CHAPTER IV WHAT IS THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF "T ATONEMENT? HIS is My blood of the covenant, which is shed for many unto remission of sins."-Matt. 26:28. 'Christ died for our sins."-1 Cor. 15:3. "Who His own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed."-1 Peter 2:24. "Now once at the end of the ages hath He been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."-Heb. 9:26. "In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses."-Eph. 1:7. "While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son."-Rom. 5:10. "There is one God, one Mediator also between God and men, Himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all.”—1 Tim. 2:5, 6. "Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity."-Titus 2:14. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”— John 3:16. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."-1 John 4:10. "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses."-2 Cor. 5:19. “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin."-1 John 1:7. "All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood."-Rom. 3:23-25. "It was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell; and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens. And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish and unreprovable before Him."-Colos. 1: 19-22. These and many other similar passages embody the Scripture doctrine of the atonement. "Christ died for our sins" is the "good news" of the Christian revelation. The gist of New Testament teaching is that man is a sinner, alienated from God, and that the work of Christ was to reconcile God and man-to make at-onement. The original motive behind the manifestation of the Son of God is declared to have been the love of God; the purpose, the salvation of men from sin and spiritual death to holiness and eternal life; the method, God's incarnation of Himself as man, suffering in, with, and for His world, thus laying the foundation of recon ciliation between Himself and His human creatures. The cross is very properly the symbol of the Christian faith; for in its underlying principle is to be seen the meaning of God's work for us in the person of His Son, who is "the human life of God." There is nothing in the atonement that is not in the cross of Christ. If we understand, therefore, the spiritual principle of the cross, we shall understand, as far as we can ever understand the deep things of God, the principle of the atonement; for at the cross God and man meet and are at-one, alienation ceases, reconciliation is complete. "In the cross of Christ I glory, |