Atonement

Is the satisfying Divine Justice by Jesus Christ giving himself a ransom for us, undergoing the penalty due to our sins, and thereby releasing us from that punishment which God might justly inflict upon us, Rom 5:11. The Hebrew word signifies covering, and intimates that our offences are, by a proper atonement, covered from the avenging justice of God.

In order to understand the manner wherein Christ becomes an atonement, "we should, " says Dr. Watts, "consider the following propositions,

1.    The great God having made man, appointed to govern him by a wise and righteous law, wherein glory and honour, life and immortality, are the designed rewards for perfect obedience; but tribulation and wrath, pain and death, are the appointed recompense to those who violate this law, Gen 3:1-24: Rom 2:6; Rom 2:16. Rom 1:32.

2.    All mankind have broken this law, Rom 3:23. Rom 5:12.

3.    God, in his infinite wisdom, did not think fit to pardon sinful man, without some compensation for his broken law; for, 1. If the great Ruler of the world had pardoned the sins of men without any satisfaction, then his laws might have seemed not worth the vindicating.-2. Men would have been tempted to persist in the rebellion, and to repeat their old offences. -3. His forms of government among his creatures might have appeared as a matter of small importance.

4.    God had a mind to make a very illustrious display both of his justice and of his grace among mankind; on these accounts he would not pardon sin without a satisfaction.

5.    Man, sinful man, is not able to make any satisfaction to God for his own sins, neither by his labours, nor by his sufferings, Eph 2:1; Eph 2:8-9.

6.    Though man be incapable to satisfy for his own violation of the law, yet God would not suffer all mankind to perish.

7.    Because God intended to make a full display of the terrors of his justice, and his divine resentment for the violation of his law, therefore he appointed his own Son to satisfy for the breach of it, by becoming a proper sacrifice of expiation or atonement, Gal 3:10; Gal 3:13

8.    The Son of God being immortal, could not sustain all these penalties of the law which man had broken, without taking the mortal nature of man upon him, without assuming flesh and blood. Heb 2:13-14.

9.    The Divine Being having received such ample satisfaction for sin by the sufferings of his own Son, can honourably forgive his creature man, who was the transgressor, Rom 3:25-26.

Now that this doctrine is true, will appear, if we consider,

1.    That an atonement for sin, or an effectual method to answer the demands of an offended God, is the first great blessing guilty man stood in need of, Mic 6:6; Mic 7:1-20:

2.    The very first discoveries of grace which were made to man after his fall implied in them something of an atonement for sin, and pointed to the propitiation Christ has now made, Gen 3:15.

3.    The train of ceremonies which were appointed by God in the Jewish church are plain signification of such an atonement, 2Co 3:1-18: Col 2:7-9. Heb 10:1-39:

4.    Some of the prophesies confirm and explain the first promise, and show that Christ was to die as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of men, Dan 9:24-26. Is. 53:

5.    Our Saviour himself taught us the doctrine of the atonement for sin by his death, Mat 20:28. Joh 6:51. Luk 22:19.

6.    The terrors of soul, the consternation and inward agonies which our blessed Lord sustained a little before his death, were a sufficient proof that he endured punishment in his soul which were due to sin, Mar 14:33. Heb 5:7.

7.    This doctrine is declared, and confirmed, and explained at large, by the apostles in their writings, 1Co 15:3. Eph 1:7. 1Jn 2:2, &c.&c.

8.    This was the doctrine that was witnessed to the world by the amazing gifts of the Holy Ghost, which attended the Gospel.(

9.    See the Acts of the Apostles.)

The inferences and uses to be derived from this doctrine are these:

1.    How vain are all the labours and pretences of mankind to seek or hope for any better religion than that which is contained in the Gospel of Christ. It is here alone that we can find the solid and rational principle of reconciliation to an offended God, Heb 4:14.

2.    How strange and unreasonable is the doctrine of the Popish church, who, while they profess to believe the religion of Christ, yet introduce many other methods of atonement for sin, besides the sufferings of the Son of God. (

3.    See above.)

4.    Here is a solid foundation, on which the greatest of sinners may hope for acceptance with God. 1Ti 1:1-20

5.    This doctrine should be used as a powerful motive to excite repentance, Act 5:31.

6.    We should use this atonement of Christ as our constant way of access to God in all our prayers, Heb 10:19; Heb 10:22.

7.    Also as a divine guard against sin, Rom 6:1-2. 1Pe 1:15; 1Pe 1:19.

8.    As an argument of prevailing force to be used in prayer, Rom 8:32.

9.    As a spring of love to God, and to his Son Jesus Christ. 1Jn 4:10.

10.    As a strong persuasive to that love and pity which we should show on all occasions to our fellow creatures, 1Jn 4:11.

11.    It should excite patience and holy joy under afflictions and earthly sorrows, Rom 5:1-3.

12.    We should consider it as an invitation to the Lord’s supper, where Christ is set forth to us in the memorials of his propitiation.

13.    As a most effectual defense against the terrors of dying, and as our joyful hope of a blessed resurrection, 1Co 15:50.

14.    Lastly, as a divine allurement to the upper world."

See Watt’s Sermons, ser. 34, 35, 36, 37; Evans on the Atonement; Dr Owen on the Satisfaction of Christ; West’s Scripture Doctrine of the Atonement; Hervey’s Theron and Apasio, dialogue 3; Dr. Magee’s Discourses on the Atonement; Jerram’s Letters on ditto.

the satisfaction offered to divine justice by the death of Christ for the sins of mankind, by virtue of which all true penitents who believe in Christ are personally reconciled to God, are freed from the penalty of their sins, and entitled to eternal life. The atonement for sin made by the death of Christ, is represented in the Christian system as the means by which mankind may be delivered from the awful catastrophe of eternal death; from judicial inflictions of the displeasure of a Governor, whose authority has been contemned, and whose will has been resisted, which shall know no mitigation in their degree, nor bound to their duration.

This end it professes to accomplish by means which, with respect to the Supreme Governor himself, preserve his character from mistake, and maintain the authority of his government; and with respect to man, give him the strongest possible reason for hope, and render more favourable the condition of his earthly probation. These are considerations which so manifestly show, from its own internal constitution, the superlative importance and excellence of Christianity, that it would be exceedingly criminal to overlook them.

How sin may be forgiven without leading to such misconceptions of the divine character as would encourage disobedience, and thereby weaken the influence of the divine government, must be considered as a problem of very difficult solution. A government which admitted no forgiveness, would sink the guilty to despair; a government which never punishes offence, is a contradiction,—it cannot exist. Not to punish the guilty, is to dissolve authority; to punish without mercy, is to destroy, and where all are guilty, to make the destruction universal. That we cannot sin with impunity, is a matter determined. The Ruler of the world is not careless of the conduct of his creatures; for that penal consequences are attached to the offence, is not a subject of argument, but is matter of fact evident by daily observation of the events and circumstances of the present life. It is a principle therefore already laid down, that the authority of God must be preserved; but it ought to be remarked, that in that kind of administration which restrains evil by penalty, and encourages obedience by favour and hope, we and all moral creatures are the interested parties, and not the divine Governor himself, whom, because of his independent and all- sufficient nature, our transgressions cannot injure. The reasons, therefore, which compel him to maintain his authority do not terminate in himself. If he treats offenders with severity, it is for our sake, and for the sake of the moral order of the universe, to which sin, if encouraged by a negligent administration, or by an entire or frequent impunity, would be the source of endless disorder and misery; and if the granting of pardon to offence be strongly and even severely guarded, so that no less a satisfaction could be accepted than the death of God’s own Son, we are to refer this to the moral necessity of the case as arising out of the general welfare of accountable creatures, liable to the deep evil of sin, and not to any reluctance on the part of our Maker to forgive, much less to any thing vindictive in his nature,—charges which have been most inconsiderately and unfairly said to be implied in the doctrine of Christ’s vicarious sufferings. If it then be true, that the release of offending man from future punishment, and his restoration to the divine favour, ought, for the interests of mankind themselves, and for the instruction and caution of other beings, to be so bestowed, that no license shall be given to offence;—

that God himself, whilst he manifests his compassion, should not appear less just, less holy, than he really is;—that his authority should be felt to be as compelling, and that disobedience should as truly, though not unconditionally, subject us to the deserved penalty, as though no hope of forgiveness had been exhibited;—we ask, On what scheme, save that which is developed in the New Testament, are these necessary conditions provided for? Necessary they are, unless we contend for a license and an impunity which shall annul all good government in the universe, a point for which no reasonable man will contend; and if so, then we must allow that there is strong internal evidence of the truth of the doctrine of Scripture, when it makes the offer of pardon consequent only upon the securities we have before mentioned. If it be said, that sin may be pardoned in the exercise of the divine prerogative, the reply is, that if this prerogative were exercised toward a part of mankind only, the passing by of the rest would be with difficulty reconciled to the divine character; and if the benefit were extended to all, government would be at an end. This scheme of bringing men within the exercise of a merciful prerogative, does not therefore meet the obvious difficulty of the case; nor is it improved by confining the act of grace only to repentant criminals. For in the immediate view of danger, what offender, surrounded with the wreck of former enjoyments, feeling the vanity of guilty pleasures, now past for ever, and beholding the approach of the delayed penal visitation, but would repent? Were the principle of granting pardon to repentance to regulate human governments, every criminal would escape, and judicial forms would become a subject for ridicule. Nor is it recognised by the divine Being in his conduct to men in the present state, although in this world punishments are not final and absolute. Repentance does not restore health injured by intemperance; property, wasted by profusion; or character, once stained by dishonourable practices. If repentance alone could secure pardon, then all must be pardoned, and government dissolved, as in the case of forgiveness by the exercise of mere prerogative; but if an arbitrary selection be made, then different and discordant principles of government are introduced into the divine administration, which is a derogatory supposition.

The question proposed abstractedly, How may mercy be extended to offending creatures, the subjects of the divine government, without encouraging vice, by lowering the righteous and holy character of God, and the authority of his government, in the maintenance of which the whole universe of beings are interested? is, therefore, at once one of the most important and one of the most difficult that can employ the human mind. None of the theories which have been opposed, to Christianity affords a satisfactory solution of the problem. They assume principles either destructive of moral government, or which cannot, in the circumstances of man, be acted upon. The only answer is found in the Holy Scriptures. They alone show, and, indeed, they alone profess to show, how God may be “just,” and yet the “justifier” of the ungodly. Other schemes show how he may be merciful; but the difficulty does not lie there. The Gospel meets it, by declaring “the righteousness of God,” at the same time that it proclaims his mercy. The voluntary sufferings of the Divine Son of God “for us,” that is, in our room and stead, magnify the justice of God; display his hatred to sin; proclaim “the exceeding sinfulness” of transgression, by the deep and painful manner in which they were inflicted upon the Substitute; warn the persevering offender of the terribleness, as well as the certainty, of his punishment; and open the gates of salvation to every penitent. It is a part of the same divine plan also to engage the influence of the Holy Spirit, to awaken penitence in man, and to lead the wanderer back to himself; to renew our fallen nature in righteousness, at the moment we are justified through faith, and to place us in circumstances in which we may henceforth “walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” All the ends of government are here answered—no license is given to offence,—the moral law is unrepealed,—a day of judgment is still appointed,—future and eternal punishments still display their awful sanctions,—a new and singular display of the awful purity of the divine character is afforded,—yet pardon is offered to all who seek it; and the whole world may be saved.

With such evidence of suitableness to the case of mankind, under such lofty views of connection with the principles and ends of moral government, does the doctrine of the atonement present itself. But other important considerations are not wanting to mark the united wisdom and goodness of that method of extending mercy to the guilty which Christianity teaches us to have been actually and exclusively adopted. It is rendered, indeed, “worthy of all acceptation,” by the circumstance of its meeting the difficulties we have just dwelt upon,—difficulties which could not otherwise have failed to make a gloomy impression upon every offender awakened to a sense of his spiritual danger; but it must be very inattentively considered, if it does not farther commend itself to us, by not only removing the apprehensions we might feel as to the severity of the divine Lawgiver, but as exalting him in our esteem as “the righteous Lord, who loveth righteousness,” who surrendered his beloved Son to suffering and death, that the influence of moral goodness might not be weakened in the hearts of his creatures; and as a God of love, affording in this instance a view of the tenderness and benignity of his nature infinitely more impressive and affecting than any abstract description could convey, or than any act of creating and providential power and grace could exhibit, and, therefore, most suitable to subdue that enmity which had unnaturally grown up in the hearts of his creatures, and which, when corrupt, they so easily transfer from a law which restrains their inclination to the Lawgiver himself. If it be important to us to know the extent and reality of our danger, by the death of Christ it is displayed, not in description, but in the most impressive action; if it be important that we should have an assurance of the divine placability toward us, it here receives a demonstration incapable of being heightened; if gratitude be the most powerful motive of future obedience, and one which renders command on the one part, and active service on the other, “not grievous but joyous,” the recollection of such obligations as those which the “love of Christ” has laid us under, is a perpetual spring to this energetic affection, and will be the means of raising it to higher and more delightful activity for ever. All that can most powerfully illustrate the united tenderness and awful majesty of God, and the odiousness of sin; all that can win back the heart of man to his Maker and Lord, and render future obedience a matter of affection and delight as well as duty; all that can extinguish the angry and malignant passions of man to man; all that can inspire a mutual benevolence, and dispose to a self-denying charity for the benefit of others; all that can arouse by hope, or tranquillize by faith; is to be found in the vicarious death of Christ, and the principles and purposes for which it was endured.

The first declaration, on this subject, after the appearance of Christ, is that of John the Baptist, when he saw Jesus coming unto him, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world;” where it is obvious, that when John called our Lord, “the Lamb of God,” he spoke of him under a sacrificial character, and of the effect of that sacrifice as an atonement for the sins of mankind. This was said of our Lord, even before he entered on his public office; but if any doubt should exist respecting the meaning of the Baptist’s expression, it is removed by other passages, in which a similar allusion is adopted, and in which it is specifically applied to the death of Christ, as an atonement for sin. In the Acts of the Apostles, the following words of Isaiah are, by Philip the evangelist, distinctly applied to Christ, and to his death: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth. in his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth.” This particular part of the prophecy being applied to our Lord’s death, the whole must relate to the same subject; for it is undoubtedly one entire prophecy, and the other expressions in it are still stronger: “He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed: the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” In the First Epistle of Peter, is also a strong and very apposite text, in which the application of the term “lamb” to our Lord, and the sense in which it is applied, can admit of no doubt: “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,” 1Pe 1:18-19. It is therefore evident that the Prophet Isaiah, six hundred years before the birth of Jesus; that John the Baptist, on the commencement of his ministry; and that St. Peter, his friend, companion, and Apostle, subsequent to the transaction; speak of Christ’s death as an atonement for sin, under the figure of a lamb sacrificed.

The passages that follow, plainly and distinctly declare the atoning efficacy of Christ’s death: “Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” Heb 9:26; Heb 9:28. “This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sin, for ever sat down on the right hand of God; for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified,” Heb 10:12. It is observable, that nothing similar is said of the death of any other person, and that no such efficacy is imputed to any other martyrdom. “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us; much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him: for if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life,” Rom 5:8-10. The words, “reconciled to God by the death of his Son,” show that his death had an efficacy in our reconciliation; but reconciliation is only preparatory to salvation. “He has reconciled us to his Father in his cross, and in the body of his flesh through death,”

Col 1:20; Col 1:22. What is said of reconciliation in these texts, is in some others spoken of sanctification which is also preparatory to salvation. “We are sanctified,”—how? “by the offering of the body of Christ once for all,” Heb 10:10. In the same epistle, the blood of Jesus is called “the blood of the covenant by which we are sanctified.” In these and many other passages that occur in different parts of the New Testament, it is therefore asserted that the death of Christ had an efficacy in the procuring of human salvation. Such expressions are used concerning no other person, and the death of no other person; and it is therefore evident that Christ’s death included something more than a confirmation of his preaching; something more than a pattern of a holy and patient martyrdom; something more than a necessary antecedent to his resurrection, by which he gave a grand and clear proof of our resurrection from the dead. Christ’s death was all these, but it was something more. It was an atonement for the sins of mankind; and in this way only it became the accomplishment of our eternal redemption. See DAY OF EXPIATION.

Atonement (see Rom 11:15; 2Co 5:18-19). In ecclesiastical writers, and in the canons of Councils, the word rendered atonement is employed to signify the reconciliation of offenders to the Church after a due course of penitence. Of this there are said to have been two kinds: the one consisting merely in the remission of punishment; the other, in the restoration of the penitent to all the rights and privileges of communion. For the doctrine of Atonement, see articles Sacrifices.

The satisfaction offered to divine justice for the sins of mankind by the death of Jesus Christ; by virtue of which all true penitents believing in Christ are reconciled to God, are freed from the penalty of their sins, and entitled to eternal life. The atonement by Jesus Christ is the great distinguishing peculiarity of the gospel, and is presented in a great variety of terms and illustrations in both the Old Testament and the New. See REDEMPTION, SACRIFICES.\par The English word atonement originally denoted the reconciliation of parties previously at variance. It is used in the Old Testament to translate a Hebrew word which means a covering; implying that by a Divine propitiation the sinner is covered from the just anger of God. This is actually effected by the death of Christ; while the ceremonial offerings of the Jewish church only secured from impending temporal judgments, and typified the blood of Jesus Christ which "cleanseth us from all sin."\par

(See RECONCILIATION.) Literally, the being at one, after having been at variance. Tyndale explains "One Mediator" (1Ti 2:5): "at one maker between God and man." To made atonement is to give or do that whereby alienation ceases and reconciliation ensues. "Reconciliation" is the equivalent term given for the same Hebrew word, kopher, in Dan 9:24; Lev 8:15; Eze 45:15. In the New Testament KJV once only "atonement" is used (Rom 5:11): "by whom (Christ) we have received the atonement" (katallage), where the reconciliation or atonement must be on God’s part toward us, for it could not well be said, "We have received the reconciliation on our part toward Him."

Elsewhere the same Greek is translated "reconciliation" (2Co 5:18-19). A kindred term expressing a different aspect of the same truth is "propitiation" (hilasmos) (1Jn 2:2), the verb of which is in Heb 2:17 translated "to make reconciliation." Also "ransom," or payment for redeeming a captive (Job 33:24), kopher, "an atonement," Mat 20:28. Heb 9:12; Christ, "having obtained eternal redemption for us" (lutrosis, the deliverance bought for us by His bloodshedding, the price: 1Pe 1:18).

The verb kipper ’al, "to cover upon," expresses the removing utterly out of sight the guilt of person or thing by a ransom, satisfaction, or substituted victim. The use of the word and the noun kopher, throughout the Old Testament, proves that, as applied to the atonement or reconciliation between God and man, it implies not merely what is man’s part in finding acceptance with God, but, in the first instance, what God’s justice required on His part, and what His love provided, to justify His entering into reconciliation with man. In Lev 1:4; Lev 4:26; Lev 5:1; Lev 5:16-18; Lev 5:16; Lev 17:11, the truth is established that the guilt is transferred from the sinful upon the innocent substitute, in order to make amends to violated justice, and to cover (atone: kipper’ al) or put out of sight the guilt (compare Mic 7:19 end), and to save the sinner from the wages of sin which is death.

On the great day of atonement the high priest made "atonement for the sanctuary, the tabernacle, and the altar" also, as well as for the priests and all the people; but it was the people’s sin that defiled the places so as to make them unfit for the presence of the Holy One. Unless the atonement was made the soul "bore its iniquity," i.e. was under the penalty of death. The exceptions of atonement made with fine flour by one not able to afford the animal sacrifice (Lev 5:11), and by Aaron with incense on a sudden emergency (Num 16:47), confirm the rule. The blood was the medium of atonement, because it had the life or soul (nephesh) in it. The soul of the offered victim atoned for the soul of the sinful offerer.

The guiltless blood was given by God to be shed to atone for the forfeited blood of the guilty. The innocent victim pays the penalty of the offerer’s sin, death (Rom 6:28). This atonement was merely typical in the Old Testament sacrifices; real in the one only New Testament sacrifice, Christ Jesus. Kaphar and kopher is in Gen 6:14, "Thou shalt pitch the ark with pitch," the instrument of covering the saved from the destroying flood outside, as Jesus’ blood interposes between believers and the flood of wrath that swallows up the lost. Jacob uses the same verb (Gen 32:20), "I will appease Esau with the present," i.e., cover out of sight or turn away his wrath.

The "mercy-seat" whereat God meets man (being reconciled through the blood there sprinkled, and so man can meet God) is called kapporeth, i.e. flee lid of the ark, covering the law inside, which is fulfilled in Messiah who is called by the corresponding Greek term, hilasterion, "the propitiatory" or mercy-seat, "whom God hath set forth to be a propitiatory through faith in His blood" (Rom 3:23). God Himself made a coat (singular in Heb.) of skin, and clothed Adam and his wife (Gen 3:21). The animal cannot have been slain for food, for animal food was not permitted to man until after the flood (Gen 9:3); nor for clothing, for the fleece would afford that, without the needless killing of the animal. It must have been for sacrifice, the institution of which is presumed in the preference given to Abel’s sacrifice, above Cain’s offering of firstfruits, in Genesis 4.

Typically; God taught that the clothing for the soul must, be from the Victim whom God’s love provided to cover our guilt forever out of sight (Psalms 32:D (not kaphar, but kasah) (Rom 4:17; Isa 61:10), the same Hebrew (labash) as in Gen 3:21, "clothed." The universal prevalence of propitiatory sacrifices over the pagan world implies a primitive revelation of the need of expiatory atonement, and of the inefficacy of repentance alone to remove guilt. This is the more remarkable in Hindostan, where it is considered criminal to take away the life of any animal. God’s righteous character and government interposed a barrier to sinful man’s pardon and reception into favor. The sinner’s mere desire for these blessings does not remove the barrier out of the way. Something needed to be done for him, not by him.

It was for God, against whom man sinned, to appoint the means for removing the barrier. The sinless Jesus’ sacrifice for, and instead of, us sinners was the mean so appointed. The sinner has simply by faith to embrace the means. And as the means, the vicarious atonement by Christ, is of God, it must be efficacious for salvation. Not that Jesus’ death induced God to love us; but because God loved us He gave Jesus to reconcile the claims of justice and mercy, "that God might be just and at the same time the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus" (Rom 3:26; 2Co 5:18-21). Jesus is, it is true, not said in Scripture to reconcile God to the sinner, because the reconciliation in the first instance emanated from God Himself. God reconciled us to Himself, i.e. restored us to His favor, by satisfying the claims of justice against us.

Christ’s atonement makes a change, not in God’s character as if God’s love was produced by it, but in our position judicially considered in the eye of the divine law. Christ’s sacrifice was the provision of God’s love, not its moving cause (Rom 8:32). Christ’s blood was the ransom paid at the expense of God Himself, to reconcile the exercise of mercy and justice, not as separate, but as the eternally harmonious attributes in the same God. God reconciles the world unto Himself, in the first instance, by satisfying His own just enmity against sin (Psa 7:11; Isa 12:1, compare 1Sa 29:4; "reconcile himself unto his master," not remove his own anger against his master, but his master’s anger against him). Men’s reconciliation to God by laying aside their enmity is the after consequence of their believing that He has laid aside His judicial enmity against their sin.

