The Counter-Imputations of Sin and Righteousness

He the arguments by which we have attempted to establish, That there cannot be Remission without Atonement, are admitted to be valid, it will be seen that they establish also the converse of that proposition, namely, That there cannot be Atonement without Remission.

For it is not any vague and general sort of atonement that is requisite to secure remission, but such particular and definite atonement as cannot but secure it. The same arguments, therefore, that are good to show the necessity of atonement in order to the remission of sins, are equally good to show the necessity of the remission of sins where atonement has been made: and no man is thoroughly established in the one truth who does not see that it inevitably involves. the other. Where the necessary condition has been met, the result follows necessarily. The atonement, which has been proved indispensable to remission, is of such a nature as to necessitate remission. For if it does not necessitate and secure remission, — if it does not render remission absolutely inevitable, — then it has secured or necessitated either nothing at all, or

mere remissibility. .But we have established nothing Loe 185 concerning any atonement that is necessary to remissibility; and therefore, on this assumption, we have established nothing concerning atonement at all. He who will not accept the converse, or introverted form of the proposition, cannot logically be permitted to cling to the direct and primary form of it. He cannot be allowed to use the word remission as meaning remission in the first half of an argument, and as meaning remissibility in the second. And if he should say that ex animo he now substitutes “remissibility” for “remission,” he must part passu make an analogous substitution for “atonement,” — whether “atonability” or not, it is for himself to say. But, at all events, it is perfectly clear that if after having proved, That there cannot be remission without atonement, he chooses to abandon the idea of real and actual and true remis- * sion, toning it down now to mean something far less than it meant when he began to show that the securing of it demands atonement; if he speak of it now, nut as something secured, but as something that is not secured, and that is still conditional and contingent; then he cannot possibly hold fast by that which he proved to be indispensable for securing it, while he himself even contends that it is not secured. He has cut the branch on which he might have rested peacefully, and he has provided no other to which he can safely transfer himself. If we stop short of the belief of the efficaciousness — the unconditional and absolute efficaciousness — of the Atonement, we raze to the foundations all that we had established. We “build again the things that we destroyed” (Gal. i. 18), and destroy the things which we had built. And how this bears on the extent of the Atonement, it is not necessary to say.

This will become evident: and at the same time it will become evident that the objection about the innocent suffering that the guilty may escape, is not an objection, but merely an unreasoned, direct denial of our doctrine: if, — before closing our series of leading propositions concerning the conditions of a correct discussion of the subject, — we show,

That, alike, the Hyuity and the Efficaciousness of the Atonement are safe-guarded and secured by the counteremputations, — namely, of the sins of the Covenant-clients to their Head, and the righteousness of the Covenant-head to his Clients.

The counter-imputations — of sin to Christ, of righteousness to His people — are nowhere in Holy Scripture brought into such close juxtaposition or related to each other by so firm a nexus, as in the celebrated and profound sentence, “He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. v. 21). It is reported that when some one, startled by the idea of Christ being “made sin,” suggested to Luther that it should be rendered “made a sin-offering,” Luther answered, “No; I prefer the words as they stand, for they are more intense.” And he spoke shrewdly and well. Besides, there would be equal reason for altering the second clause in a similar manner; and, indeed, the exactness and point of the antithesis would require that. So that the verse would read, “God hath made Him to be a sin-offering for us, who knew no sin, that we might be the righteousness-offering of God in Him;” a violation of the proposition so great and manifest as to show that it ought not to be violated or tampered with at all. Nor is it possible to stop even here. Consistency requires the alteration, if made at all, to go the length of a reading so absurd as this: He hath made Him to be a sin-offering for us, who knew no sin-offering! For the word épapréa must have one rendering, else the antithesis with which this great theological saying is replenished, and the precision of the truth which it is designed to teach, are lost.

It is of course true that God hath made Christ to be a sin-offering, a sacrifice for sin: but that is not the same thing as His having made Christ to be sin. His being made sin is by no means identical with His being made a sacrifice for sin. It goes deeper and further back into the problem. It is at once the preliminary and the reason for His being made a sacrifice for sin. He is made sin, and therefore He is made a sin-offering. It is His being made sin which justifies His being made a sin-offering. In order that He may really and righteously, congruously and consistently, be made a sacrifice for sin, it behoves that He be first made sin. And this locus insignis of the Pauline theology does not state the fact that Christ was made a sacrifice for sin; it states a truth which is the ground and reason of that fact. It lays the foundation for the sacrifice in a prior transaction.

