a xpos +6v ©26v — the things which we see when we are looking out directly towards God. And the Intercessor’s plea must be to the effect, that he has, by Divine appointment, and through the accomplishment of the work given him to do, arranged and disposed these Divine things into such order that the antecedent and gracious purposes of God’s sovereign love may now be accomplished without the interests of the Divine perfections, law, or government suffering thereby; yea, and that all these interests now require the accomplishment of God’s purposes of love.
It is manifest that an intercessory plea of this nature is worthy of the Divine glory, and worthy of Divine recognition, as a valid ground and justifying reason for new Divine procedure. For the Intercessor is not now resting His success on the idea of any: power or influence that He may possess with the Father. Nor does this conception represent Him as soliciting the Father to give weight to considerations that existed apart from, and prior to, His priestly and intercessory work itself. It is the introduction and presentation of a consideration, a plea, a ground altogether new; which existed not at all prior to, or apart from, that very priesthood in which He is now acting at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; and it professes to be, objectively, and in itself alone, a complete and perfect ground, pleadable j udicially and in court of law, and competent and entitled to carry all issues that the Intercessor craves and expects because of it, — its power and efficacy in no respect supplemented by, or requiring to draw upon, the personal influence of Him who pleads it.
I do not, of course, mean to say that the relation of infinite and ineffable love between the Eternal Father and the Eternal Son does in no respect affect or enter into this ministry of Intercession. Far from it. It is remarkable that when two Divine utterances or oracles (Ps. ii. 7, and Ps. ex. 4) are, by the inspired writer to the Hebrews (v. 5), quoted as constituting or announcing Christ’s priesthood, or glorifying Him to be made high priest, it is not that which makes mention in explicit terms of His Priesthood, but that which declares His Sonship, that is quoted first: “He glorified Him to be made an high priest who said unto Him, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee; as He saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec.” And it is also true that Jesus, in His intercessory prayer in the seventeenth chapter of John, makes explicit mention of His
Father’s love: “For Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” But in this reference to the love which His Father had for Him before the world began, — when He was “daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth,” — Jesus is very far from seeking to supplement, by an appeal to personal influence, the force of a plea admitted to be in itself deficient, and requiring to be enforced by a consideration which it does not itself embody and contain. It does ztse/f contain that consideration. It does itself shine radiantly in the glory of that relation of ineffable love between the high contracting parties in the counsel of peace. In that love the counsel or covenant between them took its rise. In the Father’s love to the Son, the appointment of the Son to His priestly office originated; and in that appointment the Father’s love was expressed. It was of the Father’s love that the Son was designated to a work so glorious, that it should in itself alone carry in it perfect and all-sufficient ground for the righteous execution of purposes of love to a people whom no man can number. Here is the due place for the Son’s interest with the Father, and in His Father’s love — even that He should be set up from everlasting in the love that the Father had for Him from before the foundation of the world, and designated, and in due time sealed and sent into the world, on the work of establishing a perfect ground and plea for the obtaining, not by influence, but in righteous certainty and title, all saving blessing for those whom the Father’s love had given to Him. Not to be put forth in the way of influence is the Son’s interest with the Father, so as to dispense with an objective plea, or supplement a plea confessedly deficient; but in the very line and action of dispensing with influence, and bringing into existence a plea which is independent of influence, being in itself alone gloriously complete.
Dart Third, Elements of a valid Intercessory objective Plea.
In the things, then, pertaining to God, with which the Intercessor’s plea is concerned — and in reference to which He urges the relevant and valid consideration that He has disposed them into an order or arrangement rendering the salvation of His people becoming, and righteous, and necessary — let us make a selection. Let us consider the aspect of the Divine: nature and perfections toward sin, — which is the wrath of God; and the sanction of the Divine law, — which is its curse on the breakers thereof. The Intercessor presents himself before God on our behalf, as “Jesus who hath delivered us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. i. 10). Also He presents himself before God as having “redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, that the blessing might come upon us, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Gal. iii. 18, 14). By these two considerations (which indeed run into one), “Christ executeth the office of a priest, in making continual intercession for us,” by representing that He hath “once offered up Himself a sacrifice to satisfy Divine justice and reconcile us unto God”
(Shorter Catechism, Quest. 25).
