Conclusion
The argument, so far as it can be stated in conclusions, yields the following results : —
1. If there was one thing above another which the Jew did not need, it was to be assured of the mercy, the goodness, the love of God. So far, therefore, as he is concerned, it is simply incredible that Jesus Christ came to tell him and show him what he probably never doubted.
2, The whole scheme of Jewish life up to the time of the coming of Christ was based upon sacrifice. Did Christ question the Divine obligation of that sacrifice, or did He accept it and carry it forward to higher and wider applications?
3. The Jew was perfectly familiar with the idea of the Divine forgiveness of sin, and he was accustomed to seek forgiveness by appointed means; so far, therefore, as he was concerned, there was no need to alter, modify, enlarge, or otherwise rearrange the basis of forgiveness: he obtained forgiveness, and that was all he needed to constitute his standing before God. It is, therefore, as before, simply incredible that Jesus Christ came to tell the Jew that God was willing to forgive sin.
4, But what 7s Sin? Theft? Then, taking the ordinary use of the term, very few men are sinners: Drunkenness?
Then all sober people are free from sin: Adultery? Then all children are sinless: Profanity? Then sin is limited to a class. Evidently, sin is not to be defined in this way; it is something more than a symptom or an accident; it is to be felt rather than defined. If we say that sin is opposition to the will of God, or is self-will, we shall probably give the fullest and clearest answer now possible to us
5. What, then, has the Death of Christ to do with this self-content and self-gratification? It utterly breaks down the self-will and self-trust of man; it drives man out of himself; it breaks up his isolation and brings him into the family and commonwealth of God. Self is a term or quantity that can be exhausted; after its exhaustion must come self-disgust, weariness, mortification, death: “the wages of sin is death;” “sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.” The misanthrope must perish because he feeds upon his own vitals; the philanthropist will be like a tree planted by the river of water because he lives for others, he lives the Christ-life.
6. Then the Death of Christ was simply an example, a heroic devotion and sacrifice imitable by man? It was infinitely more than that, though unquestionably it included all that was possible in the way of example, devotion, and sacrifice. It could not be an example to God, yet God accepted it and was well pleased with it. To God it was a propitiation, a sacrifice, an atonement; but the meaning of these words we do not fully know; why God should have required such a sacrifice we do not fully know; we live by faith; we receive truth that is revealed; and that truth vindicates itself by satisfying our consciousness and meeting all the deepest needs of the heart as no other truth has ever done.
Conclusion, 247
7. If the Death of Christ was a mere example, or an imitable sacrifice, the whole Bible theory of human nature is wrong. That theory is, that there is none righteous no not one, that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and that the whole world lieth in the wicked one; to say that in order to meet this moral corruption and helplessness God sent an example of really good and true life is simply to perpetrate an anticlimax; and the more so when it is remembered that this self-same example was apparently so far disowned of God that He had not where to lay His head, and that at last He confessed Himself forsaken and died in despair. But instead of Example say Sacrifice, and instantly every condition is satisfied, and the whole course of Christ becomes unbroken and harmonious.
8. If the Death of Christ was a mere Example, or an imitable Sacrifice, it was beyond question the most mournful failure in all human history. But if it was an Atonement, its effect is precisely in accordance with its purpose. As an Example it is tragical and romantic, which no example designed for continual and universal repetition ought to be: or if Christ’s life was an example, it leaves thirty years of human life unprovided for, and those the years in which temptation is fiercest, and in which character is trained and consolidated. All that is known of thirty years of Christ’s life is simply negative, and young life is too passionate and daring to be ruled by a negation.
9. Was not, then, the life of Christ an example to mankind? Undoubtedly it was. But let the admission be carefully understood. It operated only as an example upon those who were in sympathy with Him; it was not to be copied from the outside; it must be the outcome of an adequate motive; in short, it must be the expression of an inward and spiritual grace. But this involves the whole doctrine of redemption! “I have given you an example,’ — yes, but who are the you? “Leaving us an example,’ — yes, but these words are part of one of the most wonderful sentences in the whole Christian revelation, ending with — “Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed,” 4
10. The Death of Christ cannot be reduced within the limits of any one theory; its aspect towards God no man hath seen, or can see: it is not to be ilumined by human reason; it is to reveal itself in the gloom of the valley of the shadow of death, — not physical death, but that worse — death in which the soul has no light, no help, no friend.
The purpose of Jesus Christ was not to set an example, but to give life. Who can show an example to the dead? After the life has been given, the example will be reproduced in all its imitable features. The sum of the whole, then, is this: Christ did something for me which I never could have done for myself; I know this, partly by my reason, but mainly by my feeling; if I am told that He set me an example, I know not only that the answer is insufficient, but that it mocks and torments me by a challenge infinitely in excess of my strength; if I am told that He bore my sins in His own body, that He was wounded for my transgressions and bruised for my iniquities, that He gave Himself for me the just for the unjust, my heart (sinful, weary, self-helpless) feels that “truly this man was the Son of God” and the Saviour of the world. The Atonement never comes fully within the purview and dominion of the mere intellect: it is not a metaphysical
1 1. Peter i, 24, riddle; nor is it an enigma to be guessed by superior shrewdness: it comes to the soul quietly, suddenly, in hours of self-torment and despair; to the understanding it may be a transient flash in whose startling glory things ineffable are seen, but to the heart it is an abiding presence, giving assurance of its reality in many ways, but mainly in a still small voice, saying, “Thy sins which are many are all forgiven thee,”
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