That transaction may be viewed in this light. God is seeking out and searching for sin, that He may deal with it judicially; that He may deal with it as the holiness of the Divine nature, and the righteousness of the Divine law, and the justice of the Divine government, require that it should be dealt with. The sword of justice is seen pursuing sin, to inflict the threatened penalty of wrath and death. Meantime, in His supreme sovereignty, God puts forward His own Son manifest in the flesh to represent sin, to personate sin, to stand in the room of sin. “God sends His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and For stn” (Rom. viii. 3); that is in lieu or in room of sin. It is the same phrase in Heb. x. 6, though our translators have obliterated the precision of it by supplying a word that was not needed. “In burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure; correctly rendered, “In burnt-offerings, and FoR SIN, Thou hast had no pleasure.” Even so, God sends forth His own Son “FoR SIN,” in lieu or room of sin, to represent or personate sin, — so thoroughly, indeed, that Divine law and justice pursuing sin find Christ in sin’s room, and take hold on Christ; for he is “For sIn,” “made sin;” and thus “God, sending His own Son for sin, condemns sin in the flesh,” even in the flesh of Him who is for sin, and in the likeness of sinful flesh. He condemns sin, in condemning Christ; for Christ is “For sIn;” He is, — to use a common and intelligible expression, — He is what is for it. He is For sin: and He is so by the authority and appointment of the sovereign Lord and Judge himself; for God hath made Him to be sin.

Divine justice and Divine wrath, then, are seen searching for sin — our sin — to execute upon it the vengeance due to sin. And in this search Divine justice and Divine wrath inevitably find Christ; for God hath made Him that knew no sin to be sin for us. In like manner, and in exact counterpart of this, Divine justice and Divine love are seen searching for righteousness — the righteousness of God — the righteousness which God requires — which His own holy nature and His own attribute of righteousness cannot but require. They are seen searching for “the righteousness which God’s righteousness requires Him to require.” * They are searching for it, in order to smile upon it — to lavish on it the love, and complacency, and favor, and blessing of God. And in searching for this righteousness, they find us, if we are in Christ: for we are “made the righteousness of God in him.” And they own that their search has been successful. Nor was it unnecessary. Nay, it was more than ever necessary, from the moment that they recognized Christ as “made sin.” From that moment the demand for the “righteousness of God” becomes imperious. The wondrous evolution by which the Son of God is “made sin,” creates an absolutely imperious and new demand that the righteousness of God should be forthcoming, even as it never was before. And it is met in that which is the counterpart, and fruit, and justification of Christ “made sin,” — even in us “made the righteousness of God.” The renowned vox signata, then, which we are considering, does not allege that Christ has been subjected to death “for us men and for our salvation,” — a ransom, a sacrifice, an offering for sin; but rather the reason for that, its ground and justifying reason; namely, His being substituted in the room of sinners, and having their sins imputed or reckoned to Him. And it does not allege that we are justified unto life eternal in Christ; but the ground and reason of that;

* The beautiful expression of the beloved and ever-to-be-lamented WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, — the priceless gem we were honored to receive from him in conversation, — his own matchless interpretation of the Divine expression, ‘The Righteousness of God” (Rom, iii. 21, 22).

namely, our being substituted in the eye of God’s law and justice, in the room of Christ, and our having His righteousness imputed to us. It does not declare that Christ is made a sacrifice for sin; but that, prior to that, and in order to that, He is made our sin. And it does not declare that we are reconciled to God — which would be the proper and formally exact antithesis, result, and counterpart of His being made a sacrifice for sin; for reconciliation is the natural and immediate fruit of sacrifice. But it declares that, as prior to our reconciliation, and in order thereunto, we are made the righteousness of God in Christ. In a word, it is the EXCHANGE OF PLACES that is the direct doctrine affirmed; and it goes utterly to enervate this profound theological proposition, and to empty it of the specific truth which it so clearly couches and so forcibly conveys, if we fail to read it simply as it stands. It is the twofold exchange of places in respect of sin and righteousness severally, and the counter-imputations thereof, which undoubtedly it embodies and expresses. And it expresses this in threefold antithesis. For each clause contains an antithesis of its own — the first in terms, the second implicitly; and the clauses, moreover, are antithetical as between themselves. It is as if it read thus:

He hath made Him that knew no sin
To be Sin for us:
That we (who knew no righteousness)
Might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

We do not, of course, propose to investigate either of the antithetical clauses by itself — which would lead us into the mare magnum of the abstract, metaphysical, juridical, and ethical principles of imputation generally. We propose to take the two clauses conjointly, and to review them in the light which they. reciprocally throw upon each other.

Concerning these two Divine and divinely related transactions, then: — the substitution of Christ in our room, through federal union with us — His being made sin for us: and the substitution of us in His room, through spiritual union with Him founded on and growing out of His federal union with us, — our being made the righteousness of God in Him: — we may see, in the first place: That the Divine authority regulates them both; and, that the Divine power effects them both. In the second place: That they are strict and simple, unmingled and complete imputations; and that the wills of the parties — Christ’s, namely, and ours — are in them both. In the third place: That they irresistibly carry their contrasted and complete effects with them; and also, that the latter transaction is the result, the sure and inevitable result, of the former.

Drurt First.

The Counter-imputations are accomplished by Divine Sovereignty and Divine Power.