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I. Consider, in the first place, the bearing of the Intercession on the removal of the Wrath of God.
The essential consideration here is, that the wrath of God be set forth as the necessary aspect or expression of the Divine nature and perfections toward sin. It originates not in the will of God; for, in that case, the same will of God might set it aside or depart from it without satisfaction or pacification — without appeasement or atonement at all. But it originates from the Divine nature, and that necessarily. On the supposition of sin, the Divine nature, and particularly the Divine holiness, assumes necessarily the aspect of wrath. — There are some recent evasions of this position.
(1.) Mr. Maurice represents the wrath of God as the aspect which Divine Love assumes toward iniquity. But it may be safely left to the moral sense of mankind to say whether the Divine Love, act how it may, is the proper recompense of iniquity. And it may be safely left to the common sense of all who understand human language, to say whether those are treasuring up for themselves any conceivable aspect and action of Love, who are declared to be “treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;” and whether Love, under any possible form or modification, can be understood as threatening to “render indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, to every soul of man that doeth evil” (Rom. ii. 3-9). Wrath is not beneficence; it is justice. It would be frightful to imagine wrath acting in the freeness of free beneficence, and not in the stringency of stringent justice. The universe were one vast hell of suspense and horror, if God’s wrath could alight elsewhere than where it is deserved. “They that do such things are worthy of death” (Rom. i, 32). Wrath is vengeance — righteous vengeance, and recompense. “For we know Him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord” (Heb. x. 30). Hence substitution, atonement, satisfaction are conceivable. If wrath is love, they are inconceivable, — except as calamities. If the wrath of God is Divine love “burning on” against the unholy for their purification, a Substitute bearing it in my stead is no savior, no friend. He is a foe, — fraudulently interposing to intercept, and to deprive me of, my only possible and real salvation. Most intelligible and most natural, in this light, is the outcry against the doctrine of substitution.
(2.) It is thought by some that a transition may be effected from the Divine love to the Divine wrath, by help of the term “Jealousy.” And that there is something in this may, perhaps, be granted, if the idea of the Divine jealousy be used carefully as a transition, and no attempt be made to employ it as an equivalent or explanation. We cannot enter fully into the line of thought which opens up to us here; but one or two guiding principles may be laid down.*
*J have reason to’believe that my friend, the Rey. Stewart Salmond of Barry, has in view to subject this line of thought to a very careful examination. He has given sufficient evidence of his great qualifications for undertaking such a task. And if he will resist the temptation to hasty authorship in this hasty age; subject to careful criticism all the utterances of the Old Testament on this theme; sift, as his admirable learning qualities him to sift, the writings of the best German theologians; and bring out the bearings of the subject alike in its ethical and theological aspects, in
ripe completeness: he will do valuable service to the Church in a department where such service is eminently called for.
In the first place; it is to be remembered that in such references to the jealousy of God, as that in Exod. xx. 5, “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation;” — He is speaking to a redeemed and covenant people. The recognition of the covenant is in the very preface.to the law as thus given at Sinai: “I am the Lord thy God, that hath brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage.” Nor is this lost sight of, or set aside to make room for the introduction of the idea of jealousy. It is re-affirmed in the very sentence which affirms the jealousy: “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.” The jealousy — whatever it may imply — is introduced in vindication of the Divine glory among a people whom, as a people, God hath loved and chosen as His own. And for this reason it seems to follow that it cannot throw much light on the aspect which the Divine nature and perfections assume toward those who have no interest in the covenant. For it raises a question which it does not answer; “If these things be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?”