Penal and vicarious satisfaction for our guilt to God’s law by Christ’s sacrificial death is taught Mat 20:28; "the Son of man came to give His life a ransom for (anti) many" (anti implies vicarious satisfaction in Mat 5:28; Mar 10:45). 1Ti 2:6; "who gave Himself a ransom for (antilutron, an equivalent payment in substitution for) all." Eph 5:25; 1Pe 2:24; 1Pe 3:15; "the Just for the unjust ... suffered for us." Joh 1:29; "the Lamb of God taketh away the sin of the world." 1Co 5:7; 1Pe 1:19; Joh 10:15; Rom 4:25; "He was delivered on account of (dia) our offenses, and raised again for the sake of (dia) our justification." (Rev 1:5; Heb 9:13-14.) Conscience feels instinctively the penal claims of violated divine justice, and can only find peace when by faith it has realized that those claims have been fully met by our sacrificed substitute (Heb 9:9; Heb 10:1-2; Heb 10:22; 1Pe 3:21).

The conscience reflects the law and will of God, though that law condemns the man. Opponents of the doctrine of vicarious atonement say, "it exhibits God as less willing to forgive than His creatures are bound to be;" but man’s justice, which is the faint reflex of God’s, binds the judge, however lamenting the painful duty, to sentence the criminal to death as a satisfaction to outraged law. Also, "as taking delight in executing vengeance on sin, or yielding to the extremity of suffering what He withheld on considerations of mercy." But the claim of God’s righteousness is not pressed apart from that of God’s love; both move in beautiful unity; the atonement is at once the brightest exhibition of His love and of His justice; it does not render God merciful, but opens a channel whereby love can flow in perfect harmony with His righteous law, yea "magnifying the law and making it honorable" (Isa 42:21).

At the same time it is a true remark of Macdonell (Donellan Lectures): "Christ’s work of redemption springs from an intimate relationship to those whom He redeems. It is not only because He suffers what they ought to have suffered that mercy becomes possible; but because He who suffered bore some mysterious relation to the spirits of those for whom He suffered; so that every pang He felt, and every act He did. vibrated to the extremities of that body of which He is the head, and placed not their acts, but the actors. themselves, in a new relation to the divine government and to the fountain of holiness and life." It is only as Representative Head of humanity, that the Son of man, the second Adam, made full and adequate satisfaction for the whole race whose nature He took. He died sufficiently for all men; efficiently for the elect alone (Heb 2:9-15; 1Jn 2:2; Act 20:28; 2Pe 2:1; 1Ti 4:10).

Anything short of an adequate satisfaction would be so far an abatement; of divine justice; and if part of the sin might be forgiven without the satisfaction, why not all? If God can dispense with the claims of justice in part, He can as well do it altogether. A partial satisfaction would be almost more dishonoring to God’s righteousness than a gratuitous forgiveness without any satisfaction whatever. With God alone it rested to determine what is adequate satisfaction, and how it is to become available to each man, without injury to the cause of righteousness.

God has determined it, that in Christ’s infinite dignity of person and holiness above that of any creature, there is ensured the adequateness of the satisfaction, made by His obedience and suffering, to meet the claims of justice against those whose nature He voluntarily assumed; nay more, to set forth God’s glory more brightly than ever; also God has revealed that by believing the sinner becomes one with the Redeemer, and so rightly shares in the redemption wrought by Him the Head of the redeemed. No motive has ever been found so powerful as the sinner’s realization of the atonement, to create love in the human heart, constraining the accepted believer henceforth to shun all sin and press after all holiness in order to please God, who first loved him (Rom 8:1-3; 2Co 5:14-15; 1Jn 4:19).

(expressed in Hebrews by כָּפִר, kaphar’, to cover over sin, hence to forgive; Gr. καταλλαγή, reconciliation, as usually rendered), the satisfaction offered to divine justice for the sins of mankind by the death of Jesus Christ, by virtue of which all penitent believers in Christ are reconciled to God, and freed from the penalties of sin.

I. Scripture Doctrine. —

1. The words used to describe Christ’s work. — The redeeming work of Christ, in its several aspects, is denoted in Scripture by various terms, namely, reconciliation, propitiation, expiation, atonement, redemption, satisfaction, substitution, and salvation. The following summary of the uses and meanings of these terms is taken, with slight modifications, from Angus, Bible Hand-book, § 329.

(a.) Looking into the English N.T., we find “reconciliation” and “reconcile” in several passages, in all of which (except one) the Greek word is some form of ἀλλάσσω, “to produce a change between parties” (when, for example, they have been at variance); in turning to the Sept. we find this word never used in this sense at all, nor have the many passages in the O.T., which speak of “making reconciliation,” any verbal reference to these passages in the N.T. The idea is involved in several passages, but it is never expressed by this word, nor by any single word. “To turn away anger,” “to restore to favor,” “to accept,” are the common expressions, generally forms of רָצָהand δεκτός (Isa 56:7; Isa 60:7; Jer 6:20; Lev 19:7). Hence the conclusion, that in the word of the N.T. translated “reconcile” there is reference only to the change or effect produced by some measure of mercy, and not to the nature of that measure itself: it describes merely the change produced in our relation to God; his moral sentiment of displeasure against sin (called his “wrath”) is appeased, and the sinner’s enmity and misgivings are removed. That there is this double change may be gathered from the following passages: Heb 10:26-27; Rom 5:9; Heb 9:26; Heb 9:28; 2Co 5:18-20; Eph 2:16; 1Co 7:11; Col 1:20-21.

(b.) In one passage, however (Heb 2:17), we have in Greek another word, ἱλάσκομαι, translated also “make reconciliation.” Its meaning may be gathered from the passages in the O.T. in which it occurs. It is, in fact, the constant rendering of a word translated in the English version “to make reconciliation” or “to atone for” (Lev 6:30; Lev 8:15; Eze 45:20; Dan 9:24, etc.).

(c.) But it would excite surprise if this were the only passage in the N.T. where this phrase is found. It occurs again, in fact, in Rom 3:25; 1Jn 2:2; 1Jn 4:10; but in each of these passages it is translated PROPITIATION, a word which does not occur in the O.T. EXPIATION, again, does not occur in the N.T., and but once in the O.T. (Num 35:33, marg.); it is the same word, however, as is translated elsewhere “to make reconciliation” or “to atone for.” ATONEMENT itself does not occur in the N.T., except in Rom 5:2, and there it has no connection with the O.T. phrase, but is the same word as is translated “reconciliation” in the first sense above indicated; a change, that is, of state between parties previously at variance.

(d.) Thus far, therefore, the result is clear. Reconciliation and atonement are, in all the N.T., except Heb 2:17, translations of the same word, and mean the state of friendship and acceptance into which the Gospel introduces us. “Reconciliation” in the sense in which it is used in Heb 2:17, and “atonement” in the uniform sense of the Old Testament, “propitiation” in the New Testament, and “expiation” in the Old, are all different renderings of one and the same Hebrew and Greek words כָּפִר, kaphar (in the Piel form כַּפֵּר) and ἐξιλάσκομαι, in some of their forms. These words, which may be regarded as one, have two senses, each involving the other. They mean to appease, pacify, or propitiate (Gen 33:20; Pro 16:14; Eze 16:63); and also to clear from guilt (1Sa 3:14; Psa 65:3; Pro 16:6; Isa 6:7, etc.). In propitiation, we have prominence given to the first idea; in expiation, to the second; in atonement, we have a distinct reference to both.

(e.) The thing which atones, propitiates, or expiates is called in Greek ὶλασμός, ἐξιλασμός, and λύτρον, all translations of two derivatives of the Hebrew word כָּפִר( כְּפֻרַיםand כֹּפֶר), i.e. price or covering.

(f.) The use of λύτρον for כֹּפֶרintroduces another form of expression, “redemption.” This word, as a noun, always represents in the N.T. λύτρωσις or ἀπολύτρωσις. Both are descriptive of the act of procuring the liberation of another by paying some λύτρον or ἄποινα, i.e. “ransom” or “forfeit,” and hence always in the N.T. of the state of being ransomed in this way. These words mean (1) to buy back, by paying the price, what has been sold (Lev 25:25), and (2) to redeem what has been devoted by substituting something else in its place (Lev 27:27; Exo 13:13; Psa 72:14; Psa 130:8; Isa 63:9). The price paid is called λύτρον

(Mat 20:28; Mar 10:45), ἀντίλυτρον (1Ti 2:6), the Hebrew terms being גְּאֻלָּהand פַּדְיוֹן, answering precisely to

λύτρον, and כֹּפֶר, which again answers to ἱλασμός. In 1Ti 2:6, this ransom is said to be Christ himself. “Redemption,” therefore, is generally a state of deliverance by means of ransom. Hence it is used to indicate deliverance from punishment or guilt (Eph 1:7; Col 1:14); sanctification, which is deliverance from the dominion of sin (1Pe 1:18); the resurrection, which is the actual deliverance of the body from the grave, the consequence of sin (Rom 8:23); completed salvation, which is actual deliverance from all evil (Eph 1:14; Eph 4:30; 1Co 1:30; Tit 2:14). Once it is used without reference to sin (Hebrews). 11:35), and perhaps in Luk 21:28.

(g.) Another word, translated “redemption” (ἀγοράζω, Gal 3:13; Gal 4:5; Rev 5:9; Rev 14:3-4), means, as it is everywhere else translated, to buy, referring to a purchase made in the market. What is paid in this case is called τηεή (price), and this price is said to he Christ (Gal 3:13), or his blood (Rom 5:9). In Act 20:28, the word rendered “purchase” (περιποιεῖσθαι) has no reference to redemption or to price, but means simply “acquired for himself:” the following words, however, indicate that the sense is not materially different from purchasing, as that term is used elsewhere.

(h.) The word “satisfaction” is not found in the N.T., but it occurs twice in the Old (Num 35:31-32). It is there a translation of כֹּפֶרor λύτρον, “that which expiates” or “ransoms.” The use of these terms, in reference to the N.T. doctrine, implies that what was done and paid in the death of our Lord satisfied the claims of justice, and answered all the moral purposes which God deemed necessary, under a system of holy law.. (i.) The word “substitution” is not to be found in either Testament, but the idea is frequently expressed in both: “it shall be accepted FOR him” (Lev 1:4; Lev 7:18) is the O.T. phrase, and the New corresponds. There we find in frequent use ὑπέρ and ἀντί, the former meaning “on behalf of,” “for,” and “instead,” and the latter meaning undoubtedly “instead of.” Much stress ought not to be laid upon the first of these terms, as it is frequently used where it may mean “for the advantage of” (Rom 8:26; Rom 8:31; 2Co 1:2); yet in Joh 15:13, and 1Jn 3:16, it seems to mean “instead of;” and this is certainly the meaning of ἀντί (Mat 20:28; Mar 10:45; see Mat 2:22, “in the room of”). Apart, however, from particular prepositions, three sets of phrases clearly teach this doctrine. (1) Christ was made a curse for us (Gal 3:13); so a similar phrase (2Co 5:21). (2)He gave himself as a sacrifice for our sins (1 Corinthians 15; Eph 5:2; Gal 1:4; 1Ti 2:6; 1Ti 2:14; Heb 7:27; Heb 5:1; Heb 5:3; Heb 10:12; Rom 5:6-8; 1Co 1:13; 1Co 5:7; 1Co 11:24; 1Pe 3:18; 1Pe 4:1). (3) Christ gave his life for our life, or we live by his death (Gal 2:20; Rom 14:15; 2Co 5:15. Compare Rom 16:4; Isaiah 53:45). The idea of substitution is in all these passages, and the phrase, though not scriptural, is a convenient summary of them all.

(j.) “Salvation” is everywhere in the N.T. the representative of σωτηρία or σωτήριον; σωτηρία is always translated “salvation” except in three passages (Act 7:25; Act 27:34, and Heb 11:7, where it refers to temporal deliverance), and the idea included in the term is whatever blessings redemption includes, but without any reference to λύτρον, or anything else as the ground of them. It includes present deliverance (Luk 19:9) or future (Php 1:19; Rom 13:11). “Salvation,” therefore, is the state into which the Gospel introduces all who believe, and without reference to the means used. On turning to the Sept., however, we find that the idea of propitiation is involved even here; σωτήριον is very frequently the translation of שֶׁלֶם(זֶבֻח), peace-offering, θυσία σωτηρίου (Lev 3:1-3; Lev 4:10; Lev 7:20; Lev 11:4; Jdg 20:26; Jdg 21:4). שֶׁלֶםis the sacrifice or retribution restoring peace, and thus the meaning of σωτήριον touches upon the meaning of propitiation. “From this comparison, therefore, of the N.T.. the Sept., and the Hebrew, we gather the following conclusions: Propitiation, giving prominence to the secondary meaning of כָּפִר, kaphar, and the primary meaning of ἐξιλάσκομαι, is an act prompting to the exercise of mercy, and providing for its exercise in a way consistent with justice; Expiation, giving prominence to the primary meaning of כָּפִרand the secondary meaning of ἐξιλάσκομαι, is an act which provides for the removal of sin, and cancels the obligation to punishment; Atonement, giving prominence to both, and meaning expiation and propitiation combined. Christ’s atonement is said to be by substitution, for he suffered in our stead, and he bears our sin; and it is by satisfaction, for the broken law is vindicated, all the purposes of punishment are answered with honor to the Lawgiver, and eventual holiness to the Christian. Its result is reconciliation (καταλλαγή); the moral sentiment of justice in God is reconciled to the sinner, and provision is made for the removal of our enmity; and it is redemption, or actual deliverance for a price from sin in its guilt and dominion, from all misery and from death. Salvation is also actual deliverance, but without a discinct reference to a price paid. Atonement, therefore, is something offered to God; redemption or salvation is something bestowed upon man; atonement is the ground of redemption, and redemption is the result of atonement (Isa 53:4-10; Isa 53:12). The design of the first is to satisfy God’s justice, the design of the second to make man blessed; the first was finished upon the cross, the second is in daily operation, and will not be completed in the case of the whole church till the consummation of all things (Dan 9:24; Eph 4:30).”

2. The Scripture doctrine of the vicarious sacrifice of Christ is taught in the passages above cited, and indeed seems to underlie the whole “gospel” of salvation contained in the teaching of Christ and his apostles. It may be stated further

(1) that the sacrifices of the O.T. were (at least many of them) expiatory [see this shown under EXPIATION SEE EXPIATION ], and the terms used by Christ and his apostles (ransom, sacrifice, offering, etc.) were necessarily understood by their hearers in the sense which they had been accustomed for ages to attach to them.

(2) If this be so, then nothing could “be more misleading, and even absurd, than to employ those terms which, both among Jews and .Gentiles, were in use to express the various processes and means of atonement and piacular propitiation, if the apostles and Christ himself did not intend to represent his death strictly as an expiation for sin; misleading, because such would be the natural and necessary inference from the terms themselves, which had acquired this as their established meaning; and absurd, because if, as Socinians say, they used them metaphorically, there was not even an ideal resemblance between the figures and that which it was intended to illustrate. So totally irrelevant, indeed, will those terms appear to any notion entertained of the death of Christ which excludes its expiatory character, that to assume that our Lord and his apostles used them as metaphors is profanely to assume them to be such writers as would not in any other case be tolerated; writers wholly unacquainted with the commonest rules of language, and, therefore, wholly unfit to be teachers of others, and that not only in religion, but in things of inferior importance” (Watson, Dict. s.v. Expiation).

Immediately upon the first public manifestation of Christ, John the Baptist declares, when he sees Jesus coming to him, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (Joh 1:29); where it is obvious that, when John called our Lord “the Lamb of God,” he spoke of him under a sacrificial character, and of the effect of that sacrifice as an atonement for the sins of mankind. This was said of our Lord even before he entered on his public office; but if any doubt should exist respecting the meaning of the Baptist’s expression, it is removed by other passages, in which a similar allusion is adopted, and in which it is specifically applied to the death of Christ as an atonement for sin. In the Acts (Act 8:32) the following words of Isaiah (Isa 53:7) are by Philip the Evangelist distinctly applied to Christ and to his death: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth: in his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth.” This particular part of the prophecy being applied to our Lord’s death, the whole must relate to the same subject, for it is undoubtedly one entire prophecy; and the other expressions in it are still stronger: “He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed: the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” In the First Epistle of Peter is also a strong and very apposite text, in which the application of the term “lamb” to our Lord, and the sense in which it is applied, can admit of no doubt:

“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1Pe 1:18-19). It is therefore evident that the prophet Isaiah, seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus; that John the Baptist, at the commencement of Christ’s ministry; and that Peter, his companion and apostle, subsequent to the transaction, speak of Christ’s death as an atonement for sin under the figure of a lamb sacrificed. The passages that follow plainly and distinctly declare the atoning efficacy of Christ’s death: “Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (Heb 9:26; Heb 9:28). “This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sin, forever sat down on the right hand of God; for by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified” (Heb 10:12). It is observable that nothing similar is said of the death of any other person, and that no such efficacy is imputed to any other martyrdom. “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us; much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him; for if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life” (Rom 5:8-10). The words “reconciled to God by the death of his Son” show that his death had an efficacy in our reconciliation; but reconciliation is only preparatory to salvation. “He has reconciled us to his Father in his cross, and in the body of his flesh through death” (Col 1:20; Col 1:22). What is said of reconciliation in these texts is in some others spoken of sanctification, which is also preparatory to salvation. “‘We are sanctified” — how? “by the offering of the body of Christ once for all” (Heb 10:10). In the same epistle (Heb 10:29), the blood of Jesus is called “the blood of the covenant by which we are sanctified.” In these and many other passages that occur in different parts of the New Testament, it is therefore asserted that the death of Christ was efficacious in the procuring of human salvation. Such expressions are used concerning no other person, and the death of no other person; and it is therefore evident that Christ’s death included something more than a confirmation of his preaching; something more than a pattern of a holy and patient martyrdom; something more than a necessary antecedent to his resurrection, by which he gave a grand and clear proof of our resurrection from the dead. Christ’s death was all these, but it was much more. It was an atonenment for the sins of mankind, and in this way only it became the accomplishment of our eternal redemption. The teaching of the New Testament, and the agreement of the statements of Christ with those of his apostles on this subject, are thus set forth (without regard to theological distinctions) by Dr. Thomson, bishop of Gloucester: “God sent his Son into the world to redeem lost and ruined man from sin and death, and the Son willingly took upon him the form of a servant for this purpose; and thus the Father and the Son manifested their love for us. God the Father laid upon his Son the weight of the sins of the whole world, so that he bare in his own body the wrath which men must else have borne, because there was no other way of escape for them; and thus the atonement was a manifestation of divine justice. The effect of the atonement thus wrought is that man is placed in a new position, freed from the dominion of sin, and able to follow holiness, and thus the doctrine of the atonement ought to work in all the hearers a sense of love, of obedience, and of self-sacrifice. In shorter words, the sacrifice of the death of Christ is a proof of divine love and of divine justice, and is for us a document of obedience. Of the four great writers of the New Testament, Peter, Paul, and John set forth every one of these points. \

Peter, the ‘witness of the sufferings of Christ,’ tells us that we were ‘redeemed with the blood of Jesus, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot;’ says that ‘Christ bare our sins in his own body on the tree.’ If we ‘have tasted that the Lord is gracious,’ we must not rest satisfied with a contemplation of our redeemed state, but must live a life worthy of it. No one can well doubt, who reads the two epistles, that the love of God and Christ, and the justice of God, and the duties thereby laid on us, all have their value in them; but the love is less dwelt on than the justice, while the most prominent idea of all is the moral and practical working of the cross of Christ upon the lives of men. With St. John, again, all three points find place: that Jesus willingly laid down his life for us, and is an advocate with the Father; that He is also the propitiation, the suffering sacrifice for our sins; and that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin, for that whoever is born of God doth not commit sin: all are put forward. The death of Christ is both justice and love — both a propitiation and an act of loving self-surrender; but the moral effect upon us is more prominent even than these. In the epistles of Paul the three elements are all present: in such expressions as a ransom, a propitiation who was ‘made sin-for us,’ the wrath of God against sin, and the mode in which it was turned away, are presented to us. Yet not wrath alone: ‘The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.’ Love in him begets love in us; and, in our reconciled state, the holiness which we could not practice before becomes easy. Now in which of these points is there the semblance of contradiction between the apostles and their Master? In none of them. In the gospels, as in the epistles, Jesus is held up as the sacrifice and victim, quaffing a cup from which his human nature shrank, feeling in him a sense of desolation such as we fail utterly to comprehend on a theory of human-motives. Yet no one takes from him his precious redeeming life; he lays it down of-himself out of his great love for men; but men are to deny themselves, and take up their cross, and tread in his steps. They are his friends only if they keep his commands and follow his footsteps” (Aids to Faith, p. 337. See also Starr and Flatt, Biblical Theology, § 65-70).