I. The sovereign authority of God decrees and rules these two great transactions. “He,” even God, “hath made him to be sin.” Thus expressly is the first of them at least attributed to the Supreme. It is not indeed affirmed in the same express and explicit terms that God is the author of the second. It is somewhat more generally and impersonally expressed: “That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” But even here the same thing is implicitly involved. For clearly the meaning is: God designed and decreed to make us the righteousness of God: in order to this, however, it was in God’s own righteousness requisite that Christ should be made sin: in order that He might make us the righteousness of God, He did not shrink from making Christ to be sin: He accomplished the one evolution that He might bring about the other. Clearly, both are the doing of the Lord. And it is marvellous in our eyes.

The making of Christ to be sin, is a transaction of high state and sovereignty. It isa very singular event in the Divine government. It could originate with — it could be designed, proposed, carried out by — none but the Divine moral governor Himself; and by Him acting only in His prerogative as the Absolute Sovereign of the universe.

And it affords scope for exercising and glorifying His sovereignty as no other transaction in all the eternal history of His government can afford. For it illustrates the singular freedom — the high range and all-embracing sweep — of His sheer sovereign will, unto the uttermost. It proves that God’s sovereignty is free, in a freedom which could not have been conceived, and has full scope and play in circumstances in which it could not have been believed to be applicable. For God’s holy law is absolute, and unconditional, and unchangeable. No possible circumstances can set limits to its action; for its very claim is to rule all circumstances whatsoever. And, save for sin and

salvation, the holy universe must have for ever believed 17 N that God’s sovereign pleasure also was ruled and hemmed in by His unconditional and everlasting law. It must have for ever appeared impossible that God’s will could act otherwise, in all matters ethical and juridical, than as His unchangeable law should rule. Hence, when sin entered, and death by sin, the sovereign God must have appeared, to all His intelligent and righteous creatures, as shut up to inflict death on all that sinned. The sphere of sovereignty must have appeared limited by the sphere of law.

But God designed to show His sovereignty to be absolutely unlimited, — not, indeed, in a way of violating law, or setting law aside, but of transcending law ; — not as against law, but above law; — as not merely free within the sphere of law, but free in a sphere comprehending law and rising above it; compassing law about on every side with glory, and rising far above law, into a realm of higher freedom still.

The sovereign Lord is not shut up to the course which law prescribes — death eternal to the sinner. The freedom of His sovereignty — the council of His will — the sphere of His good pleasure — takes a larger range. He is not shut up to His course of procedure, even by His own holy law. He cannot indeed proceed in violation of it; for it is the very transcript of His own holy nature, and He cannot deny Himself. But His nature, while it defines His law, does not hamper or hem in His will. Honoring His law, and acting ever in accordance with His nature and perfections, His will goeth forth in most free, unconditioned, absolute sovereignty. And in the action of His sovereignty, in its most free and glorious forth-going, He makes Christ to be sin for us. No law required this:

no law suggested this: no law objects to this. Against this there is no law. To prompt to this there is no law. The everlasting law is honored by this, but never contemplated it. The sovereign pleasure of God, reigning within and without the law, rises high above it. And His counsel shall stand, and He will do all His pleasure.

Ah! well may we ask, — Why do sinful men quarrel with the sovereignty of God, the mere good pleasure of His will? Its unlimitedness, its absolute unconditionedness, is their only source of hope. And its glory is made great in their salvation.

For, let it be observed that this is exclusively the sovereignty of grace, of mercy, and of love. As high as the sovereignty of God in its absoluteness is carried up above its former apparent range, so high are the love, and grace, and mercy of God exalted, and seen to be of that infinite extent and unconditioned energy, that could have been neither manifested nor imagined apart from the redemption that is in Christ. And now as the principalities and powers of light adore before the glorious expansion which the sovereignty of heaven’s high King has undergone or exhibited, they see that it is grace, and mercy, and love, that are shining bright over all former forth-shining of the glory of God: and now they say wonderingly, in mingled ecstasy and awe, as they never said or sang before, — “God is love.”

