The Nature of the Atonement Determined by What the Scriptures Teach as to Its Perfection
The question as to the PERFECTION of the atoning work of Christ has often been agitated in the Church. It relates to two distinct points, («.) Is that work perfect as to its intrinsic justice-satisfying value? Does it fully satisfy all the demands of the law by reason of its own inherent merit. And (6) as to its application and effect, is the atoning work of Christ so complete in itself that it secures the salvation of those for whom it was made? Or does it only put the sinner in a salvable state, leaving the result to depend upon other conditions?
I. The first point, it is evident, would have no relevancy whatsoever on the supposition of the truth of the Moral Influence Theory. If the one design of Christ’s sufferings is to touch our hearts and subdue our affections, the efficiency of the work must depend upon every man’s subjective appreciation of Christ’s person, of his motives, and of the necessity and value of his interventions in our behalf. The advocates of the Governmental Theory deny that Christ suffered the penalty of the law, or that his sufferings were in intrinsic value a full equivalent for the penal sufferings in person of all those in whose behalf he suffered. They maintain that since these sufferings are an expedient to secure certain ends in the administration of the divine government, they are introduced and acted on in the remission of sins by God in his capacity of a Sovereign, and not as a Judge. He wills to accept the satisfaction of Christ, not because in its intrinsic nature it is a full equivalent in rigour of justice for the personal punishment of his people, but because his wise and benevolent mind sees that he may do so with perfect safety to all the best interests of his general government.
Duns Scotus, referring the necessity for the Atonement ultimately to the will and not to the nature of God, consequently maintained that God could have forgiven sin without any satisfaction; that if he had so willed, he might have proposed conditions of forgiveness other than those fulfilled by Christ; and that the temporary and finite sufferings of Christ are accepted by God, in the gracious exercise of sovereign prerogative, as a substitute, but not as a full, legal equivalent for the eternal sufferings of men. This principle Scotus expressed by the term aceeptilatio, borrowed from the Roman law, and defined as “the optional taking of something for nothing, or of a part for the whole.’7
Grotius, in his great work De Satisfaetione, rejected the term aceeptilatio, but retained substantially the idea. He refers the necessity of the Atonement to the interests of good order in the universe. He considers the optional will of God the ground and origin of law, and maintains that the demands of law may of course be relaxed by the choice of the same will that creates them. He held that Christ did not pay in the stead of sinners a quid pro quo but an aliud pro quop which God graciously accepts; that is, God’s law is not satisfied in rigour of justice by what Christ has done, but he has sovereignly relaxed it, so that it is virtually, that is, in practical effect, satisfied thereby. Limborch says: “The satisfaction of Christ is so called (by some) because that he for our sakes endured all the penalties charged against our sins, and by fully discharging them he made satisfaction to divine justice. But that opinion has no foundation in Scripture. The death of Christ is called a sacrifice for sin; but sacrifices were not payments of debts, neither were they full satisfactions for sins; but the penalty was gratuitously remitted on condition that the sacrifice was offered.”*... “In this they greatly err, because they consider the price of redemption to be in all things equivalent to those miseries from which redemption is secured. The price of redemption was determined by the estimation of him who held the captive, and did not release the captive on the ground of merit.” f
CurcellaBus says:| “Christ did not, therefore, as is commonly thought, make satisfaction by suffering all those penal evils which we merited for our sins; for, in the first place, this does not pertain to the nature or purpose of sacrifice; for sacrifices were not the payment of debts: secondly, Christ has not suffered eternal death, which was the penalty deserved by our sin, for he hung upon the cross only for a few hours, and rose again the third day. Even if he had undergone eternal death, it does not appear how he could have made satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world; for this would have
* Apol. Tlies. iii. 21, 6. f Ibid. 21, 8.
Tnstitutio Eel. Christ., vol. v., chap. xix.. g 5.
been only one death, which never could have equalled all the deaths which individual men merited for their respective sins.... .Fourthly, this opinion cannot possibly be made consistent with the gratuitous remission of all sins, which the Scriptures everywhere teach that God, in his infinite mercy, concedes to us in Christ.”
The Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed Churches have held, on the other hand, that the penal satisfaction made by the sufferings of Christ to the law and justice of God is in its own intrinsic value a full equivalent in the strict rigour of justice for the penal sufferings of all men for ever, and that God accepts and acts upon this satisfaction in the justification of believers in his capacity of Judge, not m the exercise of sovereign prerogative, acknowledging its intrinsic value and full adequacy to the end designed, as a matter of fact, and not by any gratuitous acceptilation or gracious estimation, arbitrarily raising the sacrifice up to the level of the law, nor by any sovereign relaxation letting down the law to the level of the substituted penal sufferings. We do not here appeal to the perfection of the Atonement to prove the truth of our view of its nature. On the contrary, we rather prove that our view, as to its inherent perfection, is correct from what has been already sufficiently proved as to its nature and necessity. If the Atonement was absolutely necessary in order to satisfy the immutable justice of God, and if it consisted in Christ’s bearing in our stead the literal penalty of the law in full rigour, then it is plain that, in its intrinsic value, it was fully equal to all that the law demanded of those for whom he acted. Since he was a divine person, Christ was o? course above all the possible claims of law. In virtue of his human nature a divine Person was made vicariously under the law for us. Hence his obedience, both active and passive, was evidently, as far as he himself was concerned, a work of supererogation; demanded not of himself; needed not by himself; and wholly accruing to the credit of those for whom he acted. And since he was the eternal Son of God, who condescended to suffer and obey, to suffer terribly and shame fully, to fulfil all his obedience, the details of “all righteousness,” although it were but for a time, it is evident enough that the intrinsic value of his work is more than equal to all that his people could have suffered and obeyed under any possible conditions for any possible time. The difficulty which a Christian experiences is surely not to believe this, but rather to understand why infinite wisdom saw it to be necessary to exact so much of SUCH a Sufferer.