In the second place; it is to be borne in mind that in its plain and unsophisticated meaning, jealousy is love vindicating its right in the beloved by the help of anger. Anger shall be called in, in last resort, rather than that right be resigned. In this view, jealousy, even while it is “the rage of man” (Prov. vi. 84), is “cruel as the grave,” just because, and so long as, and only so long as — “love is strong as death.” It is, in short, a special manifestation of love; and the strength of love is the measure of the strength of jealousy. Jealousy, so to speak, is — when purged at least from elements of base suspiciousness — a powerful compliment to the object beloved. In the nature of the case, jealousy is compelled to deal with prima facie grounds of suspicion; but when it is the honorable passion we have spoken of, it deals with these grounds not with the view and hope of proving them, but of explaining, dissipating, and disproving them. It is in that view a noble passion; and shallow natures are incapable of manifesting it, and incapable of appreciating or appeasing it. They have not enough of love to do so.
And now, in the third place; if Jealousy is thus Love itself, vindicating its right in the beloved by the aid even of anger, so long as retention of the beloved and regaining of reciprocal love is conceived to be possible; it remains to ask whether it must not utterly expire when despair of success supervenes? The compliment, as we have ventured to call it, will then be paid no more. An entirely different passion or emotion takes place. Jealousy is designed to be restorative and recuperative; and is therefore a means to an end. But, the end despaired of, the reason for jealousy is gone. The desire now is for redress or retribution — which is itself of the nature of an end, and not a means to an end.* And it is an end of an
* While this is passing through the press, I have lighted on the following remarkable passage — which I have read with intense interest — -in the Translation of Schwegler’s ‘“‘ History of Philosophy,” by my distinguished friend, Dr. James Hutchison Stirling. It occurs in the representation of the views of Hegel on “The Objective Spirit,” z.¢., the Free Will: and it seems to me to indicate profound intuition into the nature of Moral Law, and the foundation of moral obligation. Speaking of ‘‘the possibility of the subjective will inentirely distinct character from that which the entertainment and expression of jealousy aims at securing. It implies the entire resignation of love, and of love’s beneficent desires. It is wrath: and the Christian is forbidden to cherish it..
dividualizing itself against right in itself or the Universal Will,’”’ — a possibility that seems to be implied in the very nature of responsibility and free will, Hegel is represented as saying:
“The division of the two wills is Wrong — delinquency, fraud, crime. This division demands a reconciliation, a restoration of right or of the universal will as against its temporary sublation or negation occasioned by the particular will. The right that thus restores itself as against the particular will, the negation of wrong, is penalty. Theories that found the right of penalty on purposes to prevent, deter, intimidate, or correct, mistake the nature of penalty. Prevention, intimidation, &c., are finite ends, 7.e. mere means, and these too, uncertain means. But an act of justice cannot be degraded into a mere means: justice is not exercised, in order that anything but itself be attained and realized. The fulfilment and self-manifestation of justice is an absolute end, an end unto its own self.”’
How directly these most admirable and profound statements bear upon the doctrine of this volume, the intelligent theological student will not fail to see. Ido not profess to be a Hegelian, — any more than Dr. Hutchison Stirling does (Trans. of Schwegler, p. 445): I have not even mastered the Secret of Hegel. But I rejoice to write down, under the sanction of that great metaphysician’s name, in this volume on the Atonement of the Lord Jesus, remarkable utterances like these, so powerfully corroborative of those views of penaliy, which lie at the foundation of all that we say of the Atonement as a real endurance of the penalty or curse of the Divine law, and a true and proper satisfaction to Divine justice. And I cannot but humbly express my admiration of the services which Dr. Stirling is rendering to the higher philosophy and the Christian faith. To labor, however thanklessly, to expose the false philosophies — whose role seems to be mainly to provide vindication and classic utterance for the clamorous voices of Matter and Pleasure: and to give transcendent and supplanting prominence to the claims of Spirit, of Duty, and of God: is an industry that cannot be in vain in the Lord.