And it is by the same absolute authority, the same sovereign will and mere good pleasure of the Lord, that we are made the righteousness of God in Christ. “He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He will have compassion on whom He will have compassion.” The imputation of righteousness to us — not against law — must be above law. We must be “justified freely by His grace.” We cannot imagine that it should be otherwise. We cannot imagine God, in the freest sovereignty of His will, making Christ to be sin for us; and coming down, coming under any constraint, or limitation, or condition, in making us to be the righteousness of God in Him. That which shall render us the righteousness of God, can, and must, be simply the onward movement, seeking its intended goal, of that same most free and sovereign will of God, which, in order to make us the righteousness of God, first made Christ to be sin for us. Nay; if we understand the exercise, the glory, the grand extension and expansion — as we have ventured to say — of divine sovereignty in making Christ to be sin, we cannot possibly desire to be made the righteousness of God, save by the exercise of this same sovereignty of God from its now loftiest throne — its highest regal seat of power most absolute. Who would wish His righteousness, in the eternal judgments, to shine in any glory of grace, less than the very uttermost of sovereign grace? Or who desire to see this sovereignty — so glorious in love’s own utmost range, and love’s own highest liberty — shorn and tamed down, hemmed in and limited, brought in bondage, or constrained by any conditions, just as it stretched forth its hand to grant salvation from eternal ruin? No. Let it be that very sovereignty of God — rising to the utmost height of its heavenly bent, and acting out, unto the uttermost bounds, or rather in the boundlessness of freedom, its own sweet, free, and loving will — that shall compass and convey my salvation. And even so it acts indeed; from its absolute throne — the “THRONE OF GRACE” — in the freest pleasure of its will. I may tremble, it is very true, to think that my escape from everlasting ruin is at the disposal of the mere and sovereign will of another. But it is at the disposal of the sovereign will of Love unfathomable. And it is at the disposal of the sovereign will of Power most absolute. My trembling, therefore, need be none other than the trembling of hope, succeeding the blank terror of despair. For when I tremble before sovereign love unlimited, armed with Omnipotency to bring salvation, I am gloriously exempted from trembling on any other ground. And when “the floods, O Lord, have lifted up, when they have lifted up their voice, and lifted up their waves;” when conscience, and death, and hell, are dooming me, and claiming me, I will not for one moment delay giving thanks that I have heard a voice louder than theirs, and mightier than the noise of many waters, saying from the throne of absolute power and infinite grace: “I will have mercy on him, sovereignly and simply if I please; I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” Glory to God in the highest!

II. The efficacy of Divine power is in both these transactions, as well as the authority of Divine sovereignty. This is manifestly implied in the language used to express them: “He hath made Him to be sin — that we might be made the righteousness of God.” Divine power has effected it, as well as Divine authority appointed-it. It has been powerfully accomplished ie in the fulness of times, as well as sovereignly decreed in the councils of eternity.

“God sends forth His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and For sin.” The initial and decisive exercise of Divine power in making Christ to be sin, is in sending Him forth in the likeness of sinful flesh. The Word was made flesh, that He might be made sin. Made flesh; not sinful flesh: for it is He who knew no sin that is made sin, and He still remains He who knows no sin: but in the likeness of sinful flesh; the brightness of the Father’s glory concealed by the resemblance of the stain only — the express image of the Father’s person shrouded under the dark shadow of the likeness merely — of sinful flesh. Here is the substitution: the holy for the sinful; the just for the unjust; the innocent for the guilty; He who knew no sin made sin.

The Incarnation of the Eternal Word is not His being made sin: but it is the immediate preliminary in the order of nature; and it is the proof. The eternal covenant oneness — the federal union — grounds the representative character of Messiah and His substitution and suretyship. Each of these relations, indeed, leans for support on that which precedes it: suretyship justified by substitution; substitution, by real representation; representation, by federal union or covenant oneness. And here ultimately the series terminates and rests — rests in the unchangeable council and will of the Sacred Three. For, viewed by itself, the federal union is simply a decree of the Divine will, a judgment of the Divine mind, and a covenant agreement in the eternal Spirit between the Father and the Son. And if exegetical and inductive examination of Holy Scripture brings this to light as a truth revealed, — as we believe it does, though we cannot now pause to show that, — it remains simply to resolve it into the sovereign will of God, and to defend it by the simple and sublime affirmation: “His counsel shall stand, and He will do all His pleasure.”

But this covenant oneness between the Son of God’s love, and the people given to Him in the Counsel of Peace, needs no exercise of Divine power for its constitution. It is constituted in Eternity by a sovereign decision of the Divine will, and passes — in the order of nature, that is — into a judgment of the Divine mind. And this is the federal union. But then, unto the actual achievement of the design which it contemplates, exercises of Divine power are needed to constitute more than one real union, each of which must rest in and be represented by an accomplished fact. Hence the union of the Eternal Son to His people, in respect of His assumption of their nature into personal subsistence with the Divine nature in His person — which is His Incarnation. Hence, also, their union to Him, in respect of their being created again in Him by the renewing of the Holy Ghost — which is their regeneration.

And hence, as we have said, the Incarnation, which is not in itself Christ’s being made sin, is the immediate preliminary and the proof thereof. If the question be asked, What shall be the sign of Christ being made sin for us? the answer is, “This shall be the sign: you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and lying in the manger” (Luke ii. 12). And the two things are simultaneous. In His assumption of our nature, He begins to be made sin. He isa sin-bearer from the virgin’s womb to the sealed grave of Golgotha. His consciousness is a sin-bearer’s consciousness during all the days of His flesh — as Dr. George Smeaton, than whom no greater authority on this theme exists, has done admirable service by so copiously and variously demonstrating.* His being made in the likeness of sinful flesh was indispensable to His being “for sin;” and His being “made sin” followed inevitably on His being made in the likeness of sinful flesh. “Because the children were partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part in the same, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God” (Heb. ii. 17). His Incarnation was the indispensable preliminary. And by the grandest miracle of Divine power it was achieved.

