08.00.4. Preliminary Dissertation
Preliminary Dissertation IN the introductory remarks which we have to offer, we shall take the opportunity of adverting to what might seem to some to be a more directly scriptural method of conducting the argument respecting the work of Christ—its nature and extent—than that which, in writing these papers, we were led to adopt. The reason which we had for discussing the subject in the manner we have done, is briefly stated in the letter that accompanied our third communication.
There are a number of texts which seem to assert the universality of the redemption purchased by Christ. These are chiefly such as the following: 1 John 2:2; 2 Corinthians 5:14; Romans 5:18; Hebrews 2:9; and others of similar import.
Now, in regard to this series of passages generally, we may, in the first place, avail ourselves generally of the judicious observations of Professor Moses Stuart, who, as the closing sentence of the very paragraph we are about to quote sufficiently proves, can scarcely be suspected of any undue leaning to the strict Calvinistic doctrine. We quote the passage for the sake of the general principle it contains: as to the particular text in question, we shall presently give our view of the interpretation which seems to exhaust its meaning more fully than that suggested by this eminent commentator. In his Commentary on Hebrews 2:9, he thus writes:—“
But, for sake of further illustration, we may take up one or two of these passages separately. In doing so, we must ask, in each case, what is the precise point under discussion; for it is a good general rule, well known, though, alas! not so well observed, among controversialists, that a writer’s authority, in any given passage, does not extend beyond the particular topic which he has on hand. You may appeal to him as giving a deliverance on the matter before him, but not as deciding another question which may not, at the time, have been in his mind at all. Nothing can be fairer, or more necessary, than this maxim. An earnest and simple-minded man offers his opinion frankly on what is submitted to him, without being careful always to guard and fence himself round on every side, lest, perchance, some incidental phrase he may happen to let fall, in the warmth and energy of his feeling, in a matter, perhaps, in which he takes a deep interest, should be laid hold of and brought up as the expression of his deliberate judgment on some collateral topic which, all the while, may have been miles away from his thoughts. He relies on your intelligence and honesty—on your good sense and your good faith; if he did not—if he felt himself bound to be ever qualifying and defining his terms, lest what he gives you as his mind on one point should be used by you as authority on another—all the freedom and fairness, the generosity and cordiality of friendship, would be at an end; and stiff and strait-laced ceremony would rule the day. This remark pre-eminently applies to the style and manner of Holy Scripture; for there is no one feature of the Spirit’s communications to us more signally conspicuous than this, that He always gives himself to one thing at a time. Using as his instruments, earnest and simple-minded men, who speak as they are moved by Him, the Holy Ghost, identifying himself with each, in turn of thought and style of writing, and entering into the very mind of the individual whom he inspires, gives forth, through him, a frank and full utterance on each subject as he takes it up, with the same unstudied ease and unsuspicious freedom—often even with the same impetuous rapidity of involved grammar and abrupt rhetoric—with which the writer himself, if left alone, would have poured out his whole soul. Hence the ease with which anomalies and inconsistencies may be raked together, for the use, or abuse, of minute critics who have no mind, and subtle cavillers who have no heart, to understand what the Spirit says, through honest men to their fellow-men. But Wisdom is justified of her children; and he that hath ears, let him hear.
1. Take, as an instance, Romans 5:18, and 2 Corinthians 5:14. In the first of these passages, the sole object of the apostle is to explain, or assert, the principle of imputation—the principle upon which God deals with many as represented by one, or with one as representing many. For this end, he draws a parallel between the imputation of Adam’s sin and that of Christ’s righteousness. Evidently, however, the whole value of the comparison turns upon the nature of the transaction on either side, not upon its extent. The identity, or agreement, or correspondence, intended to be pointed out, is an identity in respect of principle. To stretch the language used, so as to make it decide the question of extent, is to make the apostle inconsistent with himself in the very matter he is formally and expressly discussing. For what is the principle of imputation, as he lays it down? It implies these two things: first, That a vicarious headship be constituted in one person; and, secondly, That the whole result or consequence of the trial upon which that one person is placed, whether it be success or failure, be actually and in fact communicated and conveyed to all whom he represents. Of this last condition, he is very careful to prove, that it was realized in the imputation of Adam’s sin, and for this purpose he insists very specially on the universality of death: “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.” (Romans 5:14) But it is a condition which, if insisted on at the other side of the antithesis—and