But, in the fourth place, is he forbidden to cherish it, because in its own nature it is evil, and averse from the nature of God? Far otherwise. It is incompetent to man, just because it is competent to God, and to God alone. “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Rom. xii. 19). The quotation here — “it is written” — is from the song of Moses, where God is introduced as speaking not concerning His covenant people, but concerning His enemies and theirs. “To me belongeth vengeance and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time” (Deut. xxxii. 35). And the reason given for vengeance against them, is such as to prove that vengeance is entirely different from jealousy. Rather, jealousy, in respect to His people, is given as the reason for vengeance on their enemies, — so entirely different are the two attributions. “For the Lord shall judge his people and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone” (ver. 36). The quotation, therefore, by the Apostle in writing to the Romans is admirably in point. He admonishes to abstinence from wrath and self-redress, because the Judge Supreme hath given special promise to interpose and Himself effect what righteousness requires. The passage is again quoted to the Hebrews in confirmation of the terrible truth that, as there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin when the blood of the covenant has been counted an unholy thing, so there remaineth nothing but “a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, that shall devour the adversaries” (Heb. x. 27). “For we know Him that hath said, Vengeance is mine; I will recompense, saith the Lord” (ver. 30).
However, therefore, the idea of Jealousy may be serviceable as a transition from the idea of love to that of wrath or vengeance, it is obvious that it cannot be employed as an explanation of wrath or vengeance, far less as an equivalent; unless, indeed, it be used in a sense entirely different from that which renders a special word — the word “jealousy” — necessary; in a sense, that is, which substantially identifies it with the word “wrath.” And, of course, in that case, the ethical and theological investigation is in no respect expedited, but left precisely as it was, or rather left in greater darkness than before. Refusing on this legitimate ground, to identify jealousy and wrath; and leaving the question of the relations between them, and the transition from the one to the other, open for investigation, we are in circumstances to reiterate that —
(3.) Wrath is the aspect of the Divine Holiness toward sin. It is not, therefore, under the origination of the Divine will, as aspects and actings of love, in their very nature free, must be; but the necessary aspect which the Divine nature and perfections cannot but assume. Of course the actings or forthputtings of Divine wrath are at the disposal of the Divine will; for the Divine will and the Divine nature are ever in harmony. And the necessity of the Divine wrath against sin is moral; not physical; its action not being like that of gravitation and physical forces, but ever, as we have said, under the disposal or executive of the Divine will; else, in that case again, long-suffering and forbearance, and therefore salvation, would be impossible. Still, it is originally in the nature of God, and not in the will of God, that the seat and spring of wrath in its various actings must be found; and it is essentially necessary to attend to this, if we would be in circumstances to vindicate the very attribute of Love itself.
For, strange as it may at first sight appear, it is nevertheless true that the moral necessity of wrath, which the doctrine of priesthood pre-supposes, is the indispensable and valid vindication of the love of God. To some this may seem a hazardous, as it may be an unexpected, affirmation. But it is of easy demonstration. For suppose the wrath of God against sin were voluntary, in the sense of not being morally necessary and inevitable. Conceive of an infinite Being entertaining and cherishing unnecessary anger — anger which no inherent and unchangeable perfection of his nature, and no demands arising from his moral relation to the creatures of his-hand and power, render it absolutely inevitable that he should entertain and cherish; but he could, on the contrary, lay it aside, simply if he pleased. Consider him as needing to be pleaded with and prevailed upon to resile from it, and to refrain from the expression and action of it to which it tends. Conceive him as still further refusing so to resile from it, and to refrain from giving expression to it, till it has been appeased by something called atonement or satisfaction. Is it conceivable that this could consist with Love? Is not such unnecessary anger identical with that pleasure in the death of the sinner, which God has condescended to repudiate with abhorrence, and by an oath, “As I live, saith the
Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the sinner”? 13 K
Ts not such a view of God’s character precisely that which the heathen attribute to a supposed divinity, when in reality “they sacrifice to devils and not to God”? And — even in the most mitigated view of this huge misrepresentation of the wrath of God — if it were anything less than morally absolutely necessary, how is it possible to account for a Divine appointment of an intercessor to avert it? It is precisely because God absolutely cannot avert it from the sinner, without its being borne by a substitute, who, to every effect concerned, becomes judicially one with the sinner, and shall, in due time, make the sinner consciously, spiritually, by faith, and of choice truly one with Him, as his living vine, or living head; — precisely for this very reason it is that there is scope, and there is seen to be scope, in God’s glorious nature for that Love in which the substitution, and the intercession grounded on it, take their rise. “God commendeth his love to us;” decketh it out in beauty, and arrayeth it in evidence overwhelming; “in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” And “herein is love, not that we have loved God, but that he hath loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins.”