Our being made in the likeness of the holiness of the Word made flesh, the express image of the invisible God, is as indispensable to our being made the righteousness of God, as Christ’s being made in the likeness of sinful flesh was indispensable to His being made sin. Not indeed our consciousness of being born again, but our being born again, born of the Spirit and the word of God, is as indispensable in order to our having righteousness imputed to us,t as was Christ’s being born of the Spirit and the virgin to His having sin imputed to Him. His incarnation

* See his invaluable work, “The Doctrine of the Atonement, as taught by Christ himself.” T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh.

t More lines of thought branch out from this centre than we can here and now overtake. But the thoughtful reader will observe that the order of these things, as in the Divine procedure, is in some respects reversed, as in the belieyer’s consciousness. — Hany BURTON is most admirable on this.

is not in itself the imputation of sin to Him. And our regeneration is not in itself the imputation of righteousness to us. His being made flesh did not cancel His well-deservingness, or make Him worthy of death and the curse. And our being made spirit — Spiritborn spirit (John iii. 6) — does not cancel our ill-deservingness, or render us worthy of the blessing and of life eternal. The imputation of righteousness can alone entitle us to favor (Gal. 111. 21). The imputation of sin could alone subject the Son of God to wrath. But the imputation of sin never could have taken effect in His case had He not been made in the likeness of men. Nor can the imputation of righteousness in our case take place if we be not made anew in the likeness of God. He was made flesh that He might be made sin. We are made spirit — spirit born of the Spirit — that we may be made righteousness. He had to be partaker of the human nature (Heb. 11. 14- 17): we must be made “partakers of the. Divine nature” (2 Pet. i. 4). Except God be born, He cannot come into the kingdom of sin. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of righteousness. And Divine power — the power of the Holy Ghost, the plenipotentiary and executant of all the will of Godhead — achieves the Incarnation of God and the regeneration of men, that the Son of God may be made sin, and the sons of men made righteousness. The efficacy of Divine power is in both these transactions.

Dart Second.

The Counter-Imputations are Simple and Complete Imputations, and accepted by the Parties.

I. The two transactions are imputations — out and out, exclusively, imputations: pure, unmingled, complete imputation of sin on the one side: pure, unmingled, complete imputation of righteousness on the other. And the first throws light upon the second.

“He who knew no sin is made sin.” It is not indeed expressly said in similar terms, We who knew no righteousness are made the righteousness of God. But it is implied. We are as destitute of personal - righteousness as He of personal sin. It is simply and exclusively imputation on His side — our sin imputed to Him who is holy. It is simply and exclusively imputation on our side — His righteousness imputed to us who are sinful. And as His holiness is no bar to our sin being imputed to Him, our sinfulness is no bar to His holiness being imputed to us. No bar! That is the least of it. It is His holiness which renders the imputation of sin to Him possible: it is our sinfulness which renders the imputation of righteousness to us necessary; while, at the same time, it is rendered possible by our sin being imputed to Him. For our sin can no longer bar the imputation of righteousness to us, or invalidate, or modify, or alleviate, or impair that imputation, seeing it has been disposed of by its imputation to Him who bears it in His own body on the tree, and is made of God unto us righteousness, Tis holiness, in like manner, does not alleviate the imputation of sin to Him; for the imputation is so thorough, and unreserved, and unimpaired, that He is even made sin. There is nothing confused or commingled in these imputations on either side.

Besides, as they are imputations, pure and simple, so they are complete. He is made ail our sin, as truly as He has none of His own; we are made all His righteousness, as truly as we have none of ours. For it is we, wholly and completely, that are His sin; He, wholly and completely, that is our righteousness. For us He is made sin; in Him we are made the righteousness of God. If we are in Him, then all our sin; — the sin of our life, and heart, and nature; — our original sin and our actual sin; our sin that has been, is, and shall be; the sin that dwelleth in us; — in short, the sin that we are; — this, Christ is made for us. All of us that is sin; all on which the sword of justice could smite and the sting of death fasten; we ourselves thus are made over to Him as His sin. And all His righteousness; — the righteousness of His heart, and life, and nature; His original and His actual righteousness; the entire lovely moral beauty of His person, His every righteous principle of thought, affection, will, desire, and deed; the righteousness, in short, which He is; — this, we are made in Him. All of Him that is righteousness; all of Him on which the approbation, love, joy, and delight of the Father can rest; He himself thus is made of God unto us righteousness. For it is whole Christ that is “the end of the law for righteousness unto every one that believeth.”

It takes all the wondrous definiteness, and precision, and personality out of this transaction to represent the righteousness of saints as merely something that Christ suffered, or something in which Christ served on their behalf. The temptation, in such a view, is very great, to separate His suffering and His service from His person, and to consider them as what may be contemplated and dealt with apart from His person. The beam vanishes when cut off from the sun from which it flows. And Christ is the sun of righteousness, with healing in His wings. He is the Lord our righteousness. It is He that is of God made unto us righteousness, — He himself. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, — Christ himself, in His own person, with that infinite fund of righteousness and moral excellence, the exhaustless fountain whereof is the righteousness of saints.