II. History of the Doctrine. —

1. The Fathers. — In the early ages of the church the atoning work of Christ was spoken of generally in the words of Scripture. The value of the sufferings and death of Christ, in the work of redemption, was from the beginning both held in Christian faith, and also plainly set forth, but the doctrine was not scientifically developed by the primitive fathers. But it is one thing to admit that the atonement was not scientifically apprehended, and quite another thing to assert that it was not really held at all in the sense of vicarious sacrifice. The relation between the death of Christ and the remission of sins was not a matter of much dispute in that early period. The person of Christ was the great topic of metaphysico-theological inquiry, and it was not until after this was settled by the general prevalence of the Nicene Creed that anthropological and soteriological questions come up into decided prominence. Baur (in whose Versohnungslehre this subject is treated with ample learning, though often with dogmatic assertion of conclusions arrived at hastily and without just ground) admits that in the writings of the apostolical fathers there is abundant recognition of the sacrificial and redemptive death of Christ. Thus Barnabas: “The Lord condescended to deliver his body to death, that, by remission of our sins, we might be sanctified, and this is effected by the shedding of his blood” (c. v). So also Clement quotes Isaiah 53 and Psa 22:7; Psa 22:9, adding,

“His blood was shed for our salvation; by the will of God he has given his body for our body, his soul for our soul.” Similar passages exist in Ignatius and Polycarp, and stronger still in the Epist. ad Diognet. ch. 9. (See citations in Shedd, History of Doctrines, bk. 5, ch. 1; Hagenbach, Hist. of Doctrines, § 68; Thomson, Bampton Lectures, 1853, Lect. 6). In the second century Justin Martyr (A.D. 147) says that “the Father willed that his Christ should take upon himself the curses of all for the whole race of man” (Dial. c. Tryph. 95). “In Justin may be found the idea of satisfaction rendered by Christ through suffering, at least lying at the bottom, if not clearly grasped in the form of conscious thought” (Dial. c. Tryph. c. 30; Neander, Ch. History, 1, 642). The victory of the death of Christ over the power of the devil begins now to play a prominent part in the idea of the atonement. Baur maintains that this was really due to Gnostic ideas taken up into the line of Christian thought; “that as the relation between the Demiurge and Redeemer was, in the Marcionite and Ophitic systems, essentially hostile, so the death of Jesus was a contrivance of the Demiurge, which failed of its purpose and disappointed him.” Baur asserts that Irenaeus (A.D. 180) borrowed this idea from Gnosticism, only substituting Satan for the Demiurge. But Dorner shows clearly that Irenseus, with entire knowledge of Gnosticism, repelled all its ideas, and that Baur’s charge rests upon a misinterpretation of a passage (adv. Hoer. v. 1, 1) in which, although the Satanic idea is prominent, it is far removed from Gnosticism (Dorner, Person of Christ, 1, 463; see also Shedd, Hist. of Doctrines, 2, 213). Baur’s theory that the foundations of the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction were laid in the notion that it was the claims of Satan, and not of God, that were satisfied, falls to the ground; for “if this theory can be found in any of the fathers, it is in Irenaeus” (Shedd, 1. c.). Nevertheless, it is true (though not in the Gnostic spirit) that Irenaeus represents the sufferings of Christ as made necessary by the hold of Satan on man, and in order to a rightful deliverance from that bondage. Tertullian (A.D. 200) uses the word satisfactio, but not with reference to the vicarious sufferings of Christ, yet in several of his writings he assumes the efficacious work of Christ’s sufferings for salvation. In the Alexandrian fathers we find, as might be expected, the Gnostic influence more obvious, and the idea of ransom paid to the devil comes out fully in Origen (A.D. 230). Yet it is going quite too far to say that Origen does not recognize the vicarious suffering of Christ; so (Hom. 24 on Numbers) he says that “the entrance of sin into the world made a propitiation necessary, and there can be no propitiation without a sacrificial offering.” Dr. Shedd finds the general doctrine of the Alexandrian school inconsistent with vicarious atonement, and interprets the special passages which imply it accordingly; but in this he differs from Thomasius (Origenes, Nurnb. 1837) and Thomson (Bampton Lectures). Origen doubtless held the vicarious atonement, though it was mixed up with speculations as to the value of the blood of the martyrs, and debased by his fanciful views of the relation of Christ’s work to the devil. This was carried to a greater extent by later fathers, e.g. Gregory of Nyssa (A.D. 370), who says in substance that the devil was cheated in the transaction by a just retaliation for his deception of men: “Men have come under the dominion of the devil by sin. Jesus offered himself to the devil as the ransom for which he should release all others. The crafty devil assented, because he cared more for the one Jesus, who was so much superior to him, than for all the rest. But, notwithstanding his craft, he was deceived, since he could not retain Jesus in his power. It was, as it were, a deception on the part of God (ἀπάτη τίς ἐστι τρόπον τινά), that Jesus veiled his divine nature, which the devil would have feared, by means of his humanity, and thus deceived the devil by the appearance of flesh” (Orat. Catech. 22-26). Athanasius (A.D. 370), on the other hand, not only maintained the expiation of Christ, but rejected the fanciful Satan theory (De Incarn. Erbi, 6, et al.). Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 350) (Catech. 12, § 33) enters more deeply into this doctrine, developing a theory to show why it was necessary that Jesus should die for man. Similar views were expressed by Eusebius of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzen, Cyril of Alexandria, and Chrysostom (see Giescler, Dogmengeschichte, p. 383). Several of these fathers also maintain that Christ, by his death, did more than would have been necessary for the redemption of men. They undertook to show that Christ alone was able to achieve redemption, and discussed the qualities which were necessary for his redemptive character. These discussions are especially met with in the writings against the Arians and the Nestorians. Augustine (A.D. 398) was occupied more, in all his controversies, with anthropology than with soteriology, but the vicarious atonement is clearly taught or implied in his De Peccat. Meritis, 1, 56, and in other places; but he called those dolts (stuli) who maintained that God could provide no other means of redemption (De Agone Christ. c. 10). Gregory the Great (A.D. 590) taught the doctrine with great clearness, and approached the scientific precision of a later age (Moralia, 17, 46). Little is to be added to these statements up to the time of Anselm. Enough has been said to show that, although the earlier view may have been incomplete and mingled with error, it is wrong to assert, as Baur and his English followers (Jowett, Garden, etc.) do, that the “doctrine of substitution is not in the fathers, and lay dormant till the voice of Anselm woke it; or that Anselm was the inventor of the doctrine.” (Comp. Brit. and For Ex. Review, Jani. 1861, p. 48.)

2. The Scholastic Period. — Nevertheless, Anselm (t 1109) undoubtedly gave the doctrine a more scientific form thy giving the central position to the idea of satisfaction to the divine justice (Cur Dens homo? transl. in Bibliotheca Sacra, vols. 11, 12). Nicholas of Methone (11th or 12th century?), in the Greek Church, developed the necessity of vicarious satisfaction from the nature of God and his relations to man, but it is not certain that he had not seen Anselm’s writings. Anselm’s view is, in substance, as follows: “‘The infinite guilt which man had contracted by the dishonor of his sin against the infinitely great God could be atoned for by no mere creature; only the God-man Christ Jesus could render to God the infinite satisfaction required. God only can satisfy himself. The human nature of Christ enables him to incur, the infinity of his divine nature to pay this debt. But it was incumbent upon Christ as a man to order his life according to the law of God; the obedience of his life, therefore, was not able to render satisfaction for our guilt. But, although he was under obligation to live in obedience to the law, as the Holy One he was under no obligation to die. Seeing, then, that he nevertheless voluntarily surrendered his infinitely precious life to the honor of God, a recompense from God became his due, and his recompense consists in the forgiveness of the sins of his brethren” (Chambers, Encycl. s.v.; Neander, Hist. of Dogmas, Bohn’s ed. 2:517). Anselm rejects entirely the claims of Satan, and places the necessity of atonement entirely in the justice of God. His theory is defective with regard to the appropriation of the merits of Christ by the believer; but, on the whole, it is substantially that in which the Christian Church has rested from that time forward. His doctrine was opposed by Abelard, who treated the atonement in its relation to the love of God, and not to his justice, giving it moral rather than legal significance. Peter Lombard seems confusedly to blend Abelard’s views and Anselm’s. Thomas Aquinas developed Anselm’s theory, and brought out also the superabundant merit of his death, while he does not clearly affirm the absolute necessity of the death of Christ (Hagenbach, Hist. of Doctrines, § 181). SEE AQUINAS.

Bernard of Clairvaux, in opposition to Abelard, brought up again the idea of the claims of Satan. Duns Scotus, in opposition to Anselm, denied the necessity of Christ’s death, and denied also that the satisfaction rendered was an equivalent for the claims of justice, holding that God accepted Christ’s sacrifice as sufficient. SEE ACCEPTILATIO. On the whole, the scholastic period left two streams of thought closely allied, yet with an element of difference afterward fully developed, viz. the Anselmic, of the satisfaction of divine justice, absolutely considered; and that of Aquinas, that this satisfaction was relative, and also superabundant. The Romish doctrine of supererogation and indulgence doubtless grew out of this.

3. From the Reformation — All the great confessions — Greek, Roman, Lutheran, Reformed, and Methodist — agree in placing the salvation of the sinner in the mediatorial work of Christ. But there are various modes of apprehending the doctrine in this period ‘(see Winer, Comparat. Darstellung, ch. 7). The Council of Trent confounds justification with sanctification, and hence denies that the satisfaction of Christ is the sole ground of the remission of sin (Canones, De Justificatione, 7, 8). The Romanist writers generally adopt the “acceptilation” theory of Scotus rather than that of Anselm, and hold that the death of Christ made satisfaction only for sins before baptism, while as to sins after baptism only the eternal punishment due to them is remitted; so that, for the temporal punishment due to them, satisfaction is still required by penance and purgatory. Luther does not treat of satisfaction in any special treatise; he was occupied rather with the appropriation of salvation by faith alone, though he held fast the doctrine of expiation through Christ. So, in Melancthon’s Loci, and in the Augsburg Confession (A.D. 1530), the atoning work of Christ is fully stated, but under the head of justifying faith. “Men are justified gratuitously for Christ’s sake through faith when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are remitted on account of Christ, who made satisfaction for our transgressions by his death. This faith God imputes to us as righteousness” (Augsburg Confession, art. 4). The distinction between the active and passive obedience of Christ came later; its first clear statement in the Lutheran Church is in the Formula of Concord (1576): “That righteousness which is imputed to the believer simply by the grace of God is the obedience, the suffering, and the resurrection of Christ, by which he has satisfied the claims of the law and atoned for our sins. For as Christ is not merely man, but God and man in one person, he was, as Lord of the law, no more subject to it than he was subject to suffering death; hence not only his obedience to God the Father, as exhibited in his sufferings and death, but also by his righteous fulfillment of the law on our behalf, is imputed to us, and God acquits us of our sins, and regards us as just in view of his complete obedience in what he did and suffered, in life and in death” (Francke, Lib. Symb. 685). Nor did this distinction appear early among the Calvinists any more than among the Lutherans. Calvin joins them together (Institutes, bk. 2, § 16, 5). None of the reformed confessions distinguish between the active and passive obedience before the Formula Consensus Helvetica (1675; comp. Guericke, Symbolik, § 47).

The Socinians deny the vicarious atonement entirely. They assert that satisfaction and forgiveness are incompatible ideas; that the work of atonement is subjective, i.e. the repentance and moral renovation of the sinner; that God needs no reconciliation with man. Christ suffered, not to satisfy the divine justice, but as a martyr to his truth and an example to his followers. Socinus did, however, admit that the death of Christ affords a pledge of divine forgiveness, and of man’s resurrection as following Christ’s (see Winer, Comp. Darstellung, 7, 1; and comp. Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, § 268; Shedd, Hist. of Doctrines, bk. 5).

In opposition to Socinus, Grotius wrote his Defensio fidei Cathol. de Satisfactione (1617), which forms an epoch in the history of the doctrine. He deduced the necessity of satisfaction from the administrative or rectoral justice of God, and not from his retributive justice. He taught that the prerogative of punishing is to be ascribed to God, not as an injured party, but as moral governor of the world. So the prerogative of substitution, in place of punishment, belongs to God as moral governor. If, by any other means than punishment, he can vindicate the claims of justice, he is at liberty, as moral governor, to use those means. The atonement does thus satisfy justice; and through Christ’s voluntary offering, the sinner can be pardoned and the law vindicated. The defect of this theory lies in its not referring the work of Christ sufficiently to the nature of God, contemplating it rather in its moral aspects as an exhibition of the evil of sin. The Dutch Arminian divines bring out more prominently the idea of sacrifice in the death of Christ. The Methodist theology asserts the doctrine of satisfaction strongly, e.g. Watson: Satisfaction [by the death of Christ] by Christ is not to be regarded as a merely fit and wise expedient of government (to which Grotius leans too much), for this may imply that it was one of many other possible expedients, though the best; whereas we have seen that it is everywhere in Scripture represented as necessary to human salvation, and that it is to be concluded that no alternative existed but that of exchanging a righteous government for one careless and relaxed, to the dishonor of the divine attributes, and the sanctioning of moral disorder, or the upholding of such government by the personal and extreme punishment of every offender, or else the acceptance of the vicarious death of an infinitely dignified and glorious being, through whom pardon should be offered, and in whose hands a process for the moral restoration of the lapsed should be placed. The humiliation, sufferings, and death of such a being did most obviously demonstrate the righteous character and administration of God; and if the greatest means we can conceive was employed for this end, then we may safely conclude that the righteousness of God in the forgiveness of sin could not have been demonstrated by inferior means; and as God cannot cease to be a righteous governor, man in that case could have had no hope” (Watson, Theol. Institutes, vol. 2, pt. 2, ch. 20). The Arminian theology did nevertheless maintain that God is free, not necessitated as moral governor, and that the satisfaction of Christ has reference to the general justice of God, and not to his distributive justice. The Methodist theology also brings out prominently the love of God, which is organic and eternal in him — his essential nature — as the source of redemption, and holds that the free manifestation of the divine love is under no law of necessity. Even Ebrard, one of the most eminent modern writers of the Reformed Church, sets this forth as a great service rendered to theology by the Arminians (Ebrard, Lehre der stellvero tretenden Genugthuung, Konigsb. 1857, p. 25; compare also Warren, in Methodist Quarterly, July, 1866, 390 sq.; and, on the other side, Shedd, History of Doctrines, bk. 5, ch. 5; and his Discourses and Essays, 294). Hill (Calvinist), in his Lectures on Divinity (bk. 4, ch. 3), appears to adopt the Grotian theory.

Extent of the Atonement. — One of the most important questions in the modern Church with regard to the atonement is that of its extent, viz. whether the benefits of Christ’s death were intended by God to extend to the whole human race, or only to a part. The former view is called universal or general atonement; the latter, particular, or limited. What is called the strict school of Calvinists holds the latter doctrine, as stated in the Westminster Confession. “As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ; are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power through faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only” (ch. 3, § 6; comp. also ch. 8, §§ 5 and 8). The so-called moderate (or modern) Calvinists, the Arminians, the Church of England, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, adopt the doctrine of general or universal atonement. SEE CALVINISM.

The advocates of a limited atonement maintain that the atonement cannot properly be considered apart from its actual application, or from the intention of the author in regard to its application; that in strictness of speech, the death of Christ is not an atonement to any until it be applied; that the sufferings of the Lamb of God are therefore truly vicarious, or, in other words, that Christ, in suffering, became a real substitute for his people, was charged with their sins, and bore the punishment of them, and thus has made a full and complete satisfaction to divine justice in behalf of all who shall ever believe on him; that this atonement will eventually be applied to all for whom in the divine intention it was made, or to all to whom God in his sovereignty has been pleased to decree its application. But they believe that although the atonement is to be properly considered as exactly commensurate with its intended application, yet that the Lord Jesus Christ did offer a sacrifice sufficient in its intrinsic value to expiate the sins of the whole world, and that, if it had been the pleasure of God to apply it to every individual, the whole human race would have been saved by its immeasurable worth. They hold, therefore, that, on the ground of the infinite value of the atonement, the offer of salvation can be consistently and sincerely made to all who hear the Gospel, assuring them that if they will believe they shall be saved; whereas, if they willfully reject the overtures of mercy, they will increase their guilt and aggravate their damnation. At the same time, as they believe, the Scriptures plainly teach that the will and disposition to comply with this condition depends upon the sovereign gift of God, and that the actual compliance is secured to those only for whom, in the divine counsels, the atonement was specifically intended. The doctrine, on the other hand, that Christ died for all men, so as to make salvation attainable by all men, is maintained, first and chiefly, on scriptural ground, viz. that, according to the whole tenor of Scripture, the atonenment of Christ was made for all men. The advocates of this view adduce,

(1.) Passages which expressly declare the doctrine.

[a] Those which say that Christ died “for all men,” and speak of his death as an atonement for the sins of the whole world.

[b] Those which attribute an equal extent to the death of Christ as to the effects of the fall.

(2.) Passages which necessarily imply the doctrine, viz. [a] Those which declare that Christ died not only for those that are saved, but for those who do or may perish.

[b] Those which make it the duty of men to believe the Gospel, and place them under guilt and the penalty of death for rejecting it.

[c] Those in which men’s failure to obtain salvation is placed to the account of their own opposing wills, and made wholly their own fault. (See the argument in full on the Arminian side, in Watson, Theol. Institutes, 2, 284 sq.; Storr and Flatt, Bibl. Theology, bk. 4, pt. 2; Fletcher, Works, 2, 63 et al.)

The Arminian doctrine is summed up in the declaration that Christ “obtained (impetravit) for all men by his death reconciliation and the forgiveness of sins, but upon this condition, that none actually possess and enjoy this forgiveness of sins except believers” (Acta Synod. Remonst. pt. ii, p. 280; Nicholls, Arminianism and Calvinism, p. 114 sq.). It has been asserted (e.g. by Amyraut, q.v.) that Calvin himself held to general redemption; and certainly his language in his Comm. in Job 3:15-16, and in 1Ti 2:5, seems fairly to assert the doctrine. Comp. Fletcher, Works (N. Y. ed. 2:71); but see also Cunningham, The Reformers (Essay 7). As to the variations of the Calvinistic confessions, see Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, § 249. In the French Reformed Church, the divines of Saumur, Camero, Amyraldus, and Placaeus maintained universal grace (see the articles on these names). The English divines who attended the Synod of Dort (Hall, Hales, Davenant) all advocated general atonement, in which they were followed by Baxter (Universal Redemption; Methodus Theologias; Orme, Life of Baxter, 2, 64). The most able advocate of universal grace in the 17th century was John Goodwin, Redemption Redeemed, 1650 (see Jackson, Life of Goodwin, 1828).

On the other hand, Owen, the so-called strict Calvinists of England, and the Old-School Presbyterian Church in America, adhere to the Westminster Confession, interpreting it as maintaining limited atonement. Their doctrine on the whole subject in substance is, that the atonement was made and intended only for the elect; and that its necessity with respect to them arose out of the eternal justice of God, which required that every individual should receive his due desert; and, consequently, that the sufferings of Christ were the endurance of punishment equivalent in amount of suffering, if not identical in nature (as Owen maintains) with that to which the elect were exposed; and, moreover, that the Meritorious obedience of Christ in fulfilling the law imputes a righteousness to those for whom the atonement secures salvation, which gives them a claim to the reward of righteousness in everlasting life. The differences of view in the two divisions of the Presbyterian Church in America are thus stated by Dr. Duffield: “Old- School Presbyterians regard the satisfaction rendered to the justice of God by the obedience and death of Christ as explicable upon principles of justice recognized among men in strict judiciary procedures. While they concede that there is grace on the part of God in its application to the believer, inasmuch as he has provided in Christ a substitute for him, they nevertheless insist that he is pardoned and justified of God as judge, and as matter of right and strict justice in the eye of the law, inasmuch as his claims against him have all been met and satisfied by his surety. The obligations in the bond having been discharged by. his security, the judge, according to this view, is bound to give sentence of release and acquittal to the original failing party, the grace shown being in the acceptance of the substitute. Their ideas of the nature of the divine justice, exercised in the pardon and justification of the sinner because of the righteousness of Christ, are all taken from the transactions of a court of law. New-School Presbyterians, equally with the Old, concede the grace of God in the substitution of Christ, the whole work of his redemption to be the development of ‘the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Jesus Christ;’ but they prefer to regard and speak of the atonement of Christ, his obedience and death, by which he satisfied the justice of God for our sins, as the great expedient and governmental procedure adopted by the great God of heaven and of earth in his character of chief executive, the governor of the universe, in order to magnify his law and make it honorable, rather than as a juridical plea to obtain a sentence in court for discharging an accused party on trial” (Bibliotheca Sacra, 20, 618).

The doctrine of Payne, Wardlaw, Pye Smith, and other so-called moderate Calvinists in England, and of many in America, is in substance that the atonement consists in “that satisfaction for sin which was rendered to God as moral governor of the world by the obedience unto death of his son Jesus Christ. This satisfaction preserves the authority of the moral government of God, and yet enables him to forgive sinners. That this forgiveness could not be given by God without atonement constitutes its necessity. The whole contents of Christ’s earthly existence, embracing both his active and passive obedience-a distinction which is unsupported by the Word of God-must be regarded as contributing to the atonement which he made. As to the ‘extent’ of the atonement, there is a broad distinction to be made between the sufficiency of the atonement and its efficiency. It may be true that Jehovah did not intend to exercise that influence of the Holy Spirit upon all which is necessary to secure the salvation of any one; but as the atonement was to become the basis of moral government, it was necessary that it should be one of infinite worth, and so in itself adequate to the salvation of all.” In New England the younger Edwards († 1801) modified the Calvinistic doctrine of the atonement, representing it, as the Arminians do, as a satisfaction to the general justice, and not to the distributive justice of God. Among American Calvinistic divines Dr. E. D. Griffin holds a very high place. His “Humble Attempt to reconcile the Differences of Christians” was republished by Dr. E. A. Park in 1859. in a volume of essays on the atonement by eminent New England divines. A summary of it is given in the Bibliotheca Sacra for Jan. 1858, and is noticed in the Methodist Quarterly, April, 1858, p. 311. “Dr. Griffin held that the atonement was not a literal suffering of the penalty, nor a literal satisfaction of the distributive justice of God, nor a literal removal of our desert of eternal death, nor a literal surplusage of Christ’s meritorious personal obedience becoming our imputed obedience. On the other hand, the atonement was a divine method by which the literal suffering of the penalty might be dispensed with, by which government could be sustained and honored without inflicting distributive justice, by which the acceptors of the work might be saved, without the removal of their intrinsic desert of hell; and all this without imputing Christ’s personal obedience as our personal obedience, but by Christ obtaining a meritorious right to save us, as his own exceeding great reward from God.” The article named in the Bibliotheca Sacra contains a valuable sketch of the rise of the “Edwardean theory of the atonement,” and sums up that theory itself as follows:

“1. Our Lord suffered pains which were substituted for the penalty of the law, and may be called punishment in the more general sense of that word, but were not, strictly and literally, the penalty which the law had threatened.

2. The sufferings of our Lord satisfied the general justice of God, but did not satisfy his distributive justice.

3. The humiliation, pains, and death of our Redeemer were equivalent in meaning to the punishment threatened in the moral law, and thus they satisfied Him who is determined to maintain the honor of this law, but they did not satisfy the demands of the law itself for our punishment.

4. The active obedience, viewed as the holiness of Christ, was honorable to the law, but was not a work of supererogation performed by our substitute, and then transferred and imputed to us, so as to satisfy the requisitions of the law for our own active obedience. The last three statements are sometimes comprehended in the more general proposition that the atonement was equal, in the meaning and spirit of it, to the payment of our debts; but it was not literally the payment of either our debt of obedience or our debt of punishment, or any other debt which we owed to law or distributive justice. Therefore,

5. The law and the distributive justice of God, although honored by the life and death of Christ, will yet eternally demand tie punishment of every one who has sinned.

6. The atonement rendered it consistent and desirable for God to save all who exercise evangelical faith, yet it did not render it obligatory in him, in distributive justice, to save them.

7. The atonement was designed for the welfare of all men, to make the eternal salvation of all men possible, to remove all the obstacles which the honor of the law and of distributive justice presented against the salvation of the non-elect as well as the elect.

8. The atonement does not constitute the reason why some men are regenerated and others not, but this reason is found only in the sovereign, electing will of God: ‘Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.’

9. The atonement is useful on men’s account, and in order to furnish new motives to holiness; but it is necessary on God’s account, and in order to enable him, as a consistent ruler, to pardon any, even the smallest sin, and therefore to bestow on sinners any, even the smallest favor.” That this so- called “Edwardean theory” is in substance the Arminian theory, is shown by Dr. Warren in the Methodist Quarterly for July, 1860. See also Fiske, The New England Theology (Bibliotheca Sacra, 1865, p. 577).