without it the parallel wholly fails, and the doctrine of imputation is gone—is positively irreconcilable with the notion of a general or universal redemption, excepting upon the hypothesis of universal salvation. For it is of the very essence of the principle of imputation, according to this parallel, that precisely in the same manner in which Adam’s sin, with the death which it entailed, did, in point of fact, as well as in law, pass from him to those who were represented by him, and identified with him; so, the righteousness of Christ, with the life and salvation which it involves, must be really and actually, in its consequences as well as in its merit, made over to all the parties interested. Hence, if the parallel is pressed, in regard to the extent as well as the nature of the two transactions, life and salvation must actually be as universal as death. Thus, if this text he unwisely pressed beyond the present purpose of the writer, contrary to the rule of sound criticism and sound sense, it is really not the limitation of Christ’s work to his people that will come to be called in question, but the fact of the condemnation of any of the wicked. An observation nearly similar might be made in reference to 2 Corinthians 5:14. There the apostle’s theme is the union and identification of believers with Christ in his death and in his life. His object is, to remind them that as Christ’s death has become theirs, so also has his life. Hence it is to his purpose to argue thus: “If one died for all, then all were or became dead,” or literally, “died” also, in and with him; and “He died, that the living might not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.’’ He thus brings out the principle of imputation, that whatever befalls the Head must be held to pass, and must actually pass, efficaciously, to all whom he represents; and he connects with it the principle of vital union—that all thus represented are partakers in all things with the Head. The whole argument in the context depends on these two principles. The question of the extent of the atonement is not once before the writer throughout the whole of this fervid practical appeal, in which he is enforcing the high standard of spiritual privilege and duty. The bearing of Christ’s death on the unregenerate is not within the scope of his reasoning; and to regard him as giving a deliverance on that point, instead of urging home its bearing upon believers, is to introduce an element altogether heterogeneous, and, in fact, not only to perplex the argument, but to make it, as in the former case, tell rather in favour of universal salvation.
Again, 2. In such texts as 1 Timothy 2:6, Titus 2:11, 1 John 2:2, the universality asserted is plainly a universality of classes, conditions, and characters of men, not of individuals.
Thus, in the first (1 Timothy 2:1-6), the apostle is exhorting that prayer be made for all men, kings and rulers, as well as subjects (a necessary specification at a time when those in authority, being too often oppressors, might seem to have little claim on Christians for this kindness); he would have intercession offered for men of all ranks and all circumstances in the world; and it is to enforce this universality of intercessory prayer, in opposition to the idea of excluding or omitting any set of men, even the most undeserving, that he introduces as an argument the universality of the Father’s love, who has no respect of persons, but would have all men to be saved, and the universality of the Son’s mediation, which has regard to men, as such, without excepting any portion of the race; for he “gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” In the second, also (Titus 2:1-11), admitting the marginal reading to be preferable—“The grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared”—the design of the apostle is to gather and collect together, in one company, those whom he has been distributing into detachments, according to age, sex, office, and station. Aged men; aged women; young women; young men; Titus, the pastor; servants; these he has been severally directing as to their several duties: and having adverted to the things wherein they are separated from one another, he closes with an appeal to that wherein they agree; for, though their relations in life, with their corresponding trials and obligations, are diversified, their position, as believers, is one, and the motive to obedience is one and the same—“the appearing of that grace of God which bringeth salvation to all men”—however in age, sex, office, or station, they may differ—and which teaches and binds them all alike to a sober, righteous, and godly life, in the hope of the glorious appearing of Him whose saving grace has appeared already. Such is the argument: the very force of which, as being an appeal to the place, or middle stage, which believers occupy between the two “appearings,” the gracious and the glorious, turns upon these being, as to extent, commensurate. The universality, therefore, of the former must be measured by that of the latter; as to which there can be no question, for it is “to them that look for him that he is to appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation.” In the third text cited above (1 John 2:2), the matter is, if possible, still more plain and certain. Let it be noted that in his first chapter, of which the beginning of the second should form a part (for there is no pause in the sense till after the second verse at the soonest) the apostle’s discrimination of the persons (we, you, they) is very accurate