So intimately are the two doctrines of Divine wrath and Divine love bound up together. Together they stand or fall. The Intercessor pleads that He has been able to make them stand, — able to illustrate and glorify them both. And His plea is to this effect: That in prosecution of His Father’s and His own eternal purpose of love, He has as the substitute of His people, and in a oneness with them which meets every requirement of unsearchable wisdom, borne the wrath which their iniquities had entailed ag recompense inevitable; and now He claims to be recognized of God as “Jesus who delivers them from the wrath to come.” Him the Father therefore heareth. And the decree goeth forth to deliver them: “Save from going down to the pit, for I have found a ransom.”
II. Consider now the bearing of the Intercession on the removal of the Curse of the Law.
The curse differs from the wrath, not fundamentally, but formally. It is indeed the same thing regarded from another point of view. When the relation of acknowledged sovereignty and subjection between the Lawgiver and His responsible creature has been deranged by the entrance of sin, the Divine nature, which presented the aspect of complacency and approbation toward the creature while holy, presents now the aspect of displacency and wrath toward the sinner; and simultaneously, and as an equivalent reading of this now changed relation on the side of the other party concerned, the creature appears in the attitude of a curse, — for it is originally the concrete, the Herem of the Old Testament, — a devoted thing, devoted to destruction. Or, more particularly, and still more formally exact. The Divine nature has expressed itself in the Divine law, which is the reflection of God’s nature, and the formal expression of His authority. The relation has been formulated in moral law, and the curse is formally its penalty or sanction. Transferring, therefore, the substance and spirit of what has been already said concerning the wrath of God to this side of the relation, and clothing the same considerations in the formal expressions which this simply altered point of view and judicially formulated expression of it may render necessary, we should have substantially the same train of thought to follow out as before. And that, of course, it is unnecessary to repeat.
In a word or two, however, it may be shown that fundamentally the same principles re-appear; and more especially, we may briefly indicate how the same consideration of moral necessity attaches to the curse of the law, as to the wrath of God. For absolute moral necessity is the all-explaining and all-justifying consideration which must be attended to in contemplating the curse of the law, and seeking to understand the nature of the Intercession as it bears upon it. The whole inquiry into the nature of the Intercession and Atonement, or, in other words, the Priesthood of Christ, is immediately deranged and perplexed, unless it be clearly apprehended that on the pre-supposition of sin, the Divine curse becomes absolutely certain and inevitable. A correct idea of sin as sin, — that is, a transgression of the law, — and a correct idea of that law of which sin is the transgression, will at once deliver the mind from all vague ideas of the possibility of God’s curse being contingent or arbitrary, or optional. Any such notion is utterly inconsistent with — immediately and completely fatal to — the fundamental conception of moral law and moral obligation, Heaven and earth may pass away. The Creator of heaven and earth, clothed in created nature, and standing in the room of sinful creatures, may tremble as the curse of the law approaches to claim Him in His responsibility for the guilty. The omnipotent God, in the person of the beloved Son, beloved before the foundation of the world, may exclaim, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” But not one jot or tittle of the law, either on the side of its curse or its commandment, can pass away till all be fulfilled. For neither on the one side nor on the other — neither on the side of its requirement nor of its sanction — is there the slightest element of the optional and arbitrary in that law of God which is holy and just and good. It is the expression of God’s nature, which cannot change, and of God’s authority, which must ever vindicate the inviolability of His nature. Nor can the possibility of its being suspended, or varied or abrogated, on the side of the curse be imagined, any more than on the side of the commandment. The Moral Law is the balance of the moral universe; and it matters not whether the right arm or the left be tampered with. In either case the result is the same: the moral balance is destroyed. And how then shall God weigh the actions of men? “How shall God judge the world?”