As to minor forms of opinion we must be very brief. The orthodox Quakers admit the doctrine of the atoning death of Christ, but not the full Anselmic doctrine of satisfaction; thus W. Penn: “We cannot say the sufferings and death of Christ were a strict and rigid satisfaction for that eternal death and misery due to man for sin and transgression. As Christ died for sin, so we must die to sin, or we cannot be saved by the death and sufferings of Christ.” Barclay treats redemption as twofold: one wrought out in the body of Christ upon the cross, the other wrought in man by the spirit of Christ (Apol. Thes. 7, 3). Zinzendorf and the Moravians made the doctrine of atonement, in its more internal connection with the Christian life, the essence of Christianity, but at the same time gave to it a certain sensuous aspect. On mystical grounds, the doctrine of atonement was altogether rejected by Swedenborg. Kant assigned to the death of Christ only a symbolico-moral significance: “Man must, after all, deliver himself. A substitution, in the proper sense of the word, cannot take place; moral liabilities are not transmissible like debts. The sinner who reforms suffers,: as does the impenitent; but the former suffers willingly for the sake of virtue. Now what takes place internally in the repentant sinner takes place in Christ, as the personification of the idea of suffering for sin. In the death which he suffered once for all, he represents for all mankind what the new man takes upon himself while the old man is dying” (Religion innerhalb d. Grenzen d. blossen Vernunft, p. 87, cited by Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, § 300). The Rationalists of Germany lost sight even of the symbolical in the merely moral, but De Wette made the symbolical more prominent. Schleiermacher represented the sufferings of Christ as vicarious, but not as making satisfaction; and his obedience as making satisfaction, but not as vicarious. He held that “the redeeming and atoning principle is not the single fact that Christ died, but the vital union of man with Christ. By means of this vital union, man appropriates the righteousness of Christ” (Schleieirmacher, Christ. Glaube, 2, 103, 128, cited by Hagenbach, 1. c.). The Hegelian speculative school of German theology regards the death of the God-man as “the cessation of being another (Aufheben des Anderssein), and the necessary return of the life of God, which had assumed a finite form, into the sphere of the infinite.” Some of the strict supernaturalists (e.g. Stier) find fault with the theory of Anselm, and endeavor to substitute for it one which they regard as more scriptural; and in 1856, even among the strict Lutherans of Germany, a controversy arose on this doctrine which is at present (1866) not yet ended; Prof. Hofiann, in Erlangen, rejects the idea of vicarious satisfaction, which is defended by Prof. Philippi and others. Schneider, in Stud. u. Krit. Sept. 1860, shows clearly that Anselm’s doctrine is that of the Lutheran as well as of the Reformed Church, in opposition to Hofmann, who maintains that his view accords with the church doctrine as well as with Scripture. See also Smith’s Hagenbach, Hist. of Doctrines, § 300, and the references there given. The modern Unitarian view may perhaps be safely gathered, in its best form, from the following statement of one of its ablest writers: “‘There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.’ This can only refer to unrivalled pre-eminence, not to exclusive function. For all higher minds do, in fact, mediate between their less gifted fellow-creatures and the great realities of the invisible world. This ‘one’ is a human mediator, ‘the man Christ Jesus;’ not a being from another sphere, an angel, or a God, but a brother from the boson of our own human family.

‘He gave himself a ransom for all’ who embrace his offers and will hearken to his voice. He brings from God a general summons to repent, and with that he conveys, through faith, a spiritual power to shake off the bondage of sin, and put on the freedom of a new heart and a new life. He is a deliverer from the power of sin and the fear of death. This is the end of his mediation. This is the redemption of which he paid the price. His death, cheerfully met in the inevitable sequence of faithful duty, was only one among many links in the chain of instrumentalities by which that deliverance was effected. It was a proof such as could be given in no other way of trust in God and immortality, of fidelity to duty, and of love for mankind. In those who-earnestly contemplated it and saw all that it implied, it awoke a tender response of gratitude and confidence which softened the obdurate heart, and opened it to serious impressions and the quickening influences of a religious spirit’” (Tayler, Christian Aspects of Faith and Duty).

The semi-infidelity which has recently sprung up in high places in the Church of England, so far as it refers to the atonement, may be represented by Jowett as follows: “The only sacrifice, atonement, or satisfaction with which the Christian has to do is a moral and spiritual one; not the pouring out of blood upon the earth, but the living sacrifice ‘to do thy will, O God;’ in which the believer has part as well as his Lord; about the meaning of which there can be no more question in our day than there was in the first ages.” “Heathen and Jewish sacrifices rather show us what the sacrifice of Christ was not, than what it was. They are the dim, vague, rude, almost barbarous expression of that want in human nature which has received satisfaction in him only. Men are afraid of something; they wish to give away something; they feel themselves bound by something; the fear is done away, the gift offered, the obligation fulfilled in Christ. Such fears and desires can no more occupy their souls; they are free to lead a better life; they are at the end of the old world, and at the beginning of a new one. The work of Christ is set forth in Scripture under many different figures, lest we should rest in one only. His death, for instance, is described as a ransom. He will set the captives free. Ransom is deliverance to the captive.

‘Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.’ Christ delivers from sin.

‘If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.’ To whom? for what was the ransom paid? are questions about which Scripture is silent, to which reason refuses to answer” (Jowett, On St. Paul’s Epistles, 2, 568). See also Essays and Reviews; Replies to Essays and Reviews; Aids to Faith (all republished in New York). Maurice (Theological Essays; Doctrine of Sacrifice; Tracts for Priests and People) is uncertain and obscure in this, as in other points of theology (see Rigg, Anglican Theology; and Bibliotheca Sacra, 1865, 659). The so-called Broad School, in the Church of England, tends to eviscerate the atonement of all meaning except as a moral illustration or example. Dr. Bushnell (of Hartford) has set forth some of the old heresies in very attractive style in his God in Christ (1849), and Vicarious Sacrifice (1865). In the former work he distinguishes three forms of the doctrine of atonement — “the Protestant form, which takes the ritualistic (objective) side of the Gospel, but turns it into a human dogma; the speculative, or philosophic form, identifying atonement with reconciliation of men unto God, one of the varieties of which is the Unitarian doctrine, which ‘pumps out’ the contents of these holy forms; and the Romish form, which passes beyond the ritual, objective view, and Judaizes or paganizes it by dealing with blood as a real and miraculous entity.” In the later work he makes “the sacrifice and cross of Christ his simple duty, and not any superlative, optional kind of good, outside of all the common principles of virtue ... It is only just as good as it ought to be, or the highest law of right required it to be.” He holds that Christ did not satisfy, by his own suffering, the violated justice of God. Christ did not come to the world to die, but died simply because he was here; there was nothing penal in the agony and the cross; the importance of the physical sufferings of Christ consists to us not in what they are, but in what they express or morally signify; Christ is not a ground, but a power of justification; and the Hebrew sacrifices were not types of Christ to them who worshiped in them, but were only necessary as types of Christian language (see Methodist Quarterly, Jan. 1851, p. 114; American Presbyt. Review, Jan. 1866, p. 162). A view somewhat similar to Bushnell’s is given by Schultz, Begriff d. stellvertretenden Leidens (Basel, 1864). See N. Brit. Rev. June, 1867, art. 3. III. Literature. — For the history of the doctrine of atonement, see Ziegler, Hist. dogm. de Redempiionc (Getting. 1791); Baur, Lehre v. d. Versohnung (Tubing. 1828, 8vo); Thomasius, Hist. dogm. de Obed. Christi Activa (Erlanz. 1845); Cotta, De Hist. Doct. de Redempt. (in Gerhard’s Loci, t. 4, p. 105 sq.); Hagenbach, History of Doctrines; Shedd, History of Doctrines, bk. 5; Neander, Planating and Training, bk. 6, ch. 1; Ibid. History of Doctrines; Cunningham, Historical Theology, vol. 2, ch. 24; Beck, Dogmengeschichte, p. 199 sq.; Knapp, Theology, § 110-116; Hase, Dogmatik, § 149; Wilson, Historical Sketch of Opinions on the Atonenent (Philadel. 1817); Gass, Geschichte d. Prot. Dogmatik (Berlin, 1854-66, 3 vols.); Heppe, Dogmatik d. Evang. Ref. Kirche, loc. 18; Weber, Vom Zorne Gottes, 1862 (with preface by Delitzsch, containing a good condensed history of the doctrine of atonement). — On the doctrine of atonement, besides the books on systematic theology and the works named in the course of this article, see Leblanc, Genugthuung Christi (Giessen, 1733 8vo); Loffler, Die kirchl. Genugthuungslehre (1796, 8vo; opposes vicarious atonement); Tholuck, Lehre v. d. Sinde und v. Versohner; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, t. 3; Sykes, Scriptural Doctrine of Redemption (Lond. 1756, 8vo); Kienlen, De Christi Satisfact. Vicaria (Argent. 1839); Edwards, Necessity of Satisfaction for Sin (Works, vol. 2); Baur, On Grotian Theory, transl. in Bibliotheca Sacra, 9, 259; Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, and review in Am. Bib. Repos. July, 1844; Baxter, Universal Redemption (1650); Goodwin, Redemption Redeemed (1650, 8vo); and in Dunn, Goodwin’s Theology (Lond. 1836, 12mo; also in Goodwin’s Exposition of Romans 9, 1663, 8vo); Owen, Works, vol. 5, 6 (reply to Goodwin); Horne, Extent of the Death of Christ (reply to Owen, 1650); Barrow, Works (N. Y. ed. 2, 77 sq.); Stillingfleet, On Christ’s Satisfaction (maintains the view of Grotius; Works, vol. 3); Magee, On Atonement and Sacrifice (Lond. 1832, 5th ed. 3 vols. 8vo); J. Pye Smith, On the Sacrifice of Christ (Lond. 1813, 8vo); Jenkyn, On the Extent of the Atonement (Lond. 1842, 3d ed. 8vo; Boston, 12mo); Symington, On Atonement and Intercession (New York, 12mo); Shinn, On Salvation (Philadel. 8vo); Trench, Hulsean Lectures (1846), and Five Sermons; Gilbert, The Christian Atonement (London, 1852, 8vo); Wardlaw, Discourses on the Atonement; Marshall, Catholic Doctrine of Redemption, in answer to Wardlaw (Glasgow, 1844, 8vo); Beman, Christ the only Sacrifice (N. Y. 1844, 12mo); reviewed in Princeton Rev. 17, 84, and Meth. Quarterly, 7, 379; Penrose, Moral Principle of the Atonement (London, 1843, 8vo, maintains the natural availableness of repentance); Thomson (Bp. of Gloucester), Bampton Lecture, 1853; Oxenham (Roman Catholic), Doctrine of the Atonement (Lond. 1865, 8vo); J.M.L. Campbell, Nature of the Atonement (1856; makes atonement a moral work of confession and intercession); Candlish, On the Atonement, reply to Maurice (London, 1861); Wilson, True Doctrine of Atonement (London, 1860); Mellor, Atonement in Relation to Pardon (1860); Kern, The Atonement (Lond. 1860); M’Ilvaine, The Atonement (Lond. 1860); Solly, Doctrine of Atonement (Lond. 1861); Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 272 sq. (Andover, 1862); various articles in the Princeton Review and Bibliotheca Sacra on the two sides of the controversy within the Calvinistic school as to the nature and extent of the atonement; also Barnes, The Atonement (Philadel. 1859), reviewed in Princeton Rev. July, 1859. For the Methodist view, Methodist Quarterly, 1846, p. 392; 1847, p. 382, 414; 1860, 387; 1861, 653; and Dr. Whedon’s article on Methodist theology, Bibliotheca Sacra, 1862, 256. For.

Unitarian views, Christian Examiner, I, 367; 18:142; 28:63; 34:146; 36:331; 37:403. SEE EXPIATION; SEE REDEMPTION; SEE SATISFACTION.

Atonement. (literally, a setting at one.) Satisfaction or reparation made for an injury, by doing or suffering that which will be received in satisfaction for an offence or injury. Specifically, in the Bible: The expiation of sin made by the obedience, personal sufferings, and death of Christ. Human language is imperfect, and human conceptions are often defective, when applied to the Most High. He is not touched with anger, resentment, etc., in the gross sense in which we commonly use the terms. We have, therefore, to take care that we do not represent him as hard to be mollified, with a thirst of vengeance to be slaked by the suffering of a victim. Nowhere does Scripture assert that the Father had a purpose of burning wrath against the world, which was changed by the interposition of the Son, on whom it lighted, so that, satiated by his punishment, he spared mankind. The Scripture rather teaches that "God so loved the world, that he gave Ms only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." Joh 3:16. "God is love." 1Jn 4:16. But God cannot "behold evil" with complacency. Hab 1:13. It is consequently Impossible that he can pass over it. Hence he threatens to visit it with a penalty: "the soul that sinneth it shall die." Eze 18:4.

His infinite holiness and justice, and the intrinsic demerit of sin, require this. The proper idea of an atonement is that which brings the forgiveness of transgressors into harmony with all the perfections of the Godhead. One of these perfections must not be exalted to the depression of another: all must be equally and fully honored. Redemption, devised in the counsels of the eternal Three, was carried forward by the Son of God, who became man, that in the nature that had sinned he might make satisfaction for sin. He made this satisfaction by his obedience unto death, perfectly fulfilling the divine law, for he "did no sin;" and enduring the penalty of it, for "his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree." 1Pe 2:22; 1Pe 2:24. In such a sacrifice, God’s judgment against the evil and desert of sin was most illustriously displayed. As no other sacrifice of like value could be found, proof was given to the universe that sin was the most disastrous evil, and that its "punishment was not the arbitrary act of an inexorable judge, but the unavoidable result of perfect holiness and justice, even in a Being of infinite mercy." The objections urged against the doctrine of the atonement, as if a vicarious sacrifice for sin were irrational, or placed the character of the Deity in an unamiable light, are not, when sifted, found to be very cogent It must always be remembered that Christ’s atonement was not to induce God to show mercy, but to make the exercise of his love to sinners consistent with the honor of his law and the pure glory of his name. Sin is therein especially branded; and God’s wisdom, righteousness, holiness, faithfulness, and mercy, are most eminently displayed. And, whereas it is said that he must forgive freely without requiring satisfaction, because he commands his creatures freely to forgive, it is forgotten that the cases are not parallel. Private offences are to be forgiven freely. But a ruler must execute his just laws. And so God is a great King, and as a king he administers public justice and will not arbitrarily clear the guilty. Doubtless there is much in his purposes and plans which we are incapable of rightly estimating. Enough is revealed to show us that "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." 2Co 5:19. But we should recollect that. "as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are" his "ways higher than" our "ways and" his "thoughts than" our "thoughts." Isa 55:9.

The day of expiation, or atonement, was a yearly solemnity, observed with rest and fasting on the tenth day of Tishri, five days before the Feast of Tabernacles. Lev 23:27; Lev 25:9; Num 29:7. This would now be in the early part of October. The ceremonies of this day are described in Lev 16:1-34. On this day alone the high priest entered the Most Holy Place. Heb 9:7. The various rites required him to enter several times on this day robed in white: first with a golden censer and a vessel filled with incense; then with the blood of the bullock, which he had offered for his own sins and those of all the priests. The third time he entered with the blood of the ram which he had offered for the sins of the nation. The fourth time he entered to bring out the censer and vessel of Incense; and having returned, he washed his hands and performed the other services of the day. The ceremony of the scapegoat also took place on this day. Two goats were set apart, one of which was sacrificed to the Lord, while the other, the goat for complete separation, was chosen by lot to be set at liberty. Lev 16:20-22. These solemn rites pointed to Christ. Heb 9:11-15. As this day of expiation was the great fast-day of the Jewish church, so godly Borrow for sin characterizes the Christian’s looking unto the Lamb of God, and "the rapture of pardon" is mingled with "penitent tears."

Moral actions are regarded in Scripture in two lights: first, they tend to influence the character of the agent; secondly, they affect his relations with his fellow-beings, and also with God. Every breach of law, as a matter of fact, constitutes man an offender, and--if it be known or suspected --causes him to be regarded as such. this principle, with which we are all familiar in human affairs, is true, nay, it may be regarded as a truism, in things pertaining to God; and since the secrets of every heart are laid bare before Him, it follows that every evil motive, every cherished passion, every wrong word, and every evil deed awaken the Divine displeasure, and call for judicial treatment at God’s hands. as in man, however, there exist certain attributes which tend to compensate each other’s action, so it is in God. Mercy rejoices against judgment, and the feelings of a Father exist in the bosom of Him whom we instinctively and rightly regard as a Moral Governor. God never forgets whereof we are made; He knows our frame, and remembers that we are but dust; and the sins into which we are often hurried through our fallen nature and our inherited constitution, through ignorance, through the force of circumstances, and through the machinations of the Evil One, are weighed by Him in all their aspects, and are seen, if with a magisterial eye, yet through a medium of tender love and pity, which has found its full expression and effect in the atonement.

The Hebrew Word for Atonement

The Hebrew word whereby this doctrine is universally set forth in the O.T. is Caphar (כפר), the original meaning of which is supposed to be to cover or shelter. A noun formed from it, answering to the modern Arabic Khephr, is sometimes used to signify a village as a place of shelter, e.g. Capernaum (the village of Nahum). Another form of this word, namely, Copher, usually rendered ransom, is transliterated camphire in Son 1:14; Son 4:13 in Gen 6:14 the verb and noun are used, where God is represented as telling Noah to pitch the ark with in and without with pitch.

Before referring to the passages in which the word has been rendered to make atonement, we may notice those in which other renderings have been adopted in the A. V. The following are the most important:--

Deu 21:8, ’They shall say, Be merciful unto thy people whom thou hast redeemed, and lay not this innocent blood to their charge; . and the blood shall be forgiven them’ --i.e. the charge of having shed innocent blood shall be removed from them. 1Sa 3:14, ’I have sworn that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever.’ No sacrifice for sins of ignorance could cause God to charge his determination in this case. It is not the eternal destiny of the individuals, but the official position of the family, that is here spoken of. 2Ch 30:18-19, ’Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, The good Lord pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though (he do it) not according to the purification of the sanctuary.’ It is added that ’the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah and healed the people.’ Here a ceremonial offence was committed, but, through the intercession of Hezekiah, the charge was done away with. Psa 78:38, ’He being full of compassion forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not.’ in this case the charge was done away with, not because of man’s innocence, but because of God’s compassion. Psa 79:9, ’Purge away our sins for thy name’s sake.’ in this, as in other passages, the purgation is not the moral change, but the removal either of guilt or of the punishment which follows from guilt. The ground of appeal lies not in any latent goodness in the offender, but in the nature of God Himself. this is implied in the familiar but too little heeded phrase, ’ for thy name’s sake,’ which occurs so frequently in the O.T. Pro 16:6, ’ by (or in) mercy and truth iniquity is purged, and by (or in) the fear of the Lord men depart from evil.’ this passage teaches that where a man departs from his evil courses and turns into the path of mercy and truth, God is ready to be gracious to him. (Compare Jer 18:23.) Isa 6:7, ’Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin purged.’ Isa 22:14, ’Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die.’ The men of whom this was said, and who had deliberately set themselves in opposition to God’s revealed truth, would go into another world with their sins unpardoned. Isa 27:9,’ by this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit to take away his sin.’ (Compare Num 35:33; Deu 32:43.) Isa 28:18, ’Your covenant with death shall be disannulled.’ this use of the word Caphar is interesting. To be disannulled is to be treated as nonexistent; and this is the way in which God covers sin; to use the vivid language of the Bible, He casts it behind his back. Eze 16:62-63, ’I will establish my covenant with thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord; that thou mayest remember and be confounded, and never open thy mouth anymore because of thy shame; when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done.’ The pacification of God is literally the covering (by atonement) of the sins written against his people. Pacification, i.e. atonement, proceeds from Him only. See also Psa 65:3; Isa 47:11; Eze 43:20.

The word Caphar, in one or other of its forms, is rendered atone or atonement in about eighty passages, most of which are in the Levitical law. All men and all things human are represented in the law as needing atonement. Even when a priest, or an altar, or a temple was to be consecrated, there must he atonement made first.

and how was atonement wrought? A spotless victim had to be brought before the Lord to take the part of sinful man. Its death, after the sins of the offerer had been laid up on its head, represented the fact that the innocent must suffer for the guilty. Then came the solemn mystery. The priest, God’s agent, must take the blood of the victim and scatter it over God’s altar. this process set forth the truth that God and the sinner must be brought into contact through means of Him whom priest and altar typified. The symbol was composite, or many-sided, and its various aspects can only be realised and put together when they are regarded in the light of Christ’s death up on the cross. It was not his life that made atonement, but his death, i.e. the giving up of his life. One of the ends and objects of his partaking of flesh and blood was that He might taste death. The people of Israel were frequently reminded that their hope lay in the death of a representative. this is brought out very clearly in Lev 17:11, ’The life (or soul) of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you up on the altar to make an atonement for your lives; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for [R. V. (?) ’by reason of the life.’] the life.’ When therefore the son of God ’poured out his soul unto death,’ shedding his life-blood in behalf of the world, He gave substance and embodiment to the Divine disposition of mercy which was foreshadowed in the Levitical law.

We now have to notice that the word Caphar not only sets forth God’s merciful disposition to shelter the sinner, and symbolises the process whereby the shelter should be obtained, but also represents the act of the Priest in making atonement for the sins of the people. An important conclusion may be drawn from this fact, namely, that this divinely-appointed officer, when making atonement, was really representing, not what man does in approaching God, but what ’God manifest in the flesh’ does in sheltering man. The people might bring the sacrifices, but it was the priest alone that could take the blood and sprinkle it on the altar or on the mercy-seat, and when he did so he was setting forth in a dim and shadowy figure the merciful provision of God for the pardon of the sinner. Atonement, then, was not something done by man to pacify or gratify God, nor was it something done by a third party with the intention of representing the sinner before God; but it is essentially the product of God’s pardoning mercy, exhibited in figure through the agency of the priest’s sprinkling of the blood, and finally embodied in the walk of Christ. ’God was, in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them’ (2Co 5:19).

In accordance with the teaching of the O.T. on this subject, we have the doctrine of the Priesthood of Christ, the object of which was ’to make atonement (A. V. ’reconciliation’) for the sins of the people,’ plainly set forth in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb 2:17).

The fact that the priest in certain cases (e.g. Lev 10:17) consumed the flesh of the atoning sin-offering may have symbolised the identification between priest and victim which was to be accomplished when Christ offered Himself for our sins.

The application of the fire which was continually burning on the altar, together with incense, to make atonement in certain cases (e.g. Num 16:46; Isa 6:6-7), seems intended to indicate that the virtue of the atonement once made is continuous, and applicable to all cases.

The word reconciliation has been adopted by our translators instead of atonement, and must be considered as identical with it in Lev 6:30; Lev 8:15; Lev 16:20; Eze 45:15; Eze 45:17; Eze 45:20; Dan 9:24.

The form Copher has been rendered satisfaction in Num 35:31-32; bribe in 1Sa 12:3, Amo 5:12; sum of money in Exo 21:30; ransom in Exo 30:12, Job 33:24; Job 36:18, Psa 49:7, Pro 6:35; Pro 13:8; Pro 21:18, and Isa 43:3. The usage of the word in these passages, many of which were not ceremonial or symbolical, conveys an idea of costliness as an element in atonement, and thus allies it with redemption. [The free offering of the jewels ’ as an atonement for the life’ by those who had plundered the Midianites was a special case, and must not be regarded as pointing to an independent means of atonement; moreover, it is to be noticed that the gift was accepted by the priests not as an atonement, but as a memorial (Num 31:50; Num 31:54).]