The “exchange of places” carries this in it inevitably. It effects a very perfect and complete commutation and counter-imputation.. And nothing less can meet our case. When we began to be, we began to be sin, — conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity. When He began to be in the likeness of sinful flesh, He who knew no sin began to be sin for us — our sin; holy, harmless, and undefiled, and separate from sinners, yet uniting Himself to us, to be our sin, He himself, from His beginning to be in the flesh, beginning also to be our righteousness. The very dawn of our existence, which was in sin, He blends with the dawn of His existence as Emmanuel, as made sin for us. The. thread of our sinful state and history and ill-deserving destiny, even from our mother’s womb, He hath conjoined with the thread of His own from the Virgin’s womb, intertwining the two in one, Himself thus made sin for us. And keeping them conjoined in one — not dealing violently with ours, not snapping it, not even diverting it from its rightful destiny and outgoing, but following its course, He hath followed it conjointly with His own, unbroken, down into those depths of wrath, and death, and hell, in which ours had its righteous and inevitable issue. And as, purged from our sin, He rose from the dead, and ascended far above all heavens, still He brought the thread of our destiny with Him, entwined still in one with His own, and riveted it for ever to the throne of God and of the Lamb, on which throne He now sits, made of God unto us righteousness, we the righteousness of God in Him. Thus perfect and complete are these imputations.

II. The will of the parties is in these transactions, also, severally, — their full, intelligent, and joyful consent.

Christ is not made sin without His own consent; nor are we made righteousness without ours. “When He cometh into the world” — the world of sin, — made sin, “He saith, Lo, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of me: I delight to do thy will, O God: thy law also is within my heart” (Ps. xl. 6; Heb. x. 7). His Incarnation, His being made sin, is voluntary. “He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant,” as well as “was made in the likeness of men” (Phil. ii. 7). His Incarnation was the Holy Spirit’s work; but His own most active will ‘was in it.

Our regeneration also is the Holy Spirit’s work; but our own will is init too. Not as the grand determining power: “By grace are ye saved; through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

Grace is the determining power; the omnipotent and resistless grace of God most high. “Thy people shall be willing in the day of roy powER” (Ps. cx.3). Still they are “willing.” Their own will is in their regeneration; not supreme, but subordinate: yet not destroyed as will by being subordinated to the will of God, the grand original archetype of man’s will, as at first made in God’s image, and now renewed into it when man’s is subordinated to God’s will, informed by it, actuated by it, made the intelligent consentient engine and agent of carrying out the One Will which shall do all its pleasure. Even thus, then, as Christ’s assumption of our sin was His own voluntary deed, so our assumption of His righteousness must be our voluntary act too. Hence the need, and the office, and the place of Faith. Both these high sovereign transactions of the good pleasure of Jehovah’s will, appeal to the wills of the parties transposed mutually into each other’s places. The Lord God, in the council of His will, deals with their wills. He secures the concurrence of their wills. He gains their full consent on either side.

And has He not in the fact of Christ’s consent a wondrous leverage to wield in calling for our consent? Shall not the fact of Christ’s consent secure ours? If He consent to pass over to the side of sin, shall we not consent to pass over to the side of righteousness? And have not His ambassadors a powerful screw — in a sense most blessed and beneficent — ‘to press upon the sinner’s heart and conscience in compassing the blessed work of shutting men up into the faith? And how does the true glory of a profound theology come out to view, as no dry, formal, abstract speculation; but the joyful handmaid, yea, the loving foster-mother, of spiritual life as in all the churches; when theology ransacks all her brightest treasures to turn them into arguments for charming and compelling men to come in, and frames her finest, richest theorems — refined and rich as aught that any science has to show — into powerful motives for the prisoner to come forth, and for them that sit in darkness to show themselves! Shall not the consent of God’s own Son to be made sin, secure your consent to be made righteousness? His consent could involve Him in nothing but shame, and sorrow, and wrath, and death. Your consent brings glory, and joy, and blessing, and the life everlasting. Shall not His consent provoke and carry yours? Nay; shall not His consent be the model of yours? Can your consenting will express itself more beautifully than His, “Lo, I come 2 alist, mMOttoOub als “imitation of Christ” that first of all you are called? “Him that cometh.” ‘Come unto me.” “Whosoever will, let him come.” Let him come, as I came, when joyfully, though death and hell were before me, I said, “To, I come.” And by thus coming, — by thus answering the call, and imitating the consent, and twining your will into the will of Christ, will you not fall heir to all that is implied in Christ’s consent, and make it more and more fully all your own, till making thereby both your calling and election sure, you be able to say, tremblingly, perhaps, but truthfully: “To, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of me” also?

Dart Third.

The Counter-Imputations are enevitably efficacious of their Results; the second, moreover, being the Result of the

first.