It is one of the shallowest imaginable thoughts, that the obligation of the curse of the law could be relaxed, and the obligation of its commandment still retained. These are not in reality two obligations, but one. A balance — to use again that simple figure — has two arms: it has but one equilibrium. Even go the moral law has a commandment for our observance, and a curse for our disobedience. But it has not two obligations, that one might be tampered with and the other nevertheless remain intact. He who, disobedient, should plead off from liability to the curse, is, whether he is conscious of it or not, pleading off from
the authority of the commandment. It is the one indivisible obligation of the law which he is seeking to cast off: and his success would be nothing less than the dethronement of the Moral Ruler of the universe.
To see this, look at the exculpating pleas which our first parents put forward to shield them from the curse of death which their disobedience had entailed: “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat:” “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me, and I did eat.” Against what do these pleas in extenuation really strike? Against what side of the Divine law are they consciously and intentionally directed? Against the law on the side of its penalty or sanction. They are designed to insinuate the element of possible contingency into the obligation of the law on the side of its curse, without affecting explicitly to tamper with the obligation of its commandment. The guilty pair mean to deny the absolute and unconditional moral necessity of the curse, and to admit its righteousness only conditionally; the condition being that disobedience shall have been perpetrated in the absence of temptation. Temptation — 2in effect they say — shall bar the infliction of the curse. Had we fallen untempted: had the serpent not beguiled me: had the woman not given to me: had we disobeyed under no temptation to disobey: our punishment would have been righteous; our mouth would have been stopped, and we ourselves brought in guilty before God. But, as it is, our mouth is not stopped. We plead temptation in bar of sentence from the Judge. — And is this an attempt to shake the stability of the Divine law only on one side? As soon move one arm of the balance and think the other will remain at rest. This is an attempt to overthrow moral obligation, — the obligation of the law in its precept, just as much as in its penalty.
To convince us of this, if indeed it be not intuitively obvious, let those pleas of exculpation which the fallen pair put forward after their fall be transferred in imagination to the period preceding it. They are precisely as much in point there, clothed with precisely the same relevancy and force there, before their disobedience, as after it. They tamper with the obligation of the law there exactly to the same effect, to provide for a possible disobedience still contemplated, as for an actual disobedience that has arisen. Simply change their form to suit the altered supposition: but do you change their spirit, or drift, or real design? I will obey, says Eve, provided the serpent do not beguile me. And I will obey, says Adam, provided the woman whom Thou gavest to be with me do not give unto me. The admission of relevancy in these pleas in this form would not be more detrimental to the law than in the form and at the time they were actually urged. The reason is, that in both cases alike they overthrow the one indivisible obligation of the law itself. For to plead a bar against the moral necessity of the curse, is to plead a bar against the authority of the commandment. It is really to dethrone the Lawgiver, and to say, “Who is the Lord that he should reign over us?”
‘The plea, therefore, of a righteous and effectual Intercessor must contain in it at least this element; namely, a practical admission of the holy, moral necessity of the curse, and that in a representation of the fact that the Intercessor has endured and exhausted the curse in His own person, and in His clients’ stead, having been made a curse for them; that He hath not made void but established the law, — made of a woman, made under the law, and having now redeemed them that were under it. An objective plea like that, is independent of influence to give it power. It is perfect in itself; and with Divine justice it has in itself power to prevail. It is relevant; and it is complete. The triumphant cry of the Cross may with confidence be uttered over it and applied to it — “It is finished.” By His one offering Christ has for ever perfected them that are sanctified. The plea, in its own power, carries all that the Intercessor claims.