The LXX has translated the verb Caphar by ἐξιλάσκομαι, and the noun generally by ἱλασμός, propitiation; occasionally by καθαρισμός, cleansing; and by λύτρον, ransom, in six passages. The prevailing idea set forth both in the LXX and in other translations is that atonement is the doing away with a charge against a person, so that the accused may be received into the Divine favour, and be freed from the consequences of wrong-doing. It should be added that pacification, propitiation, and such words, are by no means adequate for the purpose of conveying the doctrine of atonement; they savour too much of heathenism and superstition, and lead to the supposition that man pacifies God, instead of teaching that God shelters man.

The name of the mercy-seat, Capporeth (ἱλαστήριον), is derived from Caphar. The description of this remarkable object is to be found in Exo 25:1-40., and its use is indicated in Lev 16:1-34. It was the lid of the ark which contained the law of God. Though made of pure gold, it needed to be sprinkled with blood by the High Priest once a year. this life-blood, shed to represent the punishment due to the Israelites for their sins, was thus brought (by means of sprinkling) into contact with the receptacle of the Law.

The mercy-seat is not only referred to as one of the Levitical ’shadows’ in Heb 9:5, but is identified with the atoning work of Christ in Rom 3:25, where we read, ’God hath set forth (Christ) as a propitiation (Luther, ’zu einem Gnadenstuhl’) through faith in his blood.’

NT Teaching on Atonement and Substitution

The verb εξιλάσκομαιdoes not appear in the N.T., but both ἱλασμός and καθαρισμόςare used of the atoning work of Christ (see 1Jn 2:2; 1Jn 4:10, and Heb 1:3). The word λύτρονalso applied by Christ to his own death, which was ’a ransom for many’ (λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλω̂ν), Mat 20:28, and Mar 10:45. We have here strongly brought out the truth that the Divine interposition on behalf of sinful man was not a work which cost nothing; it called for no less an offering than the precious life-blood of Christ, who was a ’lamb without blemish and without spot.’ as it was an act of self-sacrifice on the Father’s part to give his son freely to bear and suffer what He deemed needful, so it was an act of self-sacrifice on the Son’s part to drink the cup which his Father put into his hands. He was at once both a living and a dying sacrifice.

The truth set forth by our Lord in the above-named passages concerning the costliness of atonement is further illustrated by the words of St. Paul in 1Ti 2:5-6, ’There is one God, and one mediat or belonging to God and men, Christ Jesus, (himself) man; who gave himself a ransom for all (ἀντίλυτρον ὑπὲρ πάντων), to be testified in due time.’ The word μεσίτηςhere translated mediat or is not to be found in the LXX; it seems to imply not so much what is ordinarily meant by a mediator, as a medium, and so a common ground. Jesus Christ is a Being in whom Godhead and manhood meet, so that God and man are made one in Him, and are represented by Him. The son of God, who is One in nature and attributes with the Father, took not only a human body but human nature, so that every child of Adam may claim Him as kinsman; and then gave Himself a ransom for all. Here St. Paul, not content with the word λύτρον, adopts a composite word to make the passage still more emphatic, ἀντίλυτρον ὑπὲρ πάντων, a substitutionary ransom on behalf of all. What men could not do, that Christ Jesus did for them, instead of them, and in their behalf, by the will of God. The obedience of Christ, which culminated in his death, was thus devised, wrought, and accepted by God for the benefit of all men. It may not be needful to assert that He suffered what all men deserved to suffer, but He certainly did what all men were originally intended to do, viz. his Father’s will in all its fulness; and that will, in his case, involved that He should suffer death for the sin of the world, destroying there by the body of sin, whilst by his resurrection He opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.

The Hebrew preposition rendered by the word for in connection with the doctrine of acceptance and atonement does not mean instead of, but over, on, because of, or on account of. The preposition which properly marks substitution is never used in connection with the word caphar. To make atonement for a sin is literally to cover over the sin, the preposition (al, על) being constantly used with verbs signifying to cover, e.g in Hab 2:14. ’ as the waters cover the sea.’ Baad (בעד), because of, is used in some passages, as in Exo 32:30 in one passage only does the strict idea of substitution, as distinguished from representation, appear in the O.T in connection with sacrifice, namely, in Gen 22:13, where we are told that Abraham offered up a ram instead of his son. The absence of this peculiar mode of expression from the Levitical law is significant; and it teaches us to be cautious in the use of language relative to the transfer of sins and of righteousness effected in the atonement in connection with this point, the following weighty words from Archbishop Magee’s work on the Atonement deserve consideration:--’The expression to bear the sins of others is familiarised to denote the suffering evils inflicted on account of those sins. I will not contend that this should be called suffering the punishment of those sins, because the idea of punishment cannot be abstracted from that of guilt; and in this respect I differ from many respectable authorities, and even from Dr. Blayney, who uses the word punishment in his translation. But it is evident that it is, notwithstanding, a judicial infliction; and it may perhaps be figuratively denominated punishment, if there by be implied a reference to the actual transgressor, and be understood that suffering which was due to the offender himself; and which, if inflicted on him, would then take the name of punishment in no other sense can the suffering inflicted on one on account of the transgressions of another be called a punishment, and in this light the bearing the punishment of another’s sins is to be understood as bearing that which in relation to the sins and to the sinner admits the name of punishment, but with respect to the individual on whom it is actually inflicted, abstractedly considered, can be viewed but in the light of suffering.’

The same writer observes that ’those that hold the doctrine of a vicarious punishment feel it not necessary to contend that the evil inflicted on the victim should be exactly the same in quality and degree with that denounced against the offender; it depending, they say, up on the will of the legislator what satisfaction he will accept in place of the punishment of the offender.’ Once more, he remarks that ’a strict vicarious substitution or literal equivalent is not contended for, no such notion belonging to the doctrine of the atonement.’

To sum up the Scriptural view on this doctrine, we may say that atonement signifies shelter by means representation. Applying this general definition to the case of sin, Scripture teaches that shelter for the sinner is secured through his being represented by Christ before the Father; and in order that he should be so represented, Christ became our kinsman, and wrought out that perfect righteousness which man has failed to attain; further, He endured death on the cross, and more than death--the hiding of his Father’s countenance, which was the curse due to sin. Thus He who knew not sin was made (or dealt with as) sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. It is a real substitution, for what He did and suffered took the place of what we ought to have done and suffered.

The only time that the word atonement is used in the A. V. of the N.T. is in Rom 5:11. Here it stands for the Greek καταλλαγή, which ought to have been rendered reconciliation in accordance with the previous verse (see R. V.). It is to be remarked that καταλλαγή is never used of the atonement in the O.T. The verb καταλλάσσω is found in the following passages in the second book of Maccabees: (1:5), ’May God be at one with you;’ (5:20), ’The great Lord being reconciled;’ (7:33), ’He shall be at one with his servants;’ (8:29), ’They besought the merciful Lord to be reconciled with his servants.’ While these four Apocryphal passages speak of God’s reconciliation to man, in the N.T. we read only of man’s being reconciled to God. The minister of reconciliation has to beseech men to be reconciled to God (2Co 5:20), and in so doing he is expressing in words that which Christ expressed in deeds. for ’God reconciled us to himself through Christ’ (2Co 5:18), and the process by which He did it, namely, the death on the cross (Rom 5:10), is available for the whole world (2Co 5:19; Rom 11:15).

When we speak of Christ reconciling his Father to us, [See the second article of the Church of England.] we are not to picture up an angry Judge being propitiated by a benevolent Son; this would be an entire misrepresentation of the Christian Faith. Rather we should regard the son as sent by his Father to die for the sins of the world, in order that He might remove the bar which hindered the free action of Divine love on the heart of man. as the Father has committed the work of Judgment to the Son, so has He committed the work of Atonement; and the son of Man is as much the agent of his Father’s will in the latter case as in the former.

The word ’atonement’ occurs but once in the N.T. and there it should be ’reconciliation,’ and the verb in the preceding sentence is so translated: "If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life . . . . through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation," καταλλαγή Rom 5:10-11. On the other hand, in Heb 2:17 the A.V. has "to make reconciliation for the sins of the people:" here it is propitiation,’ ἱλάσκομαι. If the word atonement is not found in the N.T., atonement in its true meaning is spoken of continually, as ’ransom;’ ’bearing our sins in his own body on the tree;’ ’Christ our passover is sacrificed for us;’ ’Christ . . . . being made a curse for us;’ ’He suffered for sins, the just for the unjust;’ and, to use the language of faith, ’with his stripes we are healed;’ ’He was delivered for our offences;’ ’He was manifested to take away our sins.’

In the O.T. we have the word ’atonement’ continually, but ’propitiation’ not at all; ’expiation’ twice in the margin, Num 35:33; Isa 47:11. But the same word, kaphar, though generally translated by ’make atonement,’ is employed for ’purging’ and occasionally for ’cleansing,’ ’reconciling,’ ’purifying.’ The word kaphar is literally ’to cover,’ with various prepositions with it; the ordinary one is ’up’ or ’upon.’ Hence in ’atoned for him ’ or ’his sin:’ he or his sin is covered up: atonement is made for him or for his sin. Atonement was made upon the horns of the altar: the force is ’atonement for.’ With the altar of incense atonement was not made upon it, but for it; so for the holy place, and for or about Aaron and his house: the preposition is al.

The same is used with the two goats. The sins were seen on the sinless goat, and expiation was made in respect of those sins. The how is not said here, but it is by the two goats making really one, because the object was to show that the sins were really laid upon it (that is, on Christ), and the sins carried away out of sight, and never to be found. If we can get our ideas, as taught of God as to the truth, into the train of Jewish thought, there is no difficulty in the al. In either case the difficulty arises from the fact that in English for presents the interested person to the mind; on is merely the place where it was done, as on an altar; whereas the al refers to the clearing away by the kaphar what was upon the thing al which the atoning rite was performed. Clearly the goat was not the person interested, nor was it merely done upon it as the place. It was that on which the sins lay, and they must be cleared and done away. The expiation referred to them as thus laid on the goat. As has been said, the how is not stated here, but the all-important fact defined that they were all carried away from Israel and from before God. The needed blood or life was presented to God in the other, which did really put them away; but did much more, and that aspect is attached to them there. This double aspect of the atoning work is of the deepest importance and interest, the presenting of the blood to God on the mercy seat, and the bearing away the sins. The word kaphar, to make atonement, occurs in Exo 29, 30, 32; Lev 1, 4-10, 12, 14-17, 19, 23; Num 5, 6, 8, 15, 16, 25, 28, 29, 31; 2Sa 21:3; 1Ch 6:49; 2Ch 29:24; Neh 10:33.

A short notice of some other Hebrew words may help. We have nasa, ’to lift up,’ and so to forgive, to lift up the sins away in the mind of the person offended, or to show favour in lifting up the countenance of the favoured person. Psa 4:6. We have also kasah, ’to cover,’ as in Psa 32:1, where sin is ’covered’: sometimes used with al, as in Pro 10:12, "love covereth all sins," forgives: they are out of sight and mind. The person is looked at with love, and not the faults with offence.

But in such words there is not the idea of expiation, the side of the offender is contemplated, and he is looked at in grace, whatever the cause: it may be needed atonement, or simply, as in Proverbs, gracious kindness. We have also salach, ’pardon or forgiveness.’ Thus it is used as the effect of kaphar, as in Lev 4:20. But kaphar has always a distinct and important idea connected with it. It views the sin as toward God, and is ransom, when not used literally for sums of money; and kapporeth is the mercy seat. And though it involves forgiveness, purging from sin, it has always God in view, not merely that the sinner is relieved or forgiven: there is expiation and propitiation in it. And this is involved in the idea of purging sin, or making the purging of sin (ἱλάσκεσθαι, ἐξιλάσκεσθαι, ἱλασμὸν ποιεῖν); it is in God’s sight as that by which He is offended, and what He rejects and judges.

There was a piaculum, ’an expiatory sacrifice,’ something satisfying for the individual involved in guilt, or what was offensive to God, what He could not tolerate from His very nature. This with the heathen, who attached human passions or demon-revenge to their gods, was of course perverted to meet those ideas. They deprecated the vengeance of a probably angry and self-vengeful being. But God has a nature which is offended by sin. It is a holy, not of course a passionate, one; but the majesty of holiness must be maintained. Sin ought not to be treated with indifference, and God’s love provides the ransom. It is God’s Lamb who undertakes and accomplishes the work. The perfect love of God and His righteousness, the moral order of the universe and of our souls through faith, is maintained by the work of the cross. Through the perfect love not only of God, the giver, but of Him, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, propitiation is made, expiation for sin, its aspect being toward God, while the effect applies to us in cleansing and justifying, though it goes much farther.

Expiation is more the satisfaction itself which is made, the piaculum, what takes the wrath, and is devoted, made the curse, and so substituted for the offender, so that he goes free. And here the noun kopher comes to let light in on the inquiry. It is translated ’ransom, satisfaction, ’ and in 1Sa 12:3 a ’bribe.’ So in Exo 21:30 a kopher (translated ’sum of money’) is laid upon a man to save his life where his ox had killed his neighbour; but in Num 35:31 no kopher was to be taken for the life of a murderer; for (ver. 33) the land cannot be cleansed, kaphar, but by the blood of the man that shed blood as a murderer. This clearly shows what the force of kopher and of kaphar is. A satisfaction is offered suited to the eye and mind of him who is displeased and who judges; and through this there is purgation of the offence, cleansing, forgiveness, and favour, according to him who takes cognisance of the evil.

A word may be added as to the comparison made between the two birds, Lev 14:4-7, and the two goats, Lev 16:7-10. The object of the birds was the cleansing of the leper; it was application to the defiled man, not the kopher, ransom, presented to God. It could not have been done but on the ground of the blood-shedding and satisfaction, but the immediate action was the purifying: hence there was water as well as blood. One bird was slain over running water in an earthen vessel, and the live bird and other objects dipped in it, and the man was then sprinkled, and the living bird let loose far from death, though once identified with it, and was free. The Spirit, in the power of the word, makes the death of Christ available in the power of His resurrection. There was no laying sins on the bird let free, as on the goat: it was identified with the slain one, and then let go. The living water in the earthen vessel is doubtless the power of the Spirit and word in human nature, characterising the form of the truth, though death and the blood must come in, and all nature, its pomp and vanity, be merged in it. The leper is cleansed and then can worship. This is not the atonement itself towards God, though founded on it, as marked by the death of the bird. It is the cleansing of man in death to the flesh, but in the power of resurrection known in Christ who once died to sin.

So also the Red Heifer, Num 19:1-22, was not in itself an act of atonement, but of purification. The ground was there laid in the slaying and burning of the heifer. Sin was, so to speak, consumed in it, and the blood was sprinkled seven times before the tabernacle of the congregation. When Christ died sin was, as it were, all consumed for His people by the fire of judgement, and all the value of the blood was before God where He communicated with the people. All that was settled, but man had defiled himself in his journey through the wilderness, and must be cleansed. The witness that sin had been put away long ago by Christ undergoing what was the fruit of sin was brought by the living power of the Holy Spirit and the word, and so he was purified. But the act of purifying is not in itself atonement; for atonement the offering is presented to God. It is a kopher a ransom, a satisfaction, to meet the infinite, absolute perfection of God’s nature and character, which indeed is there alone brought out. Thereby atonement is made and the very Day of Atonement is called kippurim. The priest made an atonement in respect of the sins; and it had the double aspect of presenting the blood before God within as meeting what He was, and bearing His people’s sins and carrying them away never to be found. We must make the difference of an un-rent veil and repeated sacrifices, and a rent veil and a sacrifice offered once for all. This is taught in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

There is still one case to be noticed, but it was merely a principle confirming the real character of the kaphar, making atonement. In Exo 30:11-16 it was ordered that when the people were numbered, each, rich or poor, should give half a shekel as a kopher ransom, for his soul or life. This had nothing to do with sin, but with ransom, that there might be no plague - a recognition that they belonged to God all alike, and could have no human boast in numbers, as David afterwards brought the plague on Israel. This was offered to God as a sign of this, and shows what the force of kaphar, making atonement, is.

We have no atonement in connection with the meat offering: we get the perfectness of Christ’s person, and all the elements that constituted it so as man, and there tested by the fire of God, which was even to death, the death of the cross, and all a perfect sweet savour, and perfect in presenting it to God a sweet savour, but no kopher, ransom: for that we must have blood-shedding.

The essence then of atonement is, firstly, a work or satisfaction presented to God according to, and perfectly glorifying, His nature and character about sin by sacrifice; and secondly, the bearing our sins; glorifying God even where sin was and in respect of sin (and thus His love is free to go out to all sinners); and giving the believer, him that comes to God by that blood-shedding, the certainty that his sins are all gone, and that God will remember them no more.

The reconciliation between God and man effected by Christ’s life, passion, and death

Blood Making An Atonement For The Soul

Exo_30:10; Lev_5:6; Lev_12:6-7; Lev_14:19-20; Lev_16:11; Lev_17:11; 2Ch_29:24; Mat_26:26-28; Mar_14:22-24; Luk_22:19-20; Rom_5:8-11; Eph_2:13-15; Col_1:12-22; 1Jn_1:7.

The Day Of Atonement

Lev_16:29-30; Lev_23:27; Num_29:7-8.

ATONEMENT.—The Atonement is the reconciling work of Jesus Christ the Son of God, in gracious fulfilment of the loving purpose of His Father; whereby, through the sacrifice of Himself upon the Cross once for all, on behalf and instead of sinful men, satisfaction was made for the sins of the world and communion between God and man restored.

The starting-point of Christian experience is the Resurrection of Jesus (1Co 15:17, Rom 4:25). It may now be taken as accepted that the belief of the primitive community and the Apostolic preaching were based on this conviction (see Harnack, What is Christianity? English translation Lect. ix.; Schmiedel, Encyc. Bibl. art. ‘Resurrection’). This fact, reinforced by successive appearances of the risen Christ whether to individuals or the assembled disciples, led to the further conviction, the ultimate root of the doctrine of the Atonement, that Jesus of Nazareth, crucified, risen, ascended, was present in the midst of the Christian congregation. He who in the days of His ministry had claimed authority on earth to forgive sins (Mat 9:2-6), confirming the word with signs following, who had awakened an implicit trust as alone having the words of eternal life (Joh 6:68; Joh 16:30), and who had manifested Himself as the one way by which men might come to the Father (Joh 14:6), had fulfilled His own promise to return to His elect and abide with them to the end of the days (Mat 28:20). The first corporate act of the disciples was to claim the promise to be present in the midst of two or three gathered in His name (Mat 18:20), by calling upon their Master to choose into the Apostolate one of two set before Him conceived as invisibly present (Act 1:15-26). Moreover, He was present in power as exalted to God’s right hand, not therefore limited by time and space, but acting under Divine, eternal conditions, arising to succour His martyr Stephen (Act 7:55; Act 7:59), manifesting Himself as the Righteous One to St. Paul (Act 22:14), giving specific revelations of His will to Ananias and to St. Paul himself (Act 9:4-6; Act 9:10-16, Act 18:9-10, Act 23:11), and performing those greater works of which He had spoken (Joh 14:12) through those who wrought in His name (Act 3:6; Act 9:34). This conviction, peculiarly vivid in the earlier ages, is clearly traced in the hymns addressed to Christ ‘as to a god’ (Pliny’s Letter to Trajan), and in the records of early martyrdoms. And the realism with which it was held even as late as the 4th cent. is attested by apologetic like that of Athanasius (see de Incarnatione, 46 ff.), or traditions like that of the consecration of St. John Lateran.

But proclamation of forgiveness of sins through faith in the name of Jesus, though arising out of the conviction that the Absolver was Himself in the power of His deity still present on earth, was not made until the realization of the promise of the Spirit in the Pentecostal gift. To this fact, the external results of which were present in the experience of his hearers, St. Peter appealed as witnessing to the reality of Jesus’ exaltation and His power to remit sins, (Act 2:33, cf. Gal 3:14). This significant element in the first preaching of the Gospel answers by anticipation objections urged against the Atonement as involving immoral consequences and unworthy views of God. Not only in this passage but throughout the Acts the possession of the Spirit is emphasized as the essential mark of discipleship (Act 2:38; Act 4:31; Act 5:32; Act 8:14-19; Act 9:17; Act 10:47; Act 11:16; Act 13:52; Act 19:1-6). The call to repentance, intimately associated with the gift of the Holy Spirit (Act 2:38, cf. Mat 3:11), necessarily involved a life conformed to the image of the Son of God. The Gospel, though a message of God’s free favour with no condition of antecedent righteousness, referred to moral results, the manifestation of an imparted spirit, as evidence of the truth of the promise (Rom 8:13-14, Gal 5:22-24). And when the doctrine of justification by faith was challenged by imperfectly instructed Christians, St. Paul met the charge by an abrupt appeal not only to elementary moral convictions, but to the implications of baptism as a new and spiritual birth (Rom 6:1-4). Nor, again, was it possible for those to whom the possession of the Spirit was a fact of experience to regard God otherwise than as the Father. For He who dwelt within them was the Spirit of Christ Jesus (Act 16:7, Rom 8:9, Php 1:19, 1Pe 1:11), the promise of the Father (Act 1:4), whereby they had themselves attained the adoption, and were enabled to cry, ‘Abba, Father’ (Rom 8:15-17, Gal 4:6).

The fact of Pentecost was immediately explained as that outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh which was to mark the establishment of the Messianic kingdom (Act 2:16-21; Act 5:31-32). It stood directly related to the event of which the Apostles were the chosen witnesses, the Resurrection of Jesus, whereby He was exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour unto the remission of sins (Act 2:33; Act 2:38), of which, according to Hebrew expectation, the kingdom was to be the home (e.g. Jeremiah 31, Eze 36:16-36). The assurance that Christ was the ever present source of forgiveness gave its supreme significance to the Cross by which He entered into His glory (Joh 12:32). Later theologians have been charged with ‘placing the emphasis too exclusively upon the death of Jesus as the means of redemption’ (H. L. Wild, Contentio Veritatis, Essay iii.). But the evidence of the NT is irresistible. It is true that the earliest sermons lay stress rather upon the fact of the Resurrection, but always as closely following upon the Death, which, though inflicted by His enemies, resulted from the determinate counsel of God (Act 2:23), who glorified ‘his Servant’ Jesus. The frequent repetition of this OT expression (παῖς θεοῦ) in the early chapters of Acts (Act 3:13; Act 3:26; Act 4:27; Act 4:30), taken in connexion with explicit references to the things which God foreshadowed by the prophets that His Messiah should suffer (Act 2:23; Act 3:18; Act 4:11; Act 4:25-28; Act 13:27; cf. 1Co 15:3; 1Pe 1:11), leaves no room for doubt that Philip the Evangelist was not alone in beginning from the picture of Jehovah’s Suffering Servant to preach Jesus (Act 8:35), but that the Apostles gave their witness to the Resurrection by preaching what St. Paul called ‘Christ crucified’ (1Co 1:23, cf. Gal 3:1). The Crucifixion was regarded neither as a bare fact nor as the symbol of a theological system, but as a ‘gospel,’ an event whose reality lay in its significance, a message of Divine favour and forgiveness. The central fact of Christ’s life and work was complex, consisting of both the Cross and the Resurrection. The NT considers neither apart. The redeeming efficacy is attached to each in turn. While, according to the compressed formula in which St. Paul expresses the content of his gospel, ‘Christ died for our sins and rose again the third day’ (1Co 15:3-4), the common form of the Petrine preaching represents God as raising up Jesus ‘for to give repentance and remission of sins’ (Act 5:30-31; cf. Act 2:32-36; Act 3:15; Act 3:26, 1Pe 1:21; 1Pe 3:21, also Rom 4:25 and 1Co 15:17). But it was the Cross that tended to fix itself as the central fact, and therefore the characteristic symbol of Christendom. It is the figure of Him ‘who bare our sins in his body on the tree’ which dominates the First Epistle of Peter (1Pe 2:24). And the 2nd cent. Gospel according to Peter has contrived with singular fidelity to the Apostle’s mind to give an imaginative picture of the Resurrection, wherein the Cross is curiously blended with the rending tomb (Gospel acc. to Peter, § 10, ed. Robinson and James). With St. Paul the gospel of Christ, which is the fixed point in his teaching (Gal 1:11, 1Co 15:1, 1Ti 1:11, 2Ti 2:8), the touchstone of all preaching (Gal 1:8-9, 1Ti 1:3; 1Ti 6:3), proclaimed alike to Jew and Gentile (1Co 1:24), delivered whether to St. Peter or to himself as the deposit of Christian truth (1Co 3:11, 2Ti 1:13-14), is ‘the word of the cross’ (1Co 1:18; 1Co 1:23). So remarkable is the unanimity of the two great primary preachers of Christianity that it leaves no room to question the statement of Harnack (What is Christianity? English translation Lect. ix.) that’ the primitive community called Jesus its Lord because He sacrificed His life for it, and because its members were convinced that He had been raised from the dead and was then sitting at the right hand of God.’