I. Both these transactions of imputation carry inevitable and complete effects with them.;

When He who knew no sin was made sin for us, condemnation, sorrow, shame, exile, desertion, the curse, and death followed remorselessly. These are the consequences, most sure, treading with mighty and resistless march on the heels of the imputation of sin. No power in all the universe can interpose to arrest them; neither height nor depth, nor an y creature, nor the creating God himself. “Father, if it be possible!” And the Father answered Him to never a word. For when sin is imputed, death, with its sting and woe, comes in triumphantly. Be He even the eternal God in whose person imputation takes place; be it even the Beloved of the Father; be it the man who knows no sin, who is holy, harmless, and undefiled, the chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely; sin has entered, and death enters by sin. His Godhead hinders it not; His relation to the Father — oh! how near and blessed ineffably — hinders it not. His holy beauty, from the womb of the virgin, and as from the womb of the morning, hinders it not. His perfect love to the Father, His Father’s infinite love to Him, — and neither is impaired or arrested for an instant of time, — hinders it not. His perfect wondrous love for those whose very sins are imputed to Him hinders it not. Though He be the living God manifest in the flesh; though He be the Eternal Son; yet learns

He obedience by the things which He suffers.. Made sin, — even though lovely in the Father’s eyes because He loves those whose sin He is made, and lovely on the very ground of bearing the sin which He is made, — He is inevitably “made a curse” (Gal. iii. 13); not merely subjected to the endurance of a curse, but in His person made a devoted thing — made herem, a curse — even unto His hanging accursed on the tree.

And, if against considerations so powerful — against His Godhead, His Sonship, His spotless holiness, His matchless moral beauty, resplendent in that He consents to be made sin, — if imputed sin still prevails to carry all its consequences with terrific and resistless march, bringing in death and hell and the curse: shall the imputation of righteousness fail to carry all its issues? Shall they who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness fail to reign in life by Jesus Christ? (See Romans v. 12-21, specially verse 17.) If the worth of Godhead in all its assembled glories and perfections; and the love of Sonship in its ineffable, inviolable bond of grace unto the Father’s heart; and perfect loveliness of moral beauty; and an enhanced argument of admiration in this very sin-bearing of the Son of God for sinners, — if all these considerations bar not the curse and death from their inevitable forthgoing on our Divine Substitute: shall any worthlessness of ours, any alienation, any guilt of past sin, or any present sin that dwelleth in us, bar from us the blessing of the life eternal, if we are made the righteousness of God? If imputation is so imperiously and absolutely triumphant and invincible on the one side, shall it be less triumphant or

invincible on the other? The sin especially which ESI =O dwelleth in us may seem to plead against and peril the blessed results of imputation of righteousness. But the spotless holiness which dwelt in Christ pleaded not successfully against, nor in the slightest measure perilled, paralyzed, or put back the issues of imputed sin. Indwelling sin may indeed make our warfare perilous — “warring against the law of ‘my mind” (Rom. vii. 23); but the present victory tarries on our helmet and our sword. It may give us in a measure the experience of the poor slave and captive, — “carrying me captive to the law of sin that is in my members” (idem); but a present freedom is ours notwithstanding, the perfect law of liberty making us free from the law of sin and death (James i. 25; Rom. vili.2). It may give us in a measure the sense of deepest wretchedness, — “O wretched man that I am” (Rom. vil. 24): but a sure and perfect blessedness is still in Christ all our own. For precisely in triumph over this profound experience of warring, captivating, and woe-working sin that dwelleth in us; precisely in celebration of the inevitable, the resistlessly certain, issues of imputed righteousness, is Paul’s blessed and ever-memorable boast, — and without seeing it in this light, we do not hear its true tone and rhythm, nor enter into half its depth: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. vil. 1).

Nor is it enough to affirm this inevitableness, notwithstanding whatsoever hindrances may arise. The inevitableness of life and the blessing, following in the train of imputed righteousness, is far more grandly seen, Just in the light of hindrances, so powerful we might have thought, but so vain and ineffectual. The

Sovereign Lord, if He pleased, might sanctify us into celestial perfection in the instant in which He makes us the righteousness of God in Christ. But could our confidence in the resistless absolute, and eternal triumph of that imputation be so great, as in overgrowing experience and consciousness it ought now to be, when the presence and the great power even of sin, are found incapable of marring its perfection, or staying its marvellous and majestic issues of blessing, and’ favor, and life, and the loving-kindness which is better than life? “Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away” (Ps. lxv. 3). “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without works” (Ps. xxxu. 42; Rom. iv. 6-8).

The Son of God is made sin. And though His Godhead is true and is there; though His Sonship is ineffable and ‘inviolable; though His holiness is unspotted; and though the blood burst forth in His agony, and His cry is terrible upon the tree, and the earth reels and staggers, and the sun grows black; death and the curse come on. Let us be made ie righteousness of God in Him. And though sin is true and is here; though Satan stand at our right hand to resist us; though our iniquities take hold on us that we cannot look up; though the “O wretched man,” be our daily cry with growing truth and sorrow; though the dust of battle be upon us, and the damp of death be coming; though the waters roar and are troubled, and the fee be carried into the midst of the sea; though our house be not so with God, and the fig-tree do not blossom, and our heart and our flesh fail: shall any or all of these things separate us from life and the blessing? “N, ay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For Iam persuaded,” — I am persuaded that that song of persuasion is the heritage of all who are made the righteousness of God.