and exact. In the beginning of the first chapter, he speaks of what he and his fellow-apostles witnessed of the manifestation of THE LIFE; and at the third verse he takes in those whom he is immediately addressing: “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us;” that is, may have the same fellowship which we have, or be partakers with us in “our fellowship,” which “truly is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” Thereafter, the apostle associates those to whom he thus writes with himself and his fellow-apostles—the taught with the teachers—and speaks in the first person, as now comprehending both: “If we walk in the light,” you and we together, “as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another”—we with him and he with us, or you and we together with him. Twice, indeed, he briefly keeps up the distinction, when, as a master, he tells them, as his disciples, what he would have them to learn, and what is the great object of his testimony and teaching: “These things write we unto you that your joy may be full” (1 John 1:4)—“These things write I unto you that ye sin not” (1 John 2:1)—fulness of joy, and freedom from sin being the twofold end of Christian doctrine. But, otherwise, he merges the “you” and the “we” in one: and especially, when he has to refer, alas! to the possibility of their yet contracting new guilt, and needing new forgiveness, “you” and “we” are no way separated now: “If any man sin”—any one of you, for though “I write these things unto you, as my little children, that ye sin not”—though my doctrine is as opposed to sin as God’s light is to darkness—yet I dare not hope that you will be altogether sinless—I cannot but anticipate that you may fall into sin; for though you have in you that divine seed of the new life, which, in so far as it abides in you, makes sin impossible (1 John 3:9) you are still liable to the lusting of the flesh against the Spirit;—I must remind you, therefore, that you are still apt to sin; not as if I would make allowances or grant indulgences beforehand for sin, but that I may tell you of your constant need of that cleansing blood which has been shed, and exhort you, on the very first instant of your being overtaken in a fault, to flee anew to that fountain, and that hastily, lest you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin;—“if, therefore, any man sin,” any one—any of you—but stay—we as well as you may be in the same predicament—“if any one sin, WE have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins.” Is this merely a plausible paraphrase? or is it really the sense and meaning of the apostle, affectionately pouring out his heart to his “little children?” Then, if so, what CAN be the meaning of the short, abrupt, but most emphatic allusion to a third party? for the apostle instantly returns to the “we” and the “you,” and throughout all the chapter, and indeed the Epistle, keeps to that style and manner of warm epistolary familiarity. What, therefore, can the passing introduction of this seemingly extraneous reference imply? what, but that the apostle, with his truly catholic love to all brethren in Christ, calls to mind that others besides himself, and those to whom he writes, may be in the same sad circumstances for which he has been making provision? If any of us sin, we have an advocate with the Father—we know where to find relief—we know how we may be restored, and have our backslidings healed. But this is too good news to be kept to ourselves; many, too many, in all successive ages, may need the same comfort and revival. For the admonition, therefore, of all, everywhere and to the end of time, who may be situated as it is here intimated, some, or all of us, may be—overtaken in a fault, fallen from their first love, lapsed into sin—the universal efficacy of this remedy is to be asserted, as available, in such circumstances, not for us only, but for all. Who does not see that thus interpreted, according to its connection, it cannot possibly be any general or universal reference of the atonement to all mankind, whether believers or not, that is meant? The whole propriety, and sense, and force of the passage are gone, and all its sanctifying and comforting unction is evaporated, if it be held to denote anything whatever beyond that special efficacy of Christ’s blood and intercession, which cleanses the believer’s conscience from the defilement of backsliding, and his heart from its baseness and bondage.
3. In 2 Peter 2:1; Hebrews 10:29; 1 Corinthians 8:11; Romans 14:15; we have a class of texts, in which, being “bought by the Lord,” “sanctified (or cleansed) with the blood of the covenant,” and interested in Christ as “dying for them,” would seem to be represented as consistent with men “bringing upon themselves swift destruction” (2 Pet); “dying without mercy, and falling into the hands of the living God” (Heb.); “perishing,” and “being destroyed,” through the liberty of others becoming to them a stumbling-block. (1 Cor. and Rom.) Now, it is remarkable that in all these passages, the strong and awful appeals made all turn on the right which God has in the parties referred to, rather than on the interest which they have in him: they assert God’s prerogative, rather than their privilege; and proceed on the consideration, not of any claim which they have upon God, but of the claim which God has upon them. In this view, it is the assumption, as de jure, more than the assertion, as de facto, involved in them, that gives to these texts, rightly apprehended, their peculiar emphasis and solemnity.