To this must be added the general symmetry of the NT and the evidence of Christian institutions and Church History. The story of the Passion is out of all proportion to the rest of the Synoptic narrative, as given in each of the three Gospels, unless the foreground is rightly occupied by the Cross. And here the Fourth Gospel, though it emphasizes the function of revelation in the incarnate life of the Son of God, is found in close and almost unexpected agreement with its predecessors. The Apocalypse rings with the praises of ‘the Lamb’ (Rev 5:4-6; Rev 5:12-13; Rev 7:10; Rev 7:14-17; Rev 12:7-12; Rev 14:1-5; Rev 19:6-9; cf. Rev 1:5; Rev 13:8). The Epistle to the Hebrews, though it opens with one of the classical Christological passages, yet makes the Death of Jesus the pivot of its teaching (Heb 2:9). And the Epistle to the Romans, which elaborates the great argument of Justification through a crucified and risen Saviour, is central to the theology of St. Paul.

Midway between the NT and Church History, as related in point of evidential value to either, come the Creed and Sacraments. The former represents the inviolable basis of the word concentrated in catechetical teaching. That its emphasis rested upon the Cross is apparent not only from such primitive formulae as the Apostles’ Creed, but from the NT itself (1Co 15:3-4, 1Ti 1:15). Baptism is the initiatory Christian rite, and whether it conveys or only represents the forgiveness of sins, stood from the first in close relation to the Death and Resurrection of Christ (Mat 28:19, Mar 16:15-16, Act 2:38; Act 8:13; Act 8:16; Act 8:36; Act 9:18; Act 10:47-48; Act 16:33; Act 19:5; Act 22:16, Rom 6:3-4, Gal 3:26-27, Eph 4:4-6, Col 2:12, Tit 3:4-6; 1Pe 3:21; cf. Joh 3:5, Act 11:16, 1Co 10:2, Heb 6:1-6; Heb 10:22, 1Jn 5:6-8). The Eucharist is the Christian counterpart of the sacrifice of the Passover, which commemorated the deliverance of God’s people from Egypt; it is associated by the terms of its celebration with the Lord’s Passion, and employs language of sacrificial import (Mat 26:26-28, Mar 14:22-24, Luk 22:19-20, 1Co 11:18-34; 1Co 10:16-22 [for τράπεζα Κυρίου = θυσιαστήριον, ct^{. [Note: contrast.]} Mal 1:7], cf. Joh 6:52-68 [see Westcott, ad loc.], Exo 12:27, Heb 13:10).

Following upon the Sacraments is the witness of Church History—the worship, the dogma, the art, the experience of the Christian centuries—which have all consistently gathered round the Cross. We are therefore entitled to hold that any interpretation of the Christian facts which shifts the focus from Calvary to Bethlehem or Galilee represents a departure from the historic faith, and tends to distort the Christian revelation.

Theories of the Atonement, of which the view that identifies it with the Incarnation may he taken as the norm, have inevitably been popular in an age dominated by two great influences, physical science and Hegelian philosophy. But it may he doubted whether they have taken their rise in a study of the facts of Scripture and not rather in a determinist conception of the Universe, to which the Incarnation seemed to give a religious and Christian form. A consequence of this method of thought has been the revival, in this country by Bishop Westcott and others, of speculations like those of Rupert of Deutz and the Scotists, which postulate an Incarnation independent of those conditions of human life which demand the forgiveness of sins.^{* [Note: These speculations must be distinguished from the teaching of the Calvinistic Supralapsarians of the 17th cent., which, relying upon such passages as Eph 3:11; 1Pe 1:20, Rev 13:8 (?), maintained that the Atonement was itself the fulfilment of an eternal purpose.]} It is perhaps enough to say of this line of thought, with Dr. A. B. Davidson (OT Prophecy, ch. x.), that it involves ‘a kind of principle, according to which God develops Himself by an inward necessity,’ and which ‘is certainly not a Biblical principle.’ Such thinking invariably regards the Atonement merely as a mode of the Incarnation required by the conditions under which it took place. And whether this theory be specifically held or not, it has been a tendency of recent theology to fix the mind rather upon the ethical principle of the Atonement, i.e. the obedience or penitence or assent to God’s abhorrence of sin, of which death is the ‘sacrament’ or visible sign, than upon the Crucifixion as a work intrinsically efficacious apart from the moral qualities expressed in its accomplishment. Such views are defective, not because they fail to give expression to aspects of Christ’s redeeming work, but because they stop short at the point where explanation is necessary, why these qualities of the spirit of Jesus should have been directed towards the particular end of the death of the Cross. The climax of the account which St. Paul gives in the Epistle to the Philippians of the exaltation of Jesus, is neither the assumption of human flesh nor the suffering of death, but the obedience which accepted the humiliation of the Cross as the act whereby He fulfilled, not the general, but the particular will of God (Php 2:5-11, cf. 1Pe 1:11).

The Apostles, as we have seen, saw the purpose, and therefore the explanation, of this concrete historical event through the medium of the OT. Whatever view it may be expedient to take of the relation between Hebrew prophecy and Jesus of Nazareth, this fact is of primary importance, because it exhibits what in the view of the first messengers of the Cross was the essential character of the good news it was their mission to proclaim; nor would the case be materially altered if the language of Law and Prophets had merely been chosen to illustrate the central idea of the Gospel. What we find is the remarkable manner in which the idea of the King and the Kingdom, consonant with contemporary Jewish expectation, is combined with that of the suffering Messiah, so alien to the current interpretation of the Scriptures as to present ‘to the Jews a stumbling-block.’ The antithesis between the Cross and the Resurrection was, indeed, such as to suggest that the death of Jesus was united to its marvellous sequel by a chain of causation removing it from the ordinary category of dissolution, and making it the interpretative fact of a career otherwise the most unintelligible in history. But the main point to observe is that the Resurrection, being in the first instance the crucial fact of experience which marked off for the disciples their Master Jesus as the Son of God (Rom 1:4 ὁρισθέντος, cf. Act 10:36-43; Act 13:23; Act 13:32-33), ratified, in the minds of those who had continued with Him in His temptations, that view of His work which had been before the eye of the Divine Sufferer throughout His ministry, and which He had progressively disclosed to hearts slow of belief, until a hitherto invincible prejudice had succumbed to the decisive evidence of accomplishment.

The persistence with which early heresies connected themselves with the Baptism of Jesus reveals the prominence which the event assumed in the story of the ministry, and goes far to authenticate the details of the Synoptic narrative (Mat 3:13-17, Mar 1:9-11, Luk 3:21-22, cf. Joh 1:32-34), the correspondence of which with the Apostolic view of the Saviour’s mission is too subtle to warrant the theory that they are the glosses of a later tradition. In this narrative Jesus is represented as doing something more than declaring the obligation which rested upon Him to fulfil that righteousness characteristic of the Hebrew covenant. ‘Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness,’ i.e. by submitting to the baptism which John would have withheld because it involved repentance and provided for the remission of sins. The Voice from Heaven, and the Temptation endured in the power of the baptismal Spirit (Mat 4:1, Mar 1:12, Luk 4:1), even if they be regarded merely as the interpretation of the subjective consciousness of Jesus, witness to the identity between the scheme of the ministerial life accepted from the first by the Son of Man and the gospel of the redeeming work preached by the Apostles. For the Voice blends the prophecy of the royal Son (Psa 2:7) with that of the beloved Servant (Isa 42:1), and the Temptation is essentially the refusal of Messianic royalty on any condition but that of suffering service. It is no accident that the same Voice is heard again on the Mount of Transfiguration (Mat 17:5 and Mar 9:7 ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἁγαπητός, Luk 9:35 ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἐκλελεγμένος [v.l ἀγαπητός], cf. Isa 42:1), when the manner in which righteousness is to be fulfilled is made explicit in the subject of Jesus’ converse with Moses and Elijah, ‘the decease which he was about to fulfil’ (Luk 9:31 πληροῦν), cf. Mat 3:15 πληρῶσαι; and that again, from the moment when He begins to make plain to the unwilling ears of His disciples that His throne can be reached only through resurrection after suffering and death, He has to cry, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan’ (Mat 16:23). And the taunt of the rulers on Calvary, when the crucified Jesus is bidden to prove Himself the Christ of God, the chosen (Luk 23:35 ὁ ἐκλεκτός), makes it clear that the claim to be at once the Messiah and the Servant, if doubted by the disciples and derided by the Jews, was at least in the hour of its accomplishment sufficiently understood.

It is the Divine necessity of dying which is prominent in the later teaching of the Lord, beginning from that crisis of the ministry which is emphatically presented in all the Synoptics (Mat 16:21-28, Mar 8:31 to Mar 9:1, Luk 9:22-27). He sets His face towards it as the end (Luk 22:37 [cf. Isa 53:12] τελεσθῆναι and τέλος ἕχει, cf. Joh 19:28; Joh 19:30), the goal to which His whole life moves. And in the hour when the things concerning Him had fulfilment, He singled out the leading feature in the portrait of the Servant as that which above all others fastened its application upon Himself. ‘I say unto you that this which is written must be fulfilled in me, And he was reckoned with transgressors.’ The Prophet, who at the outset of His ministry read in the synagogue of Nazareth the words foreshadowing the deliverance which was to issue in the Kingdom of God (Luk 4:18-19 = Isa 61:1-2), knew that for Himself it meant the Man of Sorrows, led like the lamb of the Hebrew ritual to the slaughter, and in the power of His healing wounds making intercession for the transgressors of His people (Isaiah 53; for the connexion with the Ceremonial Law see Davidson, OT Prophecy, ch. xxii) There is thus no inconsistency between the language of Jesus as recorded in the Synoptics and those utterances of the Fourth Gospel which seem to remove the Passion and Death from the immediate historical conditions, and to represent them as the decision of eternal issues by the voluntary activity of the Divine Sufferer, who lays down His life of Himself and judges the prince of this world on the uplifted throne of the Cross (Joh 3:14; Joh 10:17-18; Joh 12:31-33; Joh 14:30; Joh 16:11; Joh 16:33).

These considerations give peculiar point to the declaration which, according to both St. Matthew and St. Mark, stands in close relation to the request of the sons of Zebedee for eminent places in the Messianic kingdom. Messiah’s kingship is based on service which takes specific form in the death He goes to accomplish—‘The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many’—a substitution which made His soul an offering for sin, fulfilling all that was foreshadowed not only in the redemption of the people from Egypt, but also in the redemptions of the Ceremonial Law (Mar 10:45, Mat 20:28 λύτρον ἀντί, not ὑπέρ, cf. ἀντίλυτρον 1Ti 2:6, λυτρώσηται Tit 2:14, ἑλυτρώθητε 1Pe 1:18, where also the τίμιον αἶμα of Christ is the price; Isa 53:10, 2Sa 7:23, Exo 13:13, Num 18:15, cf. Psa 49:8).

That Jesus should thus have recognized the true significance of His death as a fact possessing not an accidental but an inherent worth, is not inconsistent with a due acknowledgment of the historical circumstances which became its efficient cause. With regard to the prophecy of Jehovah’s Servant, it must be remembered that the Sufferer, though offering a sacrifice for sin of which the liturgical oblation is the type, yet incurs pain and death only through setting his face as a flint (Isa 50:4-9) in maintaining truth and righteousness under conditions which inevitably made this witness a martyrdom. And it would be misreading the phenomena of the Gospel narrative to represent the propitiatory death of Christ as wantonly sought by our Lord in a manner inconsistent with the dictates of common morality. The Cross could not have been mediatorial if Jesus had been an official and conventional Messiah reaching Calvary by any other road than that which in the first instance made Him one with His brethren (Heb 2:10-18) in the pursuit of His own moral end. His death, which affects the conscience (Heb 9:14; Heb 10:22), is not represented as self-immolation. He ‘witnessed before Pontius Pilate a good confession’ (1Ti 6:13, cf. ‘the faithful witness,’ Rev 1:5; Rev 3:14). His mission being to establish the kingdom upon a basis of surrender (Mat 20:28, Joh 13:4; Joh 13:13-15), upon a gospel preached to the poor (Luk 4:18) by one who is Himself lowly in heart (Mat 11:29), He must not shrink till He send forth judgment unto victory (Mat 12:20). When there is no more risk of quenching the smoking flax by appearing openly as the uncompromising foe of the hierarchy, He recognizes that His hour is come (Joh 12:23; Joh 17:1 al., Mar 14:41, cf. Joh 2:4, Luk 22:53), changing the method of His discourse so that they who reject Him may perceive that He speaks of them (Mat 21:45), and without further parley join the inevitable issue. There is, however, no warrant for Mr. F. W. Newman’s theory, that Jesus’ denunciation of scribes and Pharisees was a deliberate provocation of judicial murder; though it must be remarked that, assuming the knowledge of power to rise again the third day, we could not judge even such an action entirely by the ordinary standard. Still, if the one necessity of the case was a sacrificial death upon the stage of history, the event might have been accomplished amid accessories more suggestive of ritual than the Crucifixion. But this would have been something less than a moral act, whereas the NT shows the propitiation wrought by Jesus Christ ‘the righteous’ (1Jn 2:1, Act 3:14; Act 7:52; Act 22:14) to have been something more. The Agony in the Garden, followed by the Seven Words from the Cross, attests the naturalness of the Passion as suffering, though voluntarily endured, yet inflicted from without. It is only after the Resurrection that the human actors in the tragedy fall out of sight, and the Cross can be presented absolutely as that which it behoved the Christ to suffer, so entering into His glory (Luk 24:26).

From what has been already said, it follows that an adequate soteriology, or theology of the Atonement which is genuinely evangelical, must be the expression of a spiritual experience resting upon Christ’s death as the expiation of sin. With a few notable exceptions, foremost among them Dr. R. W. Dale, the trend of modern theology, since the publication of M’Leod Campbell’s treatise on The Nature of the Atonement, has been on the whole to develop the doctrine on its ethical side, and to find its spiritual principle either in the sinless penitence or the perfect obedience of Jesus (e.g. Westcott, Wilson, Moberly, Scott Lidgett). The tendency of these writings has been, while dissipating theories of a non-moral ‘transaction,’ to obscure to a greater or less extent ‘the offering of the body of Christ,’ and to give an insufficient value to the Biblical account of His death as an objective act of propitiation addressed to the Father by the incarnate Son. No doubt English writers for the most part maintain that the ‘penitence’ and obedience of Christ are imparted by grace to the believer. But between the obedience and the grace, as that which gives meaning to both, NT theology places the substitutionary sacrifice.

St. Peter connects obedience with the ‘sprinkling of the blood of Christ’ (1Pe 1:2; 1Pe 1:14; 1Pe 1:18-19) and the sin-bearing of the tree (1Pe 2:24). Involving as these expressions do ‘the blood of the covenant’ (Exo 24:6-8, Lev 16:14-19; Lev 17:11-12, Zec 9:11; cf. Heb 10:29; Heb 13:20, and, for the ‘new covenant,’ Jer 31:31-34; Jer 33:8, Eze 36:26), and the laying of hands upon the head of the sin-offering (Lev 16:21, cf. Isa 53:6; the whole passage [Isa 53:4-7] should be carefully compared with 1Pe 2:21-25, and the influence of the Levitical code in moulding language and ideas noted), both familiar conceptions of the Hebrew ritual, they point undoubtedly to a real transfer of guilt, a genuine substitution, as the true meaning of the ‘glad tidings’ (1Pe 1:12), of which the Apostle was the witness (1Pe 5:1). The Christian society is the ‘people of God’s own possession’ (1Pe 2:9-10), ransomed and brought into covenant by the precious blood. The obedience and sufferings of Christians are not, therefore, redemptive, for such are already dead to sin (1Pe 2:24).

With this the Johannine writings agree. Fellowship with God is the eternal life which Christians enjoy, but this mystical union^{* [Note: The unio mystica must not be confounded with atonement by pressing the etymology of the latter word (at-one-ment), the Pauline equivalent of which (καταλλαγή) St. John never uses. According to its proper meaning, the verb ‘atone’ is not transitive, but is followed by the preposition ‘for.’ Mr. Inge in Contentio Veritatis constantly ignores this.]} is effected by the purifying blood of Jesus His Son (1Jn 1:7), in whom is forgiveness (1Jn 1:9-10 1Jn 2:1, 1Jn 3:5), who is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world (1Jn 2:2, 1Jn 4:19, cf. 1Jn 5:6 [Joh 19:34], Joh 4:42; Joh 11:51, Rom 3:25 ἱλαστήριον). The antecedent power of Christ’s death is thus explained by the sacrificial term ἱλασμός to be an effectual means for turning away the wrath of God, which the impressive imagery of the Apocalypse represents as resting upon the wicked (Rev 6:16-17; Rev 14:19 and passim). Nowhere is the significant figure of the Lamb more emphatically applied to Christ than in the Johannine books (Joh 1:29; Joh 1:36; Joh 19:36 [Exo 12:46], the Apocalypse, passim).

With the Apostle Paul we reach the fullest statement of the doctrine of the Atonement. And here it must be noted that the Epistles of the first imprisonment, which develop the teaching concerning the Person of Christ in His eternal relation to the Universe and the Church, follow those which give detailed expression to the reconciliation of believers to God through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. It would seem, therefore, that theologians like Westcott, who subordinate redemption to the Incarnation, are less true to Christian experience than those who reach the Incarnation through the Atonement. For St. Paul the Cross in its twofold aspect of Death and Resurrection is the central fact which forms the subject of his gospel (1Co 1:18; 1Co 1:23; 1Co 2:2, Gal 5:11, 1Ti 2:5-7), the basis of Baptism (see above) and of the Eucharist (see above), the source of the forgiveness of sins (Col 2:13-14; cf. Col 3:12, Eph 4:32), the motive of Christian morality (Rom 6:4), the spring of faith (1Co 12:3, cf. Rom 10:9) and of spiritual life (2Co 4:10-11, Gal 2:20), and the assurance of immortality (2Ti 1:10). To this fact there is a corresponding personal experience, so that baptism may be represented as involving an identification of the believer with his Lord so intimate that not only is the figure of putting on Christ as a garment felt to be appropriate to the initiatory Christian rite (see above), but His death, burial, and resurrection are regarded as reproduced in the believer (see above). From the Cross the Christian life takes its specific complexion, so that ‘the new man created in righteousness’ (Eph 4:24) becomes ‘crucified unto the world’ (Gal 6:14), branded in the body with the marks of the Lord Jesus (Gal 6:17); glories in the Cross (Gal 6:14); and fills up that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ (Col 1:24). Obviously, therefore, the interpretation of this fact and its consequent experience is from the point of view of St. Paul the primary task of the Christian theologian.

The interpretative word used in St. Paul’s soteriology is καταλλαγή, ‘reconciliation’ (Rom 5:11 Authorized Version ‘atonement’), the root idea of which is restoration of personal relations between parties hitherto estranged. This involves the explanation of the ‘catastrophe in human life,’ sufficiently evident in common experience but inexplicable apart from the Hebrew realization of the personal God, which is set forth in Rom 1:18-28 as the rebellion of the unthankful human will against the claim of the Divine Creator (Rom 1:21). The need is universal (Rom 3:9; Rom 3:23);^{* [Note: Notice that St. Paul more Hebraico states sin as a universal fact—‘all have sinned’—without developing a theory by physical analogy. No amount of ‘originality’ in sin detracts from full moral responsibility towards God in the individual. Mr. Tennant in his Hulsean Lectures speaks as though the traditional doctrine of sin neutralized personal disobedience; but this is not the case, as a right understanding of St. Paul’s doctrine of reconciliation in Christ will show.]} but the later Augustinian terminology, which, in spite of Luther’s return to a fuller Paulinism, still dominates the language even of Protestant divinity, tends by the use of such figures as ‘vice’ (vitium), ‘flaw,’ ‘disease,’ to palliate the exceeding sinfulness of sin and to obscure the personal significance of the Cross, which is always uppermost in St. Paul. Three points must be noted.

1. Christ died ‘to reconcile the Father to us.’—This phrase, if not strictly Biblical, conveys the essential idea of Scripture, which is quite obscured by the statement that His death reconciles men to God. Modern teachers, concerned to vindicate the love of God, have inclined to represent the Cross as intended to produce merely a change in the moral life of the sinner. Not only is this inconsistent with the idea of reconciliation, but St. Paul, while, with the NT generally, always representing the work of Christ as arising in the gracious will of the Father (2Co 5:18-19, Rom 5:8; Rom 8:32, Col 1:19-20, Eph 1:9-10, 1Th 5:9, Tit 3:4; cf. 1Pe 1:3, Joh 3:16 and passim, 1Jn 3:1), yet invariably regards it as the loving act (2Co 5:14; 2Co 8:9, Gal 1:4; Gal 2:20, Rom 8:37, Eph 5:2, cf. Joh 10:11, Rev 1:5) of a mediator (1Ti 2:5-6, cf. Heb 9:15), producing in the first instance a change in God’s attitude towards the sinner (2Th 1:8-9, Rom 8:1; cf. Rom 8:7-8), turning away wrath (1Th 1:10, Rom 5:9), removing trespasses (2Co 5:19), and providing a channel through which God might forgive sins as an act not only of mercy but of justice (Rom 3:26).

It is perhaps unnecessary to argue with the formality which sets up an abstract Law^{* [Note: Such theories, like the attempt of Anselm in Cur Deus Homo to express the Atonement in terms of the feudal idea of society dominant in the Middle Age, to which they are akin, no doubt perform useful service in freeing the teaching of Scripture from unwarrantable and misleading accretions, but they are a method of expressing rather than of explaining the problem.]} to which even God must do homage. At this point even Dale becomes somewhat cumbrous. But it is obvious that even the parable of the Prodigal Son would not ring true in human ears unless it was for ever interpreted by a transaction which gives due weight to the enormity of a sin that entailed the sacrifice of the Father’s only Son. Nor would St. Paul have succeeded in commending the death of Christ to the Christian conscience save by insisting that only thus could God reconcile a world unto Himself and be alike just and the justifier of the believer.