II. The second point debated concerning the perfection of Christ’s satisfaction relates to its application or effect. Thomas Aquinas taught that the passion of the Redeemer was not only a sufficient but a superabundant satisfaction for the sins of men. The Romish Church adopted this idea, and adjusted it to their hierarchical system. Christ’s merit is superabundant. It belongs to the Church, its depository and authorized dispenser. This merit avails directly, through the instrumentality of baptism, to the removal of the guilt of original sin and of all those actual transgressions which preceded baptism. The penalty accruing for the guilt of postbaptismal sins has, in virtue of Christ’s merit, been transmuted from eternal death to temporal pains, and all such temporal pains ?**e accepted as sufficient only for
Christ s sake. Nevertheless, a person guilty of postbaptismal sins must, in order to their forgiveness, expiate them either by penances and works of charity, or in the next world by the pains of purgatory; all of which are necessary and possess, for Christ’s sake, a real expiatory virtue. And hence also the efficacy of sacramental grace, priestly absolution, plenary indulgences, &c., results from the fund of merit lodged in the Church, accruing from the superabun lance of Christ’s satisfaction.
The advocates of the Governmental Theory of the Atonement, and indeed all the advocates of an indefinite Atonement generally, necessarily hold, with respect to the designed application or effect of Christ’s satisfaction, that it actually avails to save no one, but only by removing legal obstacles to make the salvation of all men possible. In this view, his satisfaction is only one of the conditions upon which the salvation of all men depends, but it is not its great efficient cause, carrying with it as subordinate to it all other causes and conditions. The work of Christ is thus in itself considered so far imperfect that it may totally fail of any saving effect in a single case, and it needs to be rendered perfect as an efficient cause of salvation by some co-operating cause ab extra, derived either (a) from the sovereign decree of God, or (6) from the free wills of men. In answer to the Romanists we affirm — 1. The Bible represents all the sufferings of believers in this life as disciplinary, designed to advance their moral and spiritual improvement, and having no respect whatever to the expiation of guilt. The removal of condrmnation is referred solely to the work of Christ (Rom. viii. 1, 33, 34), and the design of discipline is referred solely to the paternal purpose of improving the persons exercised thereby, “for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.” Heb. xii. 5-11.
2. The Scriptures declare that “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.” 1 John i. 7. And that “by one offering for sin he “lath for ever perfected them that are sanctified.” lleb. x. 12, 14. And that all Christians “are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.” Col. ii. 10.
3. Trust in the one sacrifice of Christ is made the sole condition of acceptance and favour at all times. But this act of trust necessarily, from its very nature, excludes all dependence whatsoever upon the expiatory value of our own sufferings, or upon the merit of our own services.
In answer to the Protestant impugners of the absolute perfection of the satisfaction of Christ as the alone procuring cause of the salvation of his people, I call to witness, in addition to what has been cited against the kindred position of the Romanists, the fact, that the Scriptures habitually and characteristically, and in every variety of form, assert that the satisfaction of Christ effects the deliverance, the redemption, the salvation, the adoption, the sanctificatlon, <fec., &c., of his people. Every reader of the Scriptures knows that they constantly declare that the Father gave the Son to death, and that the Son submitted to die, for the purpose of Affecting these things. Every reader knows that the Scriptures constantly declare that the obedience and sufferings of Christ actually effect these things. They 4 >, as a matter of fact, “save us,” “redeem us, cile us to the Father,” secure for us “the adoption of sons,” “the indwelling” and all the “fruits of the Spirit.” If this be so, then unquestionably Christ, by his expiatory sacrifice, did not merely make salvation possible. His sacrifice must secure that salvation as a whole, and all that is included in it. Not the end without the means, but the end through the means; not eternal life without faith and obedience, but faith and obedience in order to eternal life. In this respect the redemption of Christ is like the eternal decree of God. It does not alter any natural relation sustained by the several elements involved in the believer’s life to the means of grace, the exercises of free will, and the necessity for gracious affection and obedience, but it does render the event it was designed to secure certain, and in order to that end secures all the antecedents and conditions upon which that event depends or to which it is related. We will not be saved without faith and obedience, but our precious Saviour left no such conditions unprovided for. The faith, the obedience, and the perseverance to the end were as surely purchased by the great ALL-PERFECT sacrifice as w» re the remission of the penalty and fim 1 salvation.