Thus, the first two of these texts bring out, in stern relief, on a background of bright profession and promise, the black guilt of apostasy, and of the bringing in of damnable heresies; the latter being applicable chiefly to the case of private members of the Church, who, beginning with “forsaking the assembling of themselves together”—growing weary of godly fellowship and society—lapse gradually into “wilful sin,” and are in imminent hazard of being finally and fatally hardened; the former, again, having respect to “teachers” in the Church, whose insidious poison of false doctrine tends to eat away as a canker, first the religion of the people, and then their own. For, alas! how often have ingenious innovators in the faith, or in the form of sound words, almost unwittingly unsettled and undermined the principles of others, before they have begun to feel, in their own souls, the destructive tendency of their speculations. In both of these instances, the object is to paint, as with a lightning-flash across the thundercloud, the perilous position of the individuals who are to be warned; it is to startle them with a vivid sight of the view which God cannot but take of their aggravated sin, and the inevitable ruin which it must entail on them. For everywhere, throughout Scripture, it is intimated, that whatever assurance believers may have of their final salvation, they are to be as sensitively alive to whatsoever might even tend to a separation from Christ, as if they were every instant in danger of perishing; assurance, indeed, on any other footing, would be a carnal, and not a spiritual boon—disastrous, instead of salutary, to the soul. Hence the apostle’s language concerning himself (1 Corinthians 9:27), intimating that he was as jealous over himself, in the article of bodily indulgence, as if he ever had in his eye the possibility of intemperance becoming, after all, his snare, and its bitter fruit his fate. And on the same principle, the two texts in question are to be understood, as indicating, either, on the one hand, what true Christians, whether private members or office-bearers in the Church, must always keep before them, as the certain issue of an unstedfast walk or of false teaching, should they be seduced into it; or, on the other, in what light God is entitled to regard their sin and danger, and in what character, considering their profession to him and his own right over them, he cannot fail to consider them, when he comes to judge them; their sin falling to be estimated, and their judgment determined, by the standard of their Christian name. It is as Christians that they are to be considered as sinning; and on that footing, they are to be condemned. The other two passages (1 Corinthians 8:11, and Romans 14:15) being addressed, as warnings, to those who, on the strength of their own clearer light and firmer conscience, might despise or offend the weaker members of the Church, evidently point out the light in which the former are to regard the latter, as brethren, namely, interested in the same Saviour with themselves, yet not so secure as to be beyond the reach of serious and fatal injury, at the hands of their fellow-Christians. The lesson to the strong is twofold: Look not on the weak with contempt, as if their scruples were undeserving of attention; they are your brethren still, relying, as you do, on Christ as their only surety;—neither plead, in excuse for any use of your liberty that wounds or ensnares their consciences, that this is no concern of yours, since, if they are Christ’s, he will keep them safe from harm;—so far as your conduct toward them is concerned, you are to treat them even as you are to treat yourselves, with all that delicacy and tenderness which the most precarious and uncertain tenure of grace might prompt. To you, the humble believer, on whose unnecessary fastidiousness you are tempted to look down, and with whose minute cases of casuistry you are provoked to play, is still, with all his weakness, a brother, to be treated by you as a brother, for whom, as well as for you, Christ died: and whatever may be his security in him whom he trusts, that can be no reason for your trifling and tampering with his soul, if you would not have his blood to answer for; but, on the contrary, if ever you are inclined to follow your own more liberal opinions, without respect to their influence on him, that moment, whatever God may think of him, he is to you simply a brother, who, through your knowledge, and by your eating, is in extreme danger of perishing and being destroyed.
4. There is one other series of texts in which, as we freely admit, the universal bearing on mankind at large, of the exhibition of the cross, and the proclamation of the gospel, is graciously and gloriously attested. These are such as John 1:29, John 3:16, John 4:42, John 12:32; 1 John 4:14. Generally, these passages coincide, in substance, with those of the class first cited, which assert the indiscriminate applicability of Christ’s work, without respect of persons, or distinction of “Jew or Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free;” and they equally, with the former, fall under the remark of Professor Moses Stuart, in the extract which we have given from his book. But they seem to go a little farther; and having respect, not to the design and efficacy of the atonement, in its accomplishment and application, nor even, strictly speaking, to its sufficiency, but solely to the discovery which, as a historical transaction, it is fitted to make of the divine character—especially of the divine compassion and benevolence—they are to be regarded as giving intimation of the widest possible universality. This is particularly the case in that most blessed statement: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” For we would be little disposed to qualify or explain away the term “world,” as here employed. We rather rejoice in this text, as asserting that the gospel has a gracious aspect to the world, or to mankind, as such. “God so loved the world”—that is, of mankind in opposition to angels—mankind as such, without reference to elect or non-elect; the giving of his Son was a display of goodwill towards men. Let it be observed, however, that even here nothing is said about God’s giving his Son for all; on the contrary, the very terms in which the gift of his Son is described, imply a limitation of it to them that believe; on which limitation, indeed, depends the fulness of the blessing conveyed by it. The design of Christ’s death is very pointedly restricted, as to its extent, to them that believe; while, on that very account, this gift of God is amplified, and expanded, and stretched out, in regard to the amount of benefit intended to be communicated, so as to take in not only escape from perishing, but the possession of everlasting life. It is the gift of his Son, with this limited design, which is represented as being an index and measure of his love to the world at large, or to mankind as such; and it is so, through the manifestation which the cross gives to all alike and indiscriminately, of what it is in the mind and heart of God to do for a race of guilty sinners. As to any farther meaning in that text, it can only be this: that it is a testimony to the priority or precedency of God’s love to man, as going before, and not following from, the mediation and work of Christ. We speak, of course, of the order of nature and causation, not of the order of time. In the counsels of eternity there can be no comparing of dates: but it is important to adjust the connection of sequence or dependence between the love of God to man, and the work of Christ for man, as cause and effect, respectively. And one main object of this statement of our Lord undoubtedly is, to represent the Father’s good-will to men as the source and origin of the whole scheme of salvation, in opposition to the false and superstitious idea of God’s kindness being, as it were, purchased and reluctantly extorted by the interposition of one more favourable and friendly than himself, to our guilty and perishing world.