2. The death of Christ is the act of God (Tit 2:13 [cf. 2Pe 1:1], Rom 1:4, 2Co 4:4, Col 1:15, Php 2:6, Rom 9:5 (?), Act 20:28).—‘It is at this point in the last resort that we become convinced of the deity of Christ’ (Denney). ‘God was in Christ,’ who was ‘marked off as the Son of God by the resurrection.’ Grace is always in St. Paul the free act of God’s favour (Rom 3:24; Rom 4:4-5 al.), and it is ‘the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Rom 5:15; Rom 16:20, 2Co 8:9; 2Co 13:14), whereby we have been enriched. The love of Christ which constrains us, because He died for all, is Divine (2Co 5:14; 2Co 5:19-20 ‘on behalf of Christ’ = ‘as though God were entreating by us’). The position of the justified sinner is that of a restored sonship, because his redemption from first to last is the action towards him of the eternal God Himself. His right relation to the Father is witnessed by, or rather is, the presence of the Spirit of the Son ‘sent forth’ into his heart by that same God who had ‘sent forth’ the Son Himself to work out a redemption under the conditions which imposed this necessity of love upon the paternal heart of God (Gal 4:4-6). When this is once apprehended, the objections to a doctrine of substitution (‘ego sum peccatum tuum, tu es justitia mea’—2Co 5:21) are seen to have no application in fact. They are valid only if the activity of the Mediator is separated sharply from that of the Father. Such a distinction is neither Pauline nor Christian. The threefoldness of God is a revelation incidental to ‘the unfolding of the work of Divine Atonement’ (see Moberly, Atonement and Personality, ch. viii). With St. Paul, as with St. John, it is the Father who is revealed in the Son (see above), whose work is manifest in the work of Christ. Redemption is parallel to Creation (Gal 6:15, Col 1:18, Eph 1:10, 1Co 15:20-28; 1Co 15:45; cf. Joh 1:1-18, Rev 21:1; Rev 21:5). If the morality of the latter lies in the fact that ‘God saw that it was good,’ the justice of the former is witnessed not only by the ‘new creation’ but by the infinite worth of the Son (1Co 6:20), whom God gave up for us all and who endured the Cross.

3. Reconciliation is antecedent to the renewal of the individual.—This is almost wholly ignored in modern German theology, which thereby goes far to forfeit its claim to be a true development of Lutheran teaching, losing touch with the NT generally and especially with St. Paul. Ritschl, for example, for whom the statement that ‘Christ expiated sin by His passion’ has ‘very little warrant in the Biblical circle of thought,’ regards the death of Jesus merely as ‘the summary expression of the fact that Christ maintained His religious unity with God,’ and places the forgiveness of sins in the ‘effective union’ of believers with God in that Divine kingdom which it was the vocation of Jesus to found (Justification and Reconciliation, English translation ch. viii). Now, while Ritschl thus recovers a truly Apostolic conception in the Kingdom of God as the primary object of reconciliation (see below), he does so only at the expense of the ‘finished work,’ which is the glory of all true evangelicalism. St. Paul in particular leaves no doubt as to the objective character of the ‘reconciliation’ wrought by Christ, which stands complete before the preaching whereby comes hearing and faith. ‘While we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son’ (Rom 5:10; cf. Rom 5:6; cf. Rom 5:8-9, Col 1:21-22). He has previously shown (Rom 3:24-26) that the vindication of God’s righteousness (ἔνδειξις τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ), which conscience requires as a condition of the acquittal of sinners, has already been given in the redemption wrought by Christ, involving as it did the bloodshedding of the Son of God, which constituted the Redeemer a propitiation for sin. The equivalence adumbrated by the symbolic transfer of guilt to the head of the victim was consummated in Christ (Rom 8:3, 2Co 5:21, Gal 3:13 cf. Lev 16:5 also Hebrews, passim, see below). The spectacle of such a substitution—not one man redeeming his brother, but God putting Himself in the sinner’s place—was the manifestation of a Divine righteousness to which Law and Prophets, the Hebrew dispensation, had witnessed (Rom 3:21). In Christ crucified that righteousness is complete, needing no human condition (ἔργον) to perfect it, but offered freely to him that believeth on the justifier of the ungodly, so that his faith can be reckoned instead of righteousness,^{* [Note: Much harm has resulted from insisting on the ‘forensic’ character of this justification. No doubt δικαιόω has associations of the law court; but it is as absurd to suppose that legal fictions were present to the mind of St. Paul as to ascribe these ideas to the compiler of Genesis (Gen 15:6) or the author of the thirty-second Psalm (Psa 32:2). The word expresses only the free forgiveness of the Father’s love.]} because through it the sinner appropriates Christ’s finished work and becomes ‘the righteousness of God in him’ (2Co 5:21). Here the Atonement, as St. Paul interprets it, leads to the development of the doctrine of the Incarnation (Rom 5:12-21, cf. 1Co 15:21-22). Christ is the second Adam; He ‘recapitulates’ (Eph 1:10, cf. Protcv. Jac. 13, and Irenaeus, bk. iii. ch. xxx ‘recapitulans in se Adam’) the human race, so that His redemptive, recreative act has more than a representative value. In Him ‘all died’ (2Co 5:14). This characteristic principle of Pauline theology—‘in Christ’—expands on the other side into the doctrine of the new life through membership (Rom 12:4-5, Eph 4:25) in the body of Christ and fellowship of the one Spirit (1Co 12:13, 2Co 13:14). The second Adam is a quickening spirit, endowed with the grace of unction (Hooker. Eccl. Pol., bk. v. ch. lv.), imparting through the Resurrection a Spirit which dwells in the believer and finally quickens even his mortal body (Rom 8:11).

That the communion of the elect people with God meant the indwelling of His Spirit, is a familiar idea of the OT (Isa 63:9-14, Eze 36:27). So the body of Christ, which is the Church (Col 1:24), being the primary object of redemption (Act 20:28, Eph 1:14; Eph 1:22; Eph 2:11-16; Eph 4:4-6, Tit 2:14; Titus cf. 1Pe 2:9-10), reconciled through death (Eph 2:13), becomes a habitation of the Spirit (Eph 2:21-22), distributed according to the measure of faith to the several members (Eph 4:7-16, Rom 12:1), which through the Presence (‘Christ in you,’ ‘the Spirit of the Son shed abroad in your hearts,’ ‘the fulness of God,’ Eph 3:19) have a common access to the Father (Eph 2:18; cf. Eph 3:12), manifest the gifts of the Spirit (1Co 12:4-11, Rom 12:6-8), and in mutual dependence grow together to ‘the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ’ (Eph 4:13; Eph 4:15-16, Col 2:19, Rom 12:4-6). That this teaching, though given in St. Paul’s individual manner, was no personal speculation of his own, may be gathered from its close relation to the great social sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, which would be startling if, in view of their generally accepted significance in the primitive community, it were not obvious (Eph 4:4-5, 1Co 10:17).

To claim for the death of Christ that it is a completed act of reconciliation, the ground of the believing sinner’s justification, and thus alike the subject of adoring gratitude and the source of renewed moral effort, is to establish a doctrine satisfactory to reason rather because it sets the several parts of Scripture and Christian teaching in an intelligible proportion to one another, than because it is itself rationally explained. The Cross establishes the Law (Rom 3:31), and, as thus interpreted, manifests and supplies the need of the human spirit, and thus finds its justification in experience. But propitiatory sacrifice remains to be apprehended rather than understood. This is because it is a fact of religion rather than of ethics. Men have felt the need of something to set them right with God, even when they have been far from knowing that He is love. If this distinction be not perceived, we shall fail to see the true bearing of the evidence from Comparative Religion for the universality of the idea of atonement as manifested in myth, ritual, and custom. Thus Sir Oliver Lodge (see art. ‘Suggestions towards the Reinterpretation of Christian Doctrine,’ Hibbert Journal, vol. ii., No. 3), while admitting the cogency of the universal belief in immortality, sees in the crudities of the widespread practice of sacrifice only a reason for discounting this element in traditional Christianity. There can be no doubt that atonement is fundamental to the idea of sacrifice (see Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, Lect. vi. p. 219; Lect. xi. pp. 377–384), and that this idea of ‘covering’ is prominent in the ritual of the OT (see Schultz, OT Theol., English translation vol. i. pp. 384–400).

Far from deprecating, or even ignoring the ancient sacrifices, the NT, as we have seen, presents Christ as the ‘Lamb of God.’ And in the Epistle to the Hebrews the Son is explicitly set forth as ‘Himself the victim and Himself the priest,’ manifested once at the consummation of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself (Heb 9:26). Though, unlike St. Paul, who sees the analogy between heathen sacrifices and the Christian Eucharist (1Co 10:21), the author of this Epistle confines his attention to the worship of the Hebrews, the argument may be legitimately extended to embrace the ‘blood of bulls and goats’ offered under any system for what in view of the Cross is seen to be a typical, conventional purification and approach to God. There is, however, one important point in which the Mosaic sacrifices differ from all others. They fulfilled the primary condition of Divine appointment, and therefore availed within the limits of the institution. They were inadequate, not because, like the oblations of the heathen, they were material, but because, unlike like the offering of Christ, they were transitory (Heb 10:1; Heb 10:11), and alien to those who brought them (Heb 9:12; Heb 9:25). Christ, who elsewhere in the NT appears as the Mediator, Saviour, Word made flesh, here becomes specifically the Priest (Heb 2:11 [ὁ ἁγιάζων = ‘priest’; the act of consecration is identified with the Cross in Heb 13:12, cf. Heb 2:9-10] Heb 3:1 and passim), the appropriate scientific term, as we may call it, for whoever establishes the proper end of religion, communion with God. His is a ‘finished work,’ because by Divine appointment (Heb 3:2, Heb 5:1; Heb 5:4-5) He is ‘a priest for ever’ (Heb 5:10, Heb 7:24; Heb 7:28), who ‘through the eternal Spirit’ (Heb 9:14) obediently (Heb 5:8, Heb 10:9) fulfilled the priestly function (Heb 8:3) in offering the body prepared for Him by the will of God (Heb 10:5-10) as an eternal sacrifice (Heb 10:12, cf. Heb 5:9). This is no metaphorical self-sacrifice, the essence of which is undeviating conformity to the general law which conditions human life. It is ‘through his own blood’ (Heb 9:12) that He enters once for all into heaven. This lays the emphasis on His death as the means through which He makes that purification of sins (Heb 1:3, Heb 9:14) whereby access is gained to the throne of grace (Heb 10:19, Heb 4:14; Heb 4:16). The open way witnesses to a sacrifice already offered and accepted (Heb 10:10 ἡγιασμένοι not ἁγιαζόμενοι, Heb 10:14 τετελείωκεν [cf. Joh 19:30] τοὺς ἁγιαζομένους, which Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 rightly translates ‘them that are [not ‘are being’] sanctified’). The new covenant is thus dedicated with blood (Heb 9:18-22), not because life is liberated through death (for why should death effect this result except according to Oriental mysticism?), but because a death must have taken place for the redemption of transgressions (Heb 9:15, Heb 10:29, cf. Mar 14:24 and parallels), which is, in the phraseology of sacrifice, what St. Peter says when he declares that ‘Christ bore our sins in his body on the tree’ (1Pe 2:24).

Minds to which sacerdotal ideas are repugnant will always resent such language as sophistical and superstitious, and, if they do not reject, will endeavour to explain away what is certainly the meaning of the Epistle to the Hebrews. No doubt this particular mould of thought is not necessary to the gospel, which is content to assert that Christ died for our sins. Yet the consequence of rejecting it is likely to be a denial of the atoning character of Christ’s death. To describe the central fact of the gospel in ethical terms as a revelation of love, an exhibition of obedience, or a manifestation of the Divine character, expresses a side of truth, apart from which a doctrine of substitution may become, if not immoral, at least superstitious. But such descriptions cease to be true, if they are taken for definitions. The Cross is no longer a revelation, if it be not a redemption. If it be large enough to deal with a situation of which the factors are God, man, and sin; if it be a fact of religion through which men approach that Personality in whom they have their being, its significance cannot be understood unless it be recognized as a mystery, illuminating and illuminated by life and experience, but itself not reducible to simpler terms. It is at this point that ‘mysteries,’ in the Greek sense of the word, have their place. No organized religious system can entirely dispense with them. And Christianity with its sacraments of initiation and membership bears witness to the ‘mystery of godliness’ (1Ti 3:16) preached by it among the nations. Whatever may be the case with individuals, the race has found no language in which to express its need towards God but that of propitiatory sacrifice. To the method of its satisfaction many analogies point, but all taken together cannot sum up the Cross. For it is essentially an eternal fact, embracing but not embraced by experience; and its theory, though to the spiritual man increasingly rational, must ever be less than that which it seeks to explain. It is not distrust of reason, but the confidence of intelligent faith which, the more surely it realizes the reasonableness of the evangelical doctrine of the Atonement, will the more readily make the words of Bp. Butler its own: ‘Some have endeavoured to explain the efficacy of what Christ has done and suffered for us, beyond what the Scripture has authorized; others, probably because they could not explain it, have been for taking it away, and confining His office as Redeemer of the world to His instruction, example, and government of the Church. Whereas the doctrine of the Gospel appears to be … not only that He revealed to sinners that they were in a capacity of salvation … but … that He put them into this capacity of salvation by what He did and suffered for them.… And it is our wisdom thankfully to accept the benefit, by performing the conditions upon which it is offered, on our part, without disputing how it was procured on His’ (Analogy, pt. ii. ch. v).

Literature.—Among English works, J. M‘Leod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement; H. N. Oxenham, Catholic Doctrine of the A.; R. W. Dale, The Atonement; J. M. Wilson, Hulsean Lectures; J. Denney, The Death of Christ, and The A. and the Modern Mind; J. Scott Lidgett, The Spiritual Principle of the A. (Appendix on ‘The Doctrine of the A. in Church History’); R. C. Moberly, Atonement and Personality; B. F. Westcott, The Victory of the Cross; W. Alexander, Verbum Crucis; W. O. Burrows, The Mystery of the Atonement. The student should also consult A. M. Fairbairn, Christ in Modern Theol., Div. ii. ch. ii.; W. Sanday, Priesthood and Sacrifice; B. F. Westcott, Com. on Ep. to the Heb., passim, also dissertation on ‘The Gospel of Creation’ in The Epistles of St. John; A. B. Davidson, Theol. of the OT, 350 ff.; S. R. Driver, art. ‘Propitiation’ in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible ; W. P. Paterson, art. ‘Sacrifice,’ ib. Among foreign writers may be mentioned A. Ritschl, Die christl. Lehre von d. Rechtfertigung u. d. Versöhnung (English translation Justification and Reconciliation); A. Seeberg, Der Tod Christi; W. Herrmann, Der Verkehr d. Christen mit Gott (English translation Communion with God); B. Weiss, Lehrbuch d. biblisch. Theol. d. Neuen Test. (English translation i. 419 ff. and ii. 220 ff.); A. Sabatier, The Doctrine of the A. and its historical Evolution (English translation ). As landmarks in the development of doctrine Athanasius’ de Incarnatione and Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo are amongst the most important.

J. G. Simpson.

By: Kaufmann Kohler

The setting at one, or reconciliation, of two estranged parties—translation used in the Authorized Version for "kapparah," "kippurim." The root ("kipper"), to make atonement, is explained by W. Robertson Smith ("Old Testament in the Jewish Church," i. 439), after the Syriac, as meaning "to wipe out." This is also the view taken by Zimmern ("Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Babylonischen Religion," 1899, p. 92), who claims Babylonian origin for both the term and the rite. Wellhausen ("Composition des Hextateuchs," p. 335) translates "kapparah" as if derived from "kapper" (to cover). The verb, however, seems to be a derivative from the noun "kofer" (ransom) and to have meant originally "to atone."

Original Meaning.

Just as by old Teutonic custom the owner of a man or beast that had been killed was to be pacified by the covering up of the corpse with grain or gold ("Wergeld") by the offender (Grimm, "Deutsche Rechts-Alterthümer," p. 740), so Abimelech gives to Abraham a thousand pieces of silver as a "covering of the eyes," in order that his wrongdoing may be over-looked (Gen. xx. 16, R. V.; A. V., incorrectly "he" for "it"). "Of whose hand have I received any [kofer] bribe [A. V., "taken a ransom"] to blind my eyes therewith?" says Samuel (I Sam. xii. 3).

"Kofer" was the legal term for the propitiatory gift or ransom in case a man was killed by a goring ox: "If there be laid on him a [kofer] ransom [A. V., inaccurately, "a sum of money"] (Ex. xxi. 30); but this "kofer nefesh" (ransom for the life) was not accepted in the case of murder (Num. xxxv. 31, 32). The dishonored husband "will not regard any ransom" ("kofer"; Prov. vi. 35). No man can give a kofer for his brother to ransom him from impending death (Ps. xlix. 8, Hebr.; A. V. 7). At the taking of the census "they shall give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord . . . half a shekel" (Ex. xxx. 12, Hebr.). Similarly, Jacob, in order to make his peace with his brother Esau, says, "I will appease ["akapperah"] his [angry] face with the present" (Gen. xxxii. 21, Hebr. [A. V. 20]); that is, "I will offer a kofer." When the blood of the murdered Gibeonites cries to heaven for vengeance, David says: "Wherewith shall I make atonement ["bammah akapper"]?" that is, "With what kind of kofer shall I make atonement?" (II Sam. xxi. 3). "The wrath of a king is as messengers of death: but a wise man will [by some propitiatory offering or kofer] pacify it" (Prov. xvi. 14). Every sacrifice may be considered thus as a kofer, in the original sense a propitiatory gift; and its purpose is to "make atonement ["le kapper"] for the people" (Lev. ix. 7, x. 17).

Connection with Sacrifice.

In the priestly laws, the priest who offers the sacrifice as kofer is, as a rule, the one who makes the Atonement (Lev. i.-v., xvi., etc.); only occasionally is it the blood of the sacrifice (Lev. xvii. 11), or the money offering ("kesef kippurim," Ex. xxx. 15, 16; Num. xxxi. 50), that makes Atonement for the soul; while the act of Atonement is intended to cleanse the person from his guilt ("meḥaṭato," Lev. iv. 26, v. 6-10).

In the prophetic language, however, the original idea of the kofer offering had become lost, and, instead of the offended person (God), the offense or guilt became the object of the Atonement (compare Isa. vi. 7, Hebr.: "Thy sin ["tekuppar"] is atoned for [A. V., "purged"]"; Isa. xxvii. 9, Hebr.: "By this, therefore, shall the iniquity of Jacob be atoned for [A. V., "purged"]"; I Sam. iii. 14: "The iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for [A. V., "purged"] with sacrifice nor offering for ever"; Prov. xvi. 6: "By mercy and truth iniquity is atoned for [A. V., "purged"]"); and, consequently, instead of the priest as the offerer of the ransom, God Himself became the one who atoned (Deut. xxi. 8, "Kapper le'amka Israel," "Atone thou for thy people Israel" [Driver, Commentary, "Clear thou thy people"; A. V., "Be merciful, O Lord"]; compare Deut. xxxii. 43, "And he will atone for the land of his people [Driver, Commentary, "Clear from guilt"; A. V., "will be merciful unto his land, and to his people"]; see also Jer. xviii. 23; Ezek. xvi. 63; Ps. lxv. 4, lxxviii. 38, lxxix. 9; II Chron. xxx. 18).

Atonement Idea Spiritualized.

Thus there is in Scripture a successive spiritualization of the idea of Atonement. Following the common view, David says (I Sam. xxvi. 19): "If the Lord have stirred thee up against me, let him accept an offering [to appease the anger of God]." But while this cruder view of sacrifice underlies the form of worship among all Semites (see Robertson Smith, "Religion of the Semites," pp. 378-388), the idea of Atonement in the priestly Torah is based upon a realizing sense of sin as a breaking-away from God, and of the need of reconciliation with Him of the soul that has sinned. Every sin—whether it be "ḥeṭ." a straying away from the path of right, or "'avon," crookedness of conduct, or "pesha',"—rebellious transgression—is aseverance of the bond of life which unites the soul with its Maker. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die," says Ezek. xviii. 20 (compare Deut. xxx. 15-19; Ps. i. 6; Jer. ii. 13). It is the feeling of estrangement from God that prompts the sinner to offer expiatory sacrifices—not only to appease God's anger by a propitiatory gift, but also to place his soul in a different relation to Him. For this reason the blood, which to the ancients was the life-power or soul, forms the essential part of the sacrificial Atonement (see Lev. xvii. 11). This is the interpretation given by all the Jewish commentators, ancient and modern, on the passage; compare also Yoma 5a; Zeb. 6a, = "There is no Atonement except with blood," with the identical words in Heb. ix. 22, R. V.: "Apart from shedding of blood there is no remission [of sins]." The life of the victim was offered, not, as has been said, as a penalty in a juridical sense to avert Heaven's punishment, not to have man's sins laid upon it as upon the scapegoat of the Day of Atonement, and thus to have the animal die in his place, as Ewald thinks ("Alterthümer," p. 68), but as a typical ransom of "life by life"; the blood sprinkled by the priest upon the altar serving as the means of a renewal of man's covenant of life with God (see Trumbull, "The Blood Covenant," p. 247). In Mosaic ritualism the atoning blood thus actually meant the bringing about of a reunion with God, the restoration of peace between the soul and its Maker. Therefore, the expiatory sacrifice was accompanied by a confession of the sins for which it was designed to make Atonement (see Lev. v. 5, xvi. 21; Num. v. 7; compare Maimonides, "Yad," Teshubah, i. 1): "no atonement without confession of sin as the act of repentance," or as Philo ("De Victimis," xi.) says, "not without the sincerity of his repentance, not by words merely, but by works, the conviction of his soul which healed him from disease and restores him to good health."

Atonement for the Whole People.

The sacrificial Atonement, based as it was on the symbolic offering of life for life, assumed a more awful or somber character when a whole community was concerned in the blood-guiltiness to be atoned for. While, in the time of David, people in their terror had recourse to the pagan rite of human sacrifice (II Sam. xxi. 1-9), the Deuteronomic law prescribed in such a case a mild and yet rather uncommon form of expiation of the murder; namely, the breaking of the neck of a heifer as a substitute for the unknown murderer (Deut. xxi.1-9). To the same class belongs the goat in the annual Atonement ritual (Lev. xvi. 7-22), which was to carry away all the sins of the children of Israel into an uninhabited land and was sent out to Azazel in the wilderness, while another goat was killed as usual, and its blood sprinkled to make Atonement for the sanctuary, cleansing it of the uncleanness of all the transgressions of the children of Israel. In the case of the one goat, the doom emanating from unknown and therefore unexpiated sins of the people was to be averted; in the other case the wrath of God at the defilement of His sanctuary —which often implied the penalty of death (Num. i. 53)—was to be pacified. The very idea of God's holiness, which made either the approach to Mt. Sinai, the seat of God (Ex. xix. 12), the Ark (II Sam. vi. 7), or even the mere sight of God (Isa. vi. 5; Judges xiii. 22), bring death, rendered the ritual of the Day of Atonement the necessary culmination of the whole priestly system of expiation of sin.