III. And now we must here also prominently insist again on the truth with which we have already become familiar; namely, that Christ was actively an office-bearer, and priest, and offerer of Himself in His death; actively, in the inconceivable baptism of fire and final ordeal of death — His wrath-enduring, curse-bearing death — fulfilling the whole law of God which is Love; love, in His case, to God forsaking Him; love to men while crucifying Him. This brings into view, as the completing element of His one perfect plea, that perfectly tested, positive and complete righteousness in which He urges that His people shall now be held justified in His person — in Him their priest and representative and head.
And, — if in the minds of any of my readers the idea still remains, that in denying for Christ’s intercession the conception that it acts in the way of personal influence with the Father, I have done injustice to the relation of love and loving interest, and ineffable acceptability that subsists between the Father and the
Son of His love, — here is the place in which, and the consideration by which, this idea may be finally obviated. Har from doing injustice to the interest and acceptability which the beloved Son must be supposed to have with the Father, we are now in circumstances to insist that it all enters into the objective plea, and is In no respect required to be put forth as subjective influence. For when we say that Christ’s righteousness — and the Father is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake, for He hath magnified the law and made it honorable — when we say that Christ’s righteousness enters as an element into the intercessory plea; or, rather, that as a righteousness perfected in the ordeal of His wrath-enduring, curse-bearing death and offering on the Cross, it is the one complete and indivisible plea which, as Intercessor, He urges at His Father’s throne; we are not surely to dissociate His acceptable righteousness from His acceptable person. That may not and cannot be. It is Christ’s person as God-man, — “ordained for men,” and as having perfectly fulfilled all righteousness, — which is the righteousness of saints. “Christ” it is, that “is of God made unto us righteousness” (1 Cor. i. 80). “Christ” it is, that “is the end of the law for righteousness” (Rom. x. 4); “Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest iniquity; therefore God, thy God,” — thy God in that covenant which thou hast established and fulfilled — “hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows” (Ps. xlv.7). Christ needed no work assigned Him to give Him love-interest, or love-influence, with the eternal Father. “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand” (John iii. 35). His love-interest with the Wather is the source and origin of the covenant given Him to fulfil, and the honorable and glorious work given Him to do. But it needed a covenant of peace and a work of redemption, if He was to embody all His love-interest, all His acceptability in the Father’s sight, in an objective plea which should need no influence to give it prevalence with the Father. And this He achieved in His obedience unto death, in His fulfilment of all righteousness in His people’s room; and this He now pleads in His Intercession that He has achieved. The righteousness of Christ is the righteous Christ himself. There enters into the plea which He presents, all the righteousness, all the well-pleasingness, all the acceptability that is in His person. He himself as God-man: His Divine and human natures in perfect harmony with each other — His entire person, therefore, is inconceivably elorious conformity with the nature of God — for the nature of God is the very seat of His personality, and His human nature subsists in His one Divine person, as the most glorious image of that Divine nature which it has been given to any created nature to expregs, and to it alone to enshrine: this glorious and gloriously constituted person, having offered Himself bearing the Divine wrath and burdened with the Divine curse — now lightened of the last rack of both, by righteous and complete endurance of them; beloved of the Father because He fulfilled the commandment to lay down His life and take it again: this matchless person of God-man, in all the moral worth of all His doings in the flesh, and of all His sufferings, and of all His graces, and all His gracious thoughts, and all His holy virtues; in the full assemblage of all His spiritual excellencies and aspects of loveliness and love-worthiness in the Father’s sight: this is the righteousness of saints. And this is the Intercessor’s plea.
It is independent of Influence: for all that could, consistently with the unity of Godhead, and the glory of Divine persons, be imagined under the conception of Influence, is already engrossed and embodied in it.
Dart Fourth, Pointing the Inverse Argument from Intercession.
Though it be like coming down from Pisgah to do superfluous and inglorious battle in the plains, we must pass in brief review, beneath the light of such an Intercession as we have now been considering, the ’ various schemes of thought on the Atonement which we have often already seen to be so untenable.