5. Among these various classes of texts which we have been considering, there is a single passage which seems to stand isolated and alone; namely, Hebrews 2:9. Now, as to this passage, one thing, at least, is very clear, that the apostle’s train of reasoning has no reference whatever to the question of the extent of Christ’s work, but only to the depth of that humiliation, on his part, which it implied, and the height of glory for which it prepared the way; and in other portions of Hebrews 2:1-18, he distinctly limits to the elect Christ’s whole mediatorial character and ministry. (Compare verses Hebrews 2:10, Hebrews 2:13-17.) In the verses before us, he is expounding Psalms 8:1-9, in connection with his argument for the superiority of Christ over the angels, which occupies Psalms 1:1-6, Psalms 2:1-12. He regards that psalm as a prediction of the Messiah’s exaltation, in human nature, far above the visible glory of the moon-lit and starry heavens; and, in particular, he interprets it, as announcing also his previous and preliminary abasement. He thus turns the lowly appearance of Jesus, in the flesh, which might have been urged as an objection against his high and heavenly rank, into an article of evidence in its favour. It was in accordance with prophecy that the Messiah should be thus humbled, in the first instance, and should thereafter and thereupon be exalted to glory. But the apostle does not rest merely on the word of prophecy; he appeals to the very nature and necessity of the case, as requiring that the Messiah’s exaltation should be reached through humiliation. If he is to be crowned with glory and honour, it is to be for the suffering of death—for which suffering of death he must be made lower than the angels. But why lower than the angels? Because, for the carrying out of the purposes of the grace of God, he is “to taste death for every man.” It is quite manifest that the number of those for whom he is to taste death is an element altogether irrelevant to the scope of the apostle’s discourse: it is their nature alone that it is in point and to the purpose to notice. Any reference to the universality of the atonement would here he out of place. But this is not all. A reference, so to speak, to the individuality of the atonement, will be found to be most significant. And such a reference this text contains. The assertion is that Christ tasted death for men, one by one, as it were, individually and personally, hearing the sins of each. This is opposed to the notion of his death, or his work of atonement, having a reference merely to mankind collectively, and in the mass. Had it been a work of that sort—a method of vindicating the divine justice, and opening a door of pardon, common to all—it does not appear how it might not have been accomplished by him without his becoming lower than the angels. In the angelic nature itself, it might be conceived possible for him to have effected the adjustment required. But the work being one of substitution, representation, suretyship, and, in fact, identification—in which he is not to sustain a general relation to the race, as a whole, but a very special, particular, and personal relation to men, one by one—taking the place of each, and meeting all the obligations, responsibilities, and liabilities of each—the necessity of his manhood becomes apparent. Had it been a general measure for upholding the divine government, and introducing a general amnesty for all, there might have been other ways. But when it was to be “the tasting of death for each,” there could be but one: he must take upon him the very nature of the individual whom he is to represent. There is much meaning to believers, and much ground for mourning on the one hand (Zechariah 12:10), and comfort on the other (Galatians 2:20), in this view of the efficacy of Christ’s death being distributed among them; and that, not in the way of division, as if each got a part, but, as it were, in the way of multiplication, so that each gets all; and every man of them may as truly realize Christ’s tasting death, specially and personally for him, as if he had been the only sinner, in whose stead, and on whose behalf, Jesus was nailed to the cross.