II. But besides affirming that these two counter-imputations carry inevitable and complete effects with them, it remains to affirm also that the second of the imputations is itself an inevitable effect of the first: “God hath made Him that knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” This is the design of Christ’s being made sin, namely, that we might be made the righteousness of God. The similar correlative design of Christ’s “being made a curse,” is brought out in terms exactly analogous: “Made a curse for us, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon us, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Gal. iii. 18, 14). And the same thing is set forth in the more general formula: “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich” (2 Cor. viii. 9). This, indeed, — to use the language of the geometrician, — is just the general theorem, embracing numerous special cases, of which the doctrine of the counter-imputations is perhaps the most important. For if, instead of the general term “riches,” we read “righteousness,” and if, instead of the general idea of “poverty,” we take the special idea of “sin,” then the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ stands in this, That He who was righteous was, for our sakes, made sin, that we, through His being made sin, might be made the righteousness of God. And again: if for “riches” we read the “blessing,” and for “poverty” the “curse,” the general theorem presents the case in Gal. iii. 18, namely, That the Blessed One is made a curse, that we might receive the blessing. And so, if by “riches” is meant “life,” and by “poverty” is meant “death,” then, — We know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was the Living One, the True God, and Eternal Life, yet for our sakes, and in our room, He died, that we, through His death, might have life, and might have it more abundantly. Be it in the general case, or in any special aspect of it, the destgn is in this same manner uniformly set forth, and set forth as that which is surely and infallibly accomplished. Being God’s design it is successful, — not the design only, but the result. For the work of the Lord is perfect, not breaking down in the middle, but reaching the goal, — that goal, or sedog, or end spoken of, when it is said, “Christ is the réd0g of the law to every one that believeth” (Rom. x. 4). For, as inevitably as when Christ is made sin He is made a curse, and wrath and death assail Him; and as inevitably as when we are made the righteousness of God, life and the blessing come upon us; so surely, intermediately between these two inevitables, there is another, namely, that they for whom Christ is made sin are infallibly made the righteousness of God. Le denies the counter-imputations who denies that the second follows necessarily from the first. He misconceives the whole arrangement. For, in reality, the counter-imputations are not so much two transactions as one. The exchange of places is one indivisible evolution. It is not effected in the movement of one of the parties, but in their mutual transposition. It is a reciprocating movement; and when the reciprocation fails, the movement ceases utterly.

Hence it follows, that in giving our consent to be made the righteousness of God, we give our consent” to the Son of God being made sin. It is impossible to break in upon this transaction in the middle of it. We must acquiesce in it as it is — one great and perfect whole. We must begin with it at the beginning. For herein is that saying true, “He that entereth not in by the door, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.” Now, the cross is the door — the gate of righteousness. For no other Christ is made of God unto us righteousness, than Christ made sin for us.

And hence the irrefragable guarantee for the penitence of Him that is made the righteousness of God. Blessed is he to whom the Lord imputeth no iniquity, but imputeth righteousness without works. But when I kept silence, my bones waxed old. Then I said, I will confess my transgressions. I will lay my sin on Jesus. I will contemplate Him made sin: and by confession of sin, I will acquiesce in His being made sin, and accept Him as made sin for me. “And thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin,” (Ps. xxxii.) — On any other scheme than that of covenant unity and counter-imputation, repentance and faith contradict each other.*

Hence, also, the vital and organic harmony between

*It will be evident to the thoughtful reader that a fine and fertile vein of thought opens up here, which this sentence simply strikes. See it ‘cropping out” also on pp. 182-3, antea. I should greatly like, God willing, to follow up this volume with another of similar size, investigating carefully the Atonement in its relation to Conscience.

the justification of him who is made the righteousness of God, and his sanctification in all manner of holiness. For whether sanctification be regarded as the believer’s duty or God’s gift, it is placed on a footing of inviolable safety by these counter-imputations of sin and righteousness. To him for whom Christ has been made sin, and who is therefore made the righteousness of God, the appeal surely must come home with resistless force of obligation when it frames itself in terms like these: How uprightly, how gracefully, how righteously should “the righteousness of God” conduct itself, in all holiness and righteousness, before Him all the days of our lives! And when overwhelmed by a sense of inability to answer this appeal as its intrinsic force demands and prompts, how blessed to bear in mind not only that holiness is God’s gift as well as our duty, but that when we stand before Him as ourselves “the righteousness of God” in Christ, God’s own interest in God’s own righteousness acting righteously, may be heard imparting at once a guarantee of faithfulness and a thrill of power to the voice of majesty and grace that conveys the assurance: “J am the Lord thy God that doth sanctify thee” (Exod. xxxi. 18).