the causes, so far as they are in any way cognizable by us, why it was in the Person of the Eternal Logos that God was Incarnated. But whatever there may be to be said on such a subject, the passages themselves ought not to be cited, at least so directly or primarily, as theological statements about the Persons, as such, of the Eternal Trinity as rather about the essential truth of the relation of the Incarnate, as Incarnate, to the Eternal; the relation of Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, to His God and Father, --obedient dependence on whom was the Breath of His Life.

CHAPTER VI

THE ATONING DEATH OF CHRIST

THE relation of Christ to sin, as the Atoner, is more mysterious than that of His relation, in obedient life, to holiness. But nothing can exceed the directness with which the relation to sin is emphasized in scripture, or the cardinal place of this relation in the Christian creed. The relation to sin is absolute, unreserved, personal-though the sin is not in Himself. "Him who knew no sin, He made to be sin on our behalf." 1

Elsewhere the relation to sin is stated in a different way, "God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh."

The central point in these two forms of statement is by no means obviously the same. In either case indeed the act is the act of God-God the Eternal, the Essential, the One God. In either case the act is the act of God, wrought in and through Jesus Christ; through Him, that is, who is the perfect expression of God in terms of human conditions, and consciousness, and character; through God the Incarnate, God the Son of Man; through the Son of Man who, because He is Son of Man, is therefore, of necessity, Son of God. But this act of God through Christ, this act of the Incarnate, which is the act of the Eternal, is described in two varying forms. The one

says that He "was made sin," the other that He, in flesh and for flesh, "condemned sin."

12 Cor. v. 21.

2 Rom. viii. 3.

The considerations which are before us in the present chapter are such, it is to be hoped, as will naturally tend to bring the two modes of thought, from apparent contrast, more and more towards real coincidence.

He condemned sin-that is, there is an aspect of the Atonement according to which it can be summed up as a pronouncing, by Jesus Christ, of the judgement and sentence of eternal Righteousness against all human sin. It is He who is the judging and condemning Righteousness. He was made sin-that is, He the eternal Righteousness, in judging sin, judged it not in another, but judged it rather, as a penitent judges it, within Himself; He surrendered Himself for the judgement that He pronounced; He took, in His own Person, the whole responsibility and burthen of its penance; He stood, that is, in the place, not of a judge simply, nor of a mere victim, but of a voluntary penitentwholly one with the righteousness of God in the sacrifice of Himself.

Remember what it is that the idea of Atonement requires. The idea of effectual atonement for sin requires at once a perfect penitence and a power of perfect holiness. Man has sinned. Man is unrighteous. If I am unrighteous, what could make me absolutely righteous again? If indeed my repentance, in reference to the past, could be quite perfect, such penitence would mean that my personality was once more absolutely one with Righteousness in condemning sin even in, and at the cost of, myself. Such personal re-identity with Righteousness, if it were possible, would be a real contradiction of my past. It would be atonement, and I should, in it, be once more actually righteous.

If such relation to the past were possible, it would by the same possibility be possible also that my life, now and henceforth, should be, in outward activity and

in inward spirit, perfect,-the flawless homage of a Divine obedience. In relation to the past, the present, and the future, I should have become quite perfectly and continuously and Divinely righteous.

are

For atoning and living Righteousness there necessary a condemnation which would perfectly obliterate from the spirit the presence of past sin; and the present and unceasing homage of perfect righteousness. But if these two things are necessary, it is just these two things which are, in universal human experience, alike ideal and alike impossible.

Both these things were attained, in literal perfection of full fact, in the life and in its climax, which is the death, of the Son of Man, Jesus Christ.

It is worth while to say with some emphasis that we, in the present chapter, have nothing, properly, to do with the relation of Him, or of these things in Him, to us; with the, question how, what He was, or what He did, really alters or really characterizes, in any one of us, our own personality. That is a large part indeed of any intelligible statement of the doctrine of Atonement. But, quite apart from us, it is our object for the present to recall and consider what these things were in Himself.

Now nothing is more familiar than the thought of Jesus Christ on earth as being, within the conditions of mortality, the perfect reflection of the will, the perfect expression of the character, of the Eternal God. For He was the Eternal God, expressing Himself in, and as, human character, within those penal disabilities of humanity, of which death is at once the symbol and the climax.

In two ways we think of Him as a revelation, within humanity, of God. First, in the mutual relations of human life, we think of Him as revealing the moral character, the goodness and love, of God. "Have I been so long

time with you, and yet dost thou not know me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father."1 And secondly, in the relation of man to God-the absolute dependence of unbroken communion between the limited and mortal and the Eternal-He reveals the true secret, and the possible glory, of mortal humanity. It is of Him, the disabled, the limited, the mortal, that S. John can say, "We beheld His glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father: "2 "We have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us." This Godward relation of man, wholly dependent, and reflecting flawlessly that whereupon he depends, expresses itself within mortal conditions, inwardly and outwardly: in outward action it is manifested as obedience that never wavers; in inward consciousness it realizes itself as the uninterrupted communion of of meditation and prayer. Besides, then, the moral revelation of God as Love, which is in every contact of Christ with other men, the Divine Righteousness is visibly reflected in His perfect obedience, and consciously realized in the effort of His perfect prayer. The prayerfulness of spirit is not a thing wholly separate from the active obedience; it is but another aspect of that same reality, the mirrored reflection of the Divine glory, in the Godward relations of human character.

It is no part of the present purpose to try to draw this thought out, or illustrate in detail its manifestations in the human life. Consider rather how, even in this aspect, the death is the necessary climax of the life. We are as yet thinking of the life of Christ not as atonement but as obedience; not as in reference to the past, or the undoing of accomplished sin, but as in reference to the present, as being the homage of a living holiness, " I John i. 2

1

1 John xiv. 9.

2

* John i. 14.