Having thus briefly indicated—for we have done little more—the line of interpretation applicable to the general body of texts which seem, at first sight, to favour the theory of universal redemption—and having also given some specimens of the satisfactory manner in which what seems to us a fair, sound, and reasonable principle, or canon, of scriptural criticism may be applied to particular passages—we feel that our task is nearly done. For it is not our intention to enlarge on the numerous statements in the Word of God which explicitly teach, or by plain and necessary inference involve, the doctrine for which we contend; which may be said to be neither more nor less than this: that for whomsoever Christ died at all, for them he died efficaciously and effectually. These statements must, of course, be submitted to the test of the same general rule which was used as a criterion in the case of those already quoted; and, indeed, they are all such as court and challenge the trial. For there is this general difference between the two classes of texts—those which seem to assert a general, and those which rather point to a restricted and limited, reference, in the atoning work of Christ—that while the former easily admit of a clear and consistent interpretation, such as makes them harmonize with the doctrine which, at first sight, they might he supposed to contradict, it is altogether otherwise with the latter; it can only be by a process of distortion—by their being made to suffer violence—that they can be so explained away as to become even neutral in the controversy. It is remarkable, accordingly, that the opponents of the Calvinistic view rarely, if ever, apply themselves to the task of showing what fair construction may be put, according to their theory, on the texts usually cited against them. They think it enough simply to collect an array of texts which, when uttered in single notes, give a sound similar to that of their own trumpet; and although we undertake to prove, in every instance, that the sound, even taken alone, is, at the least, a very uncertain one, and that, when combined and blended with the sounds of other notes in the same bar or cleff, the general result of the harmonized melody is such as to chime in with the strain which we think we find elsewhere—they are very slow in dealing thus with the texts quoted on the other side. But it is surely as incumbent upon them to explain how the texts on our side are to be interpreted consistently with their views, as it is on us to make a corresponding attempt in regard to the texts which they claim as theirs. This, however, it would be by no means easy to do. For setting aside all partial counsel in this inquiry, and coming to the passages referred to, not for the purpose of reconciling them with any supposed “analogy of the faith,” but exclusively bent on looking at each in the light of its own context or connection, we can scarcely fail to perceive that the assertion of a limited or restricted atonement is by no means in them, what that of a universal redemption would have been in the other series of passages we have considered—an excrescence upon the argument in hand, not in point or to the purpose, but intrusive and embarrassing—embarrassing, we of course mean, not to the controversialist, but to the critic, in his exegesis or exposition of the particular verses under review. On the contrary, this assertion of limitation or restriction, as being the characteristic feature of Christ’s work, is at the very heart of these passages—essential to the writer’s or the speaker’s argument or reasoning, at the time, and, indeed, essential to what he says having any meaning at all. To illustrate this, let us take a few examples, classing them according to the several practical ends or objects with which this doctrine stands connected, and to which it is made subservient, in the several passages in which it is announced.
Thus, in the first place, the certainty of the salvation of believers is in a remarkable manner bound up, in Holy Scripture, with this doctrine. They for whom Christ died cannot perish; and it is his dying for them that makes their perishing an impossibility. This is very clearly brought out in the tenth chapter of John’s Gospel. There it is explicitly declared by Christ himself that he was to “lay down his life for the sheep” (John 10:15); and that this declaration is exclusive—implying that he lays down his life for them alone, without any reference to the world at large—is to be inferred from the connection in which he introduces it. He is enlarging on the security which his people have in him; and it is as the proof of this—the only tangible proof which he alleges—that he brings in the appeal to the fact of his dying for them. But this would be no proof at all, if others besides his sheep were interested in his death; or, which is the same thing, if any for whom he laid down his life might, after all, perish. Hence, in a subsequent part of the chapter (John 10:25-30), it is expressly given as the reason why some believe not, and therefore are lost, that they are not of his sheep, for whom he lays down his life; and, on the other hand, the safety of believers, or the security that they shall never perish, is made to depend on their being his sheep, to whom he gives eternal life (John 10:28), and whom the Father hath given to him (John 10:29); the former of these gifts being the consequence, and the latter the cause, of his laying down his life for them, and for them alone. He lays down his life for those whom the Father hath given him; and to those for whom he lays down his life, he giveth eternal life; and this is that threefold cord, not to be quickly broken, which fastens believers to the Rock of Ages;—the Father’s gift of a people to the Son to be his sheep; the Son’s dying for his sheep thus given to him by the Father; and his giving to them, as the fruit of his dying for them, eternal life. But unless all the three lines in this cord be of equal extent, it cannot hold fast—it must yield, or stretch, or break; nor, on any supposition of a wider purpose in the death of the Son than in the gift which the Father makes to him of a chosen number to be his sheep, is there any value in the assurance with which the Lord rivets the last link of the chain: “I and my Father are one.” (John 10:30). The security or certainty of the salvation of Christ’s people may be considered in two lights—either as ordained by God, or as realized by themselves. In the former point of view, it seems to be connected with Christ’s dying for them, and for them alone, in the closing verses of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah; where the promise to the Messiah, that he shall see his seed, is specially represented as turning upon his soul being made an offering for sin. It is said of him that “he bare the sin of many,” when “he poured out his soul unto death;” and that the “many” whose “sin he bare,” are identical with that “seed of his own that he is to see,” is as clearly to be gathered from the whole strain of the passage, as that the “many” whom, as “the righteous servant of God, he is to justify, through the knowledge of himself,” are identical with those “whose iniquities he is to bear.” (Isaiah 53:10-12). In fact, it seems amazing that any can read that single marvellous and momentous clause: “He shall see of the travail (or sorrow) of his soul, and be satisfied”—knowing what “the travail of his soul” means, and believing it to have been his really taking upon himself the guilt, and enduring the curse, of a broken law—and yet admit it to be possible that any for whom he can be said at all to have died on the cross should, after all, perish for ever. Was his soul in travail for any of the lost? Was it in travail for any who were not given to him to be his seed? Would this have been consistent with his seeing the fruit of that travail of his soul, so as to be satisfied?