And yet it seems almost like relentless controversial persecution of them to ask, — What foundation do they lay for an intercession? what work do they assign to Christ, as, in Scriptural language, He maketh intercession for us? Since not one of them professes to read in the death of Christ an atonement made for definite and designated persons: and since, nevertheless, Christ’s intercession is for particular persons particularly, even for those who are ultimately saved, — for Him the Father heareth always, and He prays not for the world, but for those who have been given to Him out of the world; how can these atonements, when urged as pleas, become specificated or pointed to bear upon the individual persons concerned? To present a plea is not to alter it. It cannot be changed by the mere circumstance of urging it. If it do not in itself carry the conclusion pretended, and that in reference to the particular person or persons indicated, the mere urging of it cannot infuse into it a relevancy and force that were not there before. The theory inexorably indispensable in such a case, is the theory of Influence. Christ exerts His influence to enforce the plea, and by influence He carries what the plea itself does not pretend to carry or conclude. In this light it is really, so far as our argument is concerned, a matter of no moment what the particular defective or false view of the Atonement we are examining may be. Nor does it matter how truly it may be able to plead that it provides for some intercession which is not merely and exclusively one of influence. That may or may not be true; it boots not. Does it provide for an Intercession wholly distinct from, and independent of, Influence? Does it provide for an Intercession that is wholly representative, judicial, priestly, and which rests for its success and prevalence wholly on the objective plea, as in and by itself alone concluding for and carrying all that the Intercessor craves, and the Intercession is designed to procure? If not: if it provides merely some semblance or some fraction of a plea; a ground or consideration which falls short of moral and judicial perfection, and falls short, therefore, of absolutely perfect power or prevalence; if, after all, the personal influence of the Intercessor must ‘come in to render it prevalent and effective: then it is on personal influence that this intercession really turns and hinges. It must take its character from — its essence must consist in — that which renders it successful, which alone renders it of any real worth. And therefore, it is in reality an intercession of mere influence. And that we have shown to be utterly indefensible and inadmissible.
We need scarcely particularize.
What imaginable connection is there between Atonement and Intercession on the theory of Example or of Martyrdom? “I have shown them an Example, and ratified the evidence of truth by Martyrdom. Therefore keep, through thine own name, those whom thou hast given me”!
Or on the theory of Maurice? “TI have submitted to Self-sacrifice, — to a death of Self-denial. Therefore forgive and sanctify the particular persons whom now I designate and point out”!
Or on the wild dream of Ropertson? “I have fallen a prey to that ‘law of being,’ vicarious sacrifice, — ‘approaching the whirling wheel till I was torn in pieces.’ Therefore””/ Therefore — what? Abrogate the law of being? Or? — Stop the wheel!
Or what connection is there on the scheme of Busu-NELL? “TI have given a Display of the principles of thy Government, suitable and applicable to every human being. Therefore on some men, on certain persons, let thy Government bear in leniency and mercy”!
Or on that of Youna? “TI have finished a work fitted and designed to exert a Moral Influence on sinners. Therefore let me have influence with God”!
Or what connection is there on the scheme of DR. BALMER? “I have achieved an undertaking which bears on the welfare of each and every one of the human race precisely and exactly as it bears on any. Therefore I plead that it shall be made to have a wholly different bearing on some from that which it shall
have on others”!
Are these such reasonings as men will dare to put into the lips of the Wisdom and Logos of God? If not, — then let them own that the Atonement of the everlasting Son of the Father, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, is no vague, indefinite, impersonal, haphazard redeemability, preparatory merely to redemption; but very and efficacious redemption itself, even “in His blood who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature:” and that His Atonement being definite and perfect, and final and infallible, — for “It is finished,” — His Intercession is the perpetual presentation of it before the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, and the presentation therein of a plea most relevant and efficacious, infallibly securing all grace for those whom God hath given to Him, even so that “none of them is lost.” Let us all own this, with personal and appropriating faith; for, “whosoever will, let him come, and take of the water of life freely.” Let us then hold fast.the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. And let us, with the spirits of the blest on high, fall down in faith and gratitude before the throne of God and of the Lamb, saying: “Thou art worthy, O Lams, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing: for Thou wast slain, and hast REDEEMED us to God by Thy blood.”