LECTURE IV.

THE FACT OF THE ATONEMENT: THE TESTIMONY OF

ST. PETER.

N the present Lecture I propose to consider the

IN

testimony to the Atonement contained in the dis

courses and the First Epistle of St. Peter.

But it may be alleged that the attempt to establish this doctrine by an appeal to apostolic testimony is premature, and that the moral objections which have been urged against the theory that the Death of Christ was in any sense a Propitiation or Sacrifice for the sins of the world, ought first to be discussed, and, if possible, dissipated. The moral objections to the doctrine of the Atonement are felt by many persons to be far too grave to be overborne by mere apostolic authority. These objections may even impair the force of the argument from the testimony of our Lord in the previous Lecture. With many who confess that the Lord Jesus Christ was "a Teacher sent from God," and who even acknowledge that He was "God manifest in the flesh," the repugnance to the idea of expiation is so strong, that while they receive the Four Gospels as containing a fairly authentic account of our Lord's life

and teaching, they believe that the Apostles could not have received this idea from Christ Himself, and they are perplexed that the writers of the Gospels should have attributed to Him language which appears to sanction it.

The tendency to discriminate between apostolic teaching and the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ is, I believe, very general. To His words-when we are sure that we have them-absolute authority is conceded; but there are many who hesitate to concede the same authority to the words of St. Peter or of St. John. The hesitation does not often assume a very definite form. It is the result of a spiritual instinct, or of what seems to be a spiritual instinct, rather than of a theological theory. Men feel that if Christ were still visibly present among us, accessible in all hours of difficulty and doubt, they would infinitely rather trust Him than trust themselves. If at any time His words seemed to be in conflict with their own highest conceptions of moral and spiritual truth, they would feel sure that He must be right and that they must be wrong. But if it were only an Apostle that was still living in the world the case would be different; they are not quite clear that the same submission would be due.

If, therefore, we can be certain that Christ Himself taught the doctrine of the Atonement, it is acknowledged that however strong the objections to the doctrine may seem to us, we cannot challenge it, and can only confess that we are in the presence of a great mystery. But the objections are of such a kind, that those

who feel their force are not willing to accept the doctrine if it is sustained by apostolic testimony alone; and they are half inclined to believe that the words in which our Lord is represented as teaching this doctrine, must have been attributed to Him by mistake. For the theory of the Atonement is declared to be inconsistent with all our conceptions of the Divine Justice, and a travesty of the Divine Mercy, and to be irreconcilable with the moral and spiritual nature both of God and man.

I am not about to make any attempt to remove these objections in the present Lecture. Just now, for a reason which will appear presently, I am rather anxious that their full force should be recognised. Perhaps I have not stated them with sufficient clearness and energy, and it may therefore be well to quote the most concise and vigorous statement of them with which I am familiar. The Rev. James Martineau has expressed with perfect accuracy, the position not only of those. who, with himself, deny the deity of our Lord, but of very many who, while rejecting the idea of Atonement, regard the Incarnation as the central and characteristic fact of the Christian religion.

"Faith in the human conscience," he says, "is necessary to faith in the Divine perfection, and this again is the needful prelude to the belief in any special revelation. . . . . This Moral Perfection of God being assumed as a postulate in the very idea of a Revelation, no system of religion which contradicts it can be admitted as credible on any terms. But," he proceeds to say, "the doctrine of the Atonement involves a plain denial of God's moral excellence. Theologians speak as if there were some crime, or at least some weakness in the clemency which freely receives a repentant crea

....

ture into favour." But "how is the alleged immorality of letting off the sinner mended by the added crime of penally crushing the sinless?" I

Something, perhaps, of the energy of this protest was inspired by certain theological theories, for which I have no occasion to offer apology or defence; but the objection is directed against every theory which affirms that in any sense our iniquities were laid upon Christ; that there is a direct relation between His Death and the remission of sins; that it is for Christ's sake that the penitent is received back again into the light and joy of God. It is the Idea of an objective Atonement which provokes repugnance, no matter what may be the form in which that Idea is represented. The repugnance is so deep that no system of religion in which the Idea is present can be admitted as credible on any terms."

In the course of these Lectures I trust it will become apparent that in the Death of the Lord Jesus. Christ as a Sacrifice and Propitiation for the sins of the world, the Moral Perfections of God find their highest expression, and the deepest necessities of man's moral and spiritual life their only complete satisfaction; but I have been anxious to state thus early the principal objection to the doctrine which I hope to establish, because that objection seems to suggest a practical solution of the difficulty with regard to the authority of apostolic teaching.

Let me re-state the difficulty. With those persons to whom these Lectures are addressed, the authority Studies of Christianity, pp. 186–188.

of the Lord Jesus Christ is absolute.

He is God

manifest in the flesh, and in Him the very truth of the Divine character has been revealed to mankind. But it is maintained that the Apostles may have misapprehended very much of His teaching. It is clear that they did not easily liberate themselves from the influence of Jewish habits of thought and Jewish traditions. Their inspiration, whatever it may have been, did not make them omniscient. There were many things of which they knew nothing; there were some things which they thought they knew, about which, for a time at least, they were mistaken. Their authority, therefore, is not decisive. When we are sure that Christ is speaking, we are sure that we have the very thought of God, but we cannot determine the extent of the inspiration of the Apostles; and it is alleged that when they are speaking we are not sure whether what they are telling us came to them from the teaching of the Holy Ghost, or from their own erring thoughts about the will and work of their Master, or even from the common and untrustworthy conceptions of Divine truth which prevailed among their fellow-countrymen. It is probable that even in reporting the words of Christ their report may have been coloured by religious errors of their own; it is still more probable that these errors may have misled them when they attempted to illustrate and develop Christian facts and doctrine. Even, therefore, if it can be shown that the apostles taught that in some sense the Death of Christ is the ground on which God