—adequately satisfied, according to the measure of the Father’s satisfaction in him? “He shall see his seed;” “he shall see of the travail of his soul;” “the pouring out of his soul unto the death” being, as it were, the very birth-pang,
But, further, in the second place, the completeness, as well as the certainty, of the salvation of Christ’s people is, in many passages of Scripture, remarkably bound up with statements implying a limitation of his purchased redemption. Here, we might quote again some of the passages already commented on, such as the tenth and sixth chapters of John, in which the fulness of the provision made for Christ’s sheep, or those given him by the Father, as well as the security of their position, is connected with his dying for them. But there are other texts which set this connection in a great variety of striking and affecting points of view. Thus, there are some which represent the death of Christ as the highest conceivable instance of his love, and the Father’s; upon which an argument a fortiori, is to be based, as to what his people may expect at his hands. In the fifteenth chapter of John, the Lord is dwelling at length, on the abundance of fruit which he would have his disciples to bring forth, the fulness of joy of which he would make them partakers, the large desires in prayer which he is ready to satisfy, and the copious stream of mutual love which he would have to flow from himself through all their hearts; and, as if to convince them that there could be nothing, in the way of attainment or enjoyment, too high for them to aspire to, he appeals to his dying for them, as explaining all and justifying all: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” The whole force of this motive to enlargement of expectation is gone, if his death be not the pledge of his special love to his friends; for if no greater proof of love can be given than his laying down his life, and if it be not for his friends, exclusively, but, in a sense, for the whole world, that he does lay down his life, what has he in reserve to demonstrate his affection for his people? Can he give them any proof of love greater than he gives the world? The same view is supported by the argument of the apostle (Romans 8:32, Romans 5:1-11); in both of which passages he represents believers as arguing from the mere fact of Christ’s dying for them, that they may claim and challenge all the abundant blessings of grace and salvation. This they could never do were his death a propitiation or atonement in which they had a common interest with the reprobate and lost. They might, in that case, reason from the Spirit’s work in them, making them Christ’s, but scarcely, as they do, from the mere fact of Christ’s dying for them. The statement of our Lord, however, as we have quoted it, is still more precise. It is a clear assertion that he laid down his life for his friends; and that this must mean for them exclusively, is apparent from the view he teaches them to take of his death, as the highest instance of his love, as well as from the use he would have them to make of it, as warranting unlimited ambition in the life and fellowship of God. On this subject of the completeness of the salvation of Christ’s people, we might bring forward many passages in which the special elements of their blessedness are so connected with the death of Christ for them, as to preclude the possibility of that event being regarded in any other light than as a special atonement for their sins exclusively, and as purchasing, by its own intrinsic efficacy, for them alone, all things pertaining to life and godliness. We might particularly notice the manner in which the gift of the Spirit is represented as bound up with the work of Christ, so as to convey the irresistible impression that they must be of the same extent; and we might enlarge on the very numerous texts in which the peculiar relation of Christ to his people is set forth; and his dying for them is made the very index and crowning glory of that relation. But we have prolonged this introduction much beyond our intention, and we fear, also, our readers’ patience.
We briefly notice, therefore, in the third place, that the death of Christ is often spoken of in Scripture, in connection with the duties, obligations, and responsibilities of his people, in such a manner as necessarily to imply its restriction and limitation to them. Two particular passages occur for illustration of this remark. In Ephesians 5:25, it is expressly asserted that Christ gave himself for the Church; and this is cited as the proof and measure of that special love of Christ to the Church, which is to be the model of true conjugal affection: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it.” The appeal is unmeaning, if Christ gave himself for any besides the Church; for then, his giving of himself can be evidence of nothing more than his general regard for mankind at large; which, surely, is not the type of the love that husbands are to have for their wives. Again, in Acts 20:28, the Apostle Paul, addressing the elders of the Church of Ephesus, reminds them of their duty to feed the Church of God; and he enforces that duty by two considerations—the one taken from their peculiar relation to that Church, as having been made its overseers by the Holy Ghost; the other, from God’s own relation to it, as having bought it: “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.” There would be no force in this last consideration, as bringing out the value which God attaches to his Church, and the corresponding responsibility which he lays on all who have anything to do with it, if the blood of Christ was shed for others besides the Church: for then, these others, equally with the Church, are purchased by him, and there is no peculiar sacredness at all in the Church, so far as this consideration goes, nor any peculiar delicacy in dealing with it.
Besides these particular passages, in which the limitation of Christ’s death to his people is explicitly asserted, we might refer to that great family of texts, in which the position assigned to believers is described. They are bought with a price: they are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ: they are his purchased possession: he gave his soul a ransom for many. Throughout, we find very much of their peace, and still more of their holiness, made to depend on their realizing the fact of their being purchased, bought, redeemed, by the death of Christ: and they are never taught to look upon his death in any other light than that of a price and a ransom. But all this is inexplicable on the supposition of his having died for men generally and universally; for then, it is not simply on account of his dying for them, that they can be said to be redeemed or bought, in any sense that can distinguish them from others—which is the uniform and invariable scriptural representation—but on account of something else—something additional, or something different altogether. And finally, to pass from the present scene of trial to the future world of blessedness and glory, how unmeaning, on any theory of a universal reference in the atonement, does the song of the countless multitude before the throne become! There we see the mighty mystery of God’s will accomplished, which he purposed in himself;—“that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.” (Ephesians 1:10) One universal family or household is gathered together, out of every kindred, and people, and nation, and tongue; and the note of praise which, as they sing the new song, they all with united voices give forth, is but one continued acknowledgment of special obligation to the Lamb, for his death; and for his death as exclusively on their behalf; otherwise it could not be, by itself, any special ground of thanksgiving; which they expressly make it: “Thou art worthy, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood!”
Edinburgh, December 10, 1844 MY DEAR SIR,—I have often been urged by others, as well as by yourself, to explain my sentiments on the subject of the extent of the atonement; more particularly with reference to some statements bearing upon that subject, which I am reported to have made in the address which I delivered at the bicentenary meeting held here in July 1843, to commemorate the Westminster Assembly. These statements, as I am informed, have been referred to in public, and more frequently in private, as if they implied a concurrence, on my part, in the views alleged to be held by some respected brethren in the Secession Church, relative to the sense in which they think Christ may be said to have died for all men. I have the utmost reluctance to engage in this controversy, and I must disclaim, at the very outset of my remarks, any intention of reflecting on individuals; for I really have not studied what has been published even by such men as Dr John Brown and the late Dr Balmer on this question; nor have I interested myself in the discussion of it in recent pamphlets and periodicals. But as it seems to be thought that some explanation is due to my brethren, I have at last resolved to address myself to the unwelcome task. Were I inclined to evade an irksome duty, I might content myself with the intimation, that I had no opportunity of revising the report of my address, on the occasion in question, and cannot, therefore, be considered responsible for its accuracy. Had I seen the report before it was published, I believe I would have amplified and qualified the portion of it which, it seems, has been misunderstood; for scarcely any of the address was fully written out beforehand, and that portion of it, in particular, was delivered from very brief and imperfect notes, my time being so occupied as to prevent me from making that accurate preparation which was due to the subject, the occasion, and the assembly. I relied on my being allowed to correct the report taken at the time; and, especially in reference to so difficult and delicate a point of theology, I may say, that I would not otherwise have ventured to approach it as I did. Through some oversight, the report was not sent to me for revision—a circumstance which I have regretted only since I have learned that my observations have been deemed worthy of the honour of being animadverted upon at all. I need scarcely say, that I impute no blame to any one but myself on this account. (I subjoin in the Appendix the portion of the report referred to. See Appendix A.) But, while I might satisfy myself with this general disavowal, I feel that something more may be called for by others, whose good opinion I highly value. And, especially considering that I do not, on turning to the passage in question, see anything material to be retracted—however much there may be that would require to be more guardedly, perhaps, as well as more correctly and elaborately expressed—I feel that it would be somewhat like an unworthy shift, to shrink from the responsibility of the address, even as thus insufficiently reported. May I request you, therefore, to give insertion to the following remarks, in which, far from professing to discuss the subject thoroughly, my object is merely to explain and enlarge the brief and cursory allusion to it which I made, in the course of treating a far wider theme.—I am, &c.
ROB. S. CANDLISH On the Atonement