Repentance and Atonement.

Yet, while the sacrificial rites were the only means of impressing upon the people God's holiness and the dreadful consequence of man's sinfulness, the idea of the Atonement assumed a far deeper and more spiritual aspect in the lives and teachings of the Prophets. Neither Hosea, Amos, and Micah, nor Isaiah recognizes the need of any means of reconciliation with God after estrangement by sin, other than repentance. "Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto him, Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously: so will we render as bullocks the offerings of our lips" (Hosea xiv. 2, Hebr.; compare Amos v. 22-24; Isa. i. 13-17, and the well-known passage, Micah vi. 6-8): "Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? . . . Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?").

Ezekiel.

But the prophet Ezekiel—a priest and therefore more deeply penetrated with the sense of sin and purity than other prophets—is not satisfied with the mere negation of ritualism. Repudiating, like Jeremiah, the idea held by his contemporaries that men undergo punishment on account of their fathers' sins, he lays the greater stress on the fact that the fruit of sin is death, and exhorts the people to cast away their sin and, returning to God, to live (Ezek. xviii. 4-32). For him Atonement is wrought by acquiring "a new heart and a new spirit" (ib. 31). In striking contrast with the other prophets, Ezekiel combines the belief in a complicated atoning ritual (as mapped out in Ezek. xl.-xlvi.) with the prophetic, hope in the redeeming power of God's spirit which shall cleanse the people from their impurities and endow them with "a new heart and a new spirit" (xxxvi. 26).

Moses.

In no one, however, does the most elaborate ritualism of the Atonement sacrifice appear so closely intertwined with the profoundest spiritual conception of God's atoning powers as in Moses the lawgiver himself. When the worship of the Golden Calf had provoked God's wrath to such a degree that He said to Moses, "Let me alone. . . . that I may consume them; and I will make of thee a great nation" (Ex. xxxii. 10), the latter, desirous of making an Atonement for their transgression, asked the Lord to forgive the people's sin, or else to blot Moses' own name out of His book (the book of life); and he persisted in imploring God's pardon even after He had said, "Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book," until finally, in answer to Moses' entreaty, the full glory of God, His compassionate mercy, His long-suffering and forgiving love, were revealed and Moses' prayer for the people's pardon was granted (Ex. xxxiv. 1-9;Num. xiv. 17-20). There Moses' own self-abnegating love, which willingly offered up his life for his people, disclosed the very qualities of God as far as they touch both the mystery of sin and the divine forgiveness, and this became the key to the comprehension of the Biblical idea of Atonement. The existence of sin would be incompatible with a good and holy God, but for His long-suffering, which waits for the sinner's return, and His condoning love, which turns man's failings into endeavors toward a better life. Each atoning sacrifice, therefore, must be understood both as an appeal to God's forgiving mercy, and as a monition to the sinner to repentance. "Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon" (Isa. lv. 7).

Substitutes for Sacrifice.

It was quite natural that, during the Exile, when no sacrifice could be offered, other means of obtaining forgiveness and peace should be resorted to. First of all, prayer rose in value and prominence. As Moses interceded for his people, praying and fasting for forty days and forty nights in order to obtain God's pardon (Ex. xxxii. 30; Deut. ix. 18, 25), so did every prophet possess the power of obtaining God's pardon by his prayer. Abraham, as a prophet, prayed for the life of Abimelech (Gen. xx. 7); Pharaoh, after a confession of his sin, asked Moses and Aaron to pray to God for the withdrawal of the plague of hail (Ex. ix. 27, 28); acknowledging their sin, the people ask Samuel to intercede for them (I Sam. xii. 19); and Jeremiah is expressly warned: "Pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them" (Jer. xi. 14; compare ib. xv. 1). See Prayer.

Fasting, Almsgiving, Suffering.

The great dedication prayer of King Solomon requires on the part of the sinner only a turning of the face in prayer in the direction of the Temple in order to meet with a response from heaven and with forgiveness of his sin (I Kings viii. 30, 33, 35, 48-50). The very idea of sacrifice is spurned by the Psalmist (Ps. l. 8-14, li. 12-20 [A. V. 11-19]): "Sacrifice and offering thou dost not desire" (xl. 7 [A. V. 6]); "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit" (li. 18 [A. V. 17]). Throughout the Psalms sincere repentance and prayer form the essentials to Atonement. Prayer is "as incense" and "the evening sacrifice" (Ps. cxli. 2); with the Lord is forgiveness, "He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities" (Ps. cxxx. 4-8). Fasting especially appears to have taken the place of sacrifice (Isa. lviii. 1-3; Zach. vii. 5). Another means of Atonement in place of sacrifice is offered to King Nebuchadnezzar by Daniel: "Break off thy sins by almsgiving ["ẓedakah" (A. V., "righteousness")], and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor" (Dan. iv. 24, Hebr. [A. V. 27]). Most efficacious seemed to be the atoning power of suffering experienced by the righteous during the Exile. This is the idea underlying the description of the suffering servant of God in Isa. liii. 4, 12, Hebr.:

"The man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. . . he hath borne our pains [A. V., "griefs"], and carried our sorrows. . . . But he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities . . ."

"The chastisement for [A. V., "of"] our peace was upon him; and with his stripes were we [A. V., "we are"] healed."

"All we like sheep had [A. V., "have"] gone astray; we had [A. V., "have"] turned every one to his own way."

"And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."

"He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken."

"He bare the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors."

Post-Biblical Atonement.

Whoever may have formed the subject of this tragic song—whether Zerubbabel or some other martyr of the Babylonian Exile—the seer, in embodying it in his message of comfort to his people, desired to assure them that of greater atoning power than all the Temple sacrifices was the suffering of the elect ones who were to be servants and witnesses of the Lord (Isa. xlii. 1-4, xlix. 1-7, l. 6). This idea of the atoning power of the suffering and death of the righteous finds expression also in IV Macc. vi. 27, xvii. 21-23; M. Ḳ. 28a; Pesiḳ. xxvii. 174b; Lev. R. xx.; and formed the basis of Paul's doctrine of the atoning blood of Christ (Rom. iii. 25). It was the inspiration of the heroic martyrdom of the Ḥasidim or Essenes (Ps. xxix. 2, cxvi. 15; Philo, "Quod Omnis Probus Liber," § xiii.). The principle of Atonement by sacrificial blood was, on the whole, adhered to during the second Temple. Job's intercession on behalf of his friends is accompanied by their burnt offering, which is to atone for their sins (Job xlii. 8; compare i. 5). In the Book of Jubilees Noah and Abraham make Atonement for the earth and for man by means of sacrificial blood (vi. 2, vii. 3, xvi. 22). In Sibyllines iii. 626 et seq., the heathen are told to offer hecatombs of bulls and rams to obtain God's pardon for their sins (compare Ps. lxxvi. 12; Isa. lvi. 7); but in Sibyllines iv. 29, 161, the Essene view, deprecating sacrifice, seems to be expressed. Nevertheless, the conception of Atonement underwent a great change. The men of the Great Synagogue—disciples of the Prophets and imbued with the spirit of the Psalms—had made prayer an essential element of the Temple service; and whereas the Ḥasidean liturgy, accentuating divine forgiveness and human repentance, took little notice of sacrifice, the Levites' song and the prayers introduced as parts of the worship lent to the whole sacrificial service a more symbolic character. Accordingly, each of the two lambs ("kebasim") offered every morning and evening as a burnt-offering (Num. xxviii. 3, 4) was declared by the school of Shammai to be "kobesh," intended "to subdue" the sins of Israel (see Micah vii. 19: "Yikbosh 'avonotenu" = "He will subdue our iniquities," A. V.) during the year until the Day of Atonement should do its atoning work. By the school of Hillel the lamb was to be "kobes," "to wash Israel clean" from sin; see Isa. i. 18; Jer. ii. 22; Pesiḳ. vi. 61b; Pesiḳ. R. 16 (ed. Friedmann, p. 84) and 81, p. 195; and more especially the notes by Buber and Friedmann, ad loc. Compare also the expression "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John i. 29). "The morning sacrifice atoned for the sins committed during the previous night, the afternoon sacrifice for the sins committed in the daytime" (Tan., Pinḥas, 12).

The whole idea of sin was, in fact, deepened. It was regarded rather as a breaking-away from theoriginal sinless state of man as the child of God—which state must be restored—than as a wrong committed against God needing covering up. The expressions "temimim" (spotless) and "ben shanah" (of the first year) (Num. xxviii. 3), suggested the thought that sin-laden man should become "spotless like a child of one year" (Pesiḳ. R. l.c.; compare Shab. 89b). Of course, as a symbolic rite, this mode of cleansing oneself from sin could be, and actually was, replaced by daily baptism and fasting such as were practised by the Ḥasidim—those heroes of prayer who in time of national distress made intercession for the people far more effectively than did the priests in the Temple (Josephus, "Ant." xiv. 2, § 1; xviii. 8, § 4; compare Ta'anit 19a, 20a, 23a).

Still the words of Simon the Just, "The world rests on the Law, worship, and works of benevolence" (Ab. i. 2), retained their validity likewise for the Ḥasidim, who felt the need of an atoning sacrifice (Ned. 10a; Ker. vi. 3). It was especially owing to the assistance offered by the "ma'amadot," the chosen representatives of the people, with their fasts and prayers, that the daily sacrifice assumed a more spiritual character, so that to it was applied the passage (Jer. xxxiii. 25): "If my covenant be not maintained day and night [by the service] I would not have made the ordinances of heaven and earth" (Meg. 31b; Ta'anit 27b).

After the Fall of the Temple.

The cessation of sacrifice, in consequence of the destruction of the Temple, came, therefore, as a shock to the people. It seemed to deprive them of the divine Atonement. Hence many turned ascetics, abstaining from meat and wine (Tosef., Soṭah, xv. 11; Ab. R. N. iv.); and Joshua ben Hananiah, who cried out in despair, "Wo unto us! What shall atone for us?" only expressed the sentiment of all his contemporaries (IV Esd. ix. 36: "We are lost on account of our sins"). It was then that Johanan b. Zakkai, pointing to Hosea vi. 6 (R. V.), "I desire mercy and not sacrifice," to Prov. xvi. 6, "By mercy and truth iniquity is purged [atoned for]," and to Ps. lxxxix. 3 (A. V. 2), "The world is built upon mercy," declared works of benevolence to have atoning powers as great as those of sacrifice.

Christian Idea of Atonement.

This view, however, did not solve satisfactorily for all the problem of sin—the evil rooted in man from the very beginning, from the fall of Adam (IV Esd. iii. 20, viii. 118). Hence a large number of Jews accepted the Christian faith in the Atonement by the blood "shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matt. xxvi. 28; Heb. x. 12; Col. i. 20) or in Jesus as "the Lamb of God" (John i. 29; Apoc. of John vii. 14, and elsewhere). It was perhaps in opposition to this movement that the Jewish teachers, after the hope for the rebuilding of the Temple in the second century had ended in failure and wo, strove to develop and deepen the Atonement idea. R. Akiba, in direct opposition to the Christian Atonement by the blood of Jesus, addressed his brethren thus: "Happy are ye, Israelites. Before whom do you cleanse yourselves, and who cleanses you? Your Father in heaven; for it is said: 'I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness . . . will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you'" (Ezek. xxxvi. 26); and again it is said that the Lord, "the hope of Israel" (Jer. xiv. 8), is also a "fountain of water" (a play on the Hebrew word "miḳweh"). "As the fountain of water purifies the unclean, so does God purify Israel" (Yoma viii. 9). This doctrine, which does away with all mediatorship of either saint, high priest, or savior, became the leading idea of the Jewish Atonement.

Elements of Atonement.

Accordingly, Atonement in Jewish theology as developed by the Rabbis of the Talmud, has for its constituent elements: (a) on the part of God, fatherly love and forgiving mercy; (b) on the part of man, repentance and reparation of wrong. The following exposition will serve to enlighten the reader on these elements:

(a) While God's quality of justice ("middat hadin"), which punishes the wrong-doing, would leave no hope for man, since "there is not a righteous man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not" (Eccl. vii. 20, R. V.), God's quality of mercy ("middat haraḥamin") has from the very beginning provided repentance as the means of salvation (Gen. R. i, xii.; Pesiḳ. xxv. 158b; Pesiḳ. R. 44; Pes. 54a.) "Thou hast mercy upon all; thou condonest the sins of men in order that they should amend" (Wisdom xi. 23). "Wherever there are sins and righteous deeds set against each other in the scale of justice, God inclines it toward mercy"(Pesiḳ. xxvi. 167a).

Divine Mercy.

Far from being merely judicial compensation for an outward act, as Weber ("System der Alt-Synagogalen Theologie," pp. 252, 300-304) asserts, the divine mercy is expressly represented by Hillel as working in favor of pardoning those who have no merit: "He who is plenteous in mercy turns the scale of judgment toward mercy" (Tosef., Sanh. xiii. 3; R. H. 17a). This quality of mercy is sure to prevail as soon as it is appealed to by the mention of the thirteen attributes with which the Lord appeared to Moses in response to his prayer for forgiveness after the sin of the Golden Calf (R. H. 17b). No matter how vile the sinner—be he as wicked as Manasseh or as Ahab—the gate of repentance is open to him (Pesiḳ. xxv. 160b, 162a).

(Pesiḳ. xxv. 158b; Yer. Mak. ii. 31d).

"Human Wisdom, when asked, 'What shall be done with the sinner?' replieth, 'Evil pursueth sinners' (Prov. xiii. 21). Prophecy, when asked, 'What shall be done with the sinner?' replieth, 'The soul that sinneth, it shall die' (Ezek. xviii. 4). The Law, when asked, 'What shall be done with the sinner?' replieth, 'Let him bring a guilt-offering and the priest shall atone for him' (Lev. i. 4 [Hebr.]). God himself, when asked, 'What shall be done with the sinner?' replieth, 'Let him repent, and he will be atoned for; was it not said: "Good and upright is the Lord: therefore will he teach sinners in the way of repentance" (Psalms xxv. 8). For, my children, what do I require of you? "Seek me and live"'"

Upon these ideas, which can be traced through the entire Apocryphal literature, was based the liturgy of the fast-days, and that of the Day of Atonement in particular; they are probably best expressed in the Ne'ilah prayer of the latter, which, going much further back than the second century (seeYoma 87b, where Rab of Babylonia and R. Johanan of Palestine refer to some portions of it), contains such sentences as the following:

"Thou offerest thy hand to transgressors, and Thy right hand is stretched out to receive the repentant" (Pes. 119a). "Not in reliance upon our merits do we lay our supplications before Thee, O Lord of all the world, but trusting in Thy great mercy. Thou dost not find delight in the perdition of the world, but Thou hast pleasure in the return of the wicked that they may live."

The saying of the Rabbis, "Higher is the station of the sinner who repenteth than that of him who has never sinned" (Ber. 34b; see Pes. 119a; Luke xv. 10), emanates from the same principle of God's redeeming grace:

(Pesiḳ. ib. 162b).

"God says, 'Open for me a gate no wider than a needle's eye, and I will open for you a gate through which camps and fortifications can pass'" (Pesiḳ. xxv. 163b). "When the angels wanted to shut the windows of heaven against the prayer of Menasseh, saying, 'Can a man who set an idol in the Temple repent?' God said, 'If I receive him not in his repentance, I shut the door upon all penitents'; and He bored a hole under His throne of Glory to hear his supplication"

Repentance.

(b) On the part of man Atonement is obtained in the first place by repentance, which consists of an outward Confession Of Sins ("widdui," Lev. v. 5; xvi. 21) prescribed for the high priest on the Day of Atonement (Yoma 36b), and for the criminal before his execution, to expiate his sins (Sanh. vi. 2); and recited on penitential and fast days and by proselytes at the time of their admission into the Jewish fold (see "Prayers of Asenath," xiii.-xiv.) also by the dying ("Ebel Zuṭṭarti," in Brüll's "Jahrb." i. 11). This is to be the expression of self-reproach, shame, and contrition. "They must feel shame throughout their whole soul and change their ways; reproaching themselves for their errors and openly confessing all their sins with purified souls and minds, so as to exhibit sincerity of conscience, and having also their tongues purified so as to produce improvement in their hearers" (Philo, "De Execratione," viii.). The verse, "He who sacrifices thank-offerings [A. V., "praise"] glorifies me" (Ps. 1. 23), is taken by the Rabbis as signifying, "He who sacrifices his evil desire while offering his confession of sin ["zobeaḥ todah"] honors God more than if he were praising Him in the world that now is and in the world to come" (Sanh. 43b). "He who feels bitter shame and compunction over his sins is sure of obtaining pardon" (Ber. 12b; Hag. 5a).

Reparation of Wrong.

But the main stress is laid upon the undoing of the wrong done. "No sin that still cleaves to the hand of the sinner can be atoned for; it is as if a man would cleanse himself in the water while holding the contaminating object in his hand; therefore it is said, 'He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy" (Prov. xxviii. 13; Ta'anit 16a). If a man steal a beam and use it in building, he must tear down the building in order to return the stolen thing to its owner: thus of the men of Nineveh it is said, "Let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in [cleaves to] their hands" (Jonah iii. 8; Yer. Ta'anit ii. 65b; Bab. B. Ḳ. 66b).

Further, repentance consists in abandoning the old ways, and in a change of heart; for it is said "Rend your heart and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God" (Joel ii. 13); that is to say, "If you tear your heart, you need not tear your garments over a loss of sons and daughters" (Pesiḳ. xxv. 161b; Yer. Ta'anit, l.c.). "They poured out their hearts like water before God" (Yer. Ta'anit ii. 65d). "He who says, 'I will sin and repent; I will sin again and repent again,' will never be allowed time to repent" (Yoma viii. 9). Repentance rests on selfhumiliation. "Adam was too proud to humiliate himself, and was therefore driven from Paradise" (Num. R. xiii. 3). "Cain who humbled himself was pardoned" (Pesiḳ. xxv. 160ab; Gen. R. xi., xxii.). "Great is the power of repentance; for it reaches up to the throne of God; it brings healing (Hosea xiv. 5 [A. V. 4]); it turns sins resulting from ill-will into mere errors (according to Hosea xiv, 2 [A. V. 1]); nay, into incentives to meritorious conduct" (Yoma 86ab). "He who sincerely repents is doing as much as he who builds temple and altar and brings all the sacrifices" (Lev. R. vii.; Sanh. 43b).

Prayer, Fasting, and Charity.

Hand in hand with repentance goes prayer. "It takes the place of sacrifice" (Pesiḳ. xxv. 165b, according to Hosea xiv. 3 [A. V. 2]). When God appeared to Moses after the sin of the Golden Calf, He taught him how to offer prayer on behalf of the sinladen community (R. H. 17b). That prayer is the true service ('Abodah) is learned from Dan. iv. 24, there having been no other service in Babylonia (Pirḳe R. El. xvi.; Ab. R. N. iv.). "As the gates of repentance are always open like the sea, so are [holds R. 'Anan] the gates of prayer" (Pesiḳ. xxv. 157b).

But repentance and prayer are as a rule combined with fasting as a token of contrition, as is learned from the action of King Ahab recounted in I Kings xxi. 27, of the men of Nineveh referred to in Jonah iii. 7, and of Adam in Vita Adæ et Evæ, 6; Pirḳe R. El. xx.; 'Er. 18b. Fasting was regarded like "offering up the blood and fat of the animal life upon the altar of God" (Ber. 17a; compare Pesiḳ., ed. Buber, p. 165b, note). With these is, as a rule, connected charity, which is "more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice" (Prov. xxi. 3). On every fastday charity was given to the poor (Sanh. 35a; Ber. 6b). "Prayer, charity, and repentance, these three together, avert the impending doom" (Yer. Ta'anit ii. 65b). "Repentance and works of benevolence are together the paracletes [pleaders] for man before God's throne (Shab. 32a), and a shield against punishment" (Abot iv. 11).

Suffering as Means of Atonement.

Another thing considered by the Rabbis as a means of Atonement is suffering. Suffering is more apt than sacrifice to win God's favor and to atone for man (Mek., Yitro, 10; Sifre, Deut. 32; Ber. 5a). Poverty also, in so far as it reduces man's physical strength, has atoning power (Pesiḳ. xxv. 165a). Similar power was ascribed to exile (Sanh. 37b); also to the destruction of the Temple, which was held as a security—a play on the word —for Israel's life (Gen. R. xlii.; Ex. R. xxxi.; Lev. R. xi.). Above all, death atones for sin (Sifre, Num. 112; Mek., Yitro, 7). "Let my death make atonement for all my sins," say men when dying or in peril (Ber. 60a; Sanh. vi. 2). Particularly the deathof the righteous atones for the sins of the people. "Like the sanctuary, he is taken as security ["mashkon"] for the life of the community" (Tan., Wayaḳhel 9; Ex. R. xxxv. 4; Lev. R. ii.).

Suffering or Death of the Righteous.

That the death of the righteous atones is learned from II Sam. xxi. 14, which says that after the burial of Saul and Jonathan "God was entreated for the land" (Pesiḳ. xxvii. 174b). "Where there are no righteous men in a generation to atone for the people, innocent school-children are taken away" (Shab. 33b). So also does the suffering of the righteous atone; as in the case of Ezekiel (Sanh. 39a) and Job (Ex. R. xxi.). R. Judah haNasi's suffering saved his contemporaries from calamities (Gen. R. 96). God is the King whose wrath is, in Prov. xvi. 14, referred to "as messengers of death," and the wise man who makes Atonement for it is Moses, who pacifies Him by prayer (Ex. R. xliii.). The death of Israel at the hands of his persecutors is an atoning sacrifice (Sifre, Deut. 333).

Study of the Torah.

Atoning powers are ascribed also to the study of the Law, which is more effective than sacrifice, especially when combined with good works (R. H. 18a; Yeb. 105a; Lev. R. xxv.). The table from which the poor received their share atones for man's sins in place of the altar (see Altar); the wife being the priestess who makes Atonement for the house (Ber. 55a; Tan., Wayishlaḥ, vi.). The meritorious lives of the Patriarchs especially possess a great atoning power (Ex. R. xlix.). The Holy Land itself has atoning qualities for those who inhabit it or are buried in its soil, as is learned from Deut. xxxii. 43, which verse is interpreted "He will make His land an Atonement for His people" (see Sifre, Deut. 333; Gen. R. xcvi.; Ket. 111a; Yer. Kil. ix. 32c). On the other hand, the descent of the wicked (heathen) into Gehenna for eternal doom is, according to Isa. xliii. (A. V.), an atoning sacrifice for the people of Israel (compare Prov. xxi. 18). "I gave Egypt for thy ransom [kofer], Ethiopia and Seba for thee" (Sifre, Deut. 333; Ex. R. xi.).

Atonement Is Regeneration.

The whole idea underlying Atonement, according to the rabbinical view, is regeneration—restoration of the original state of man in his relation to God, called "teḳanah" (R. H. 17a; 'Ar. 15b). "As vessels of gold or of glass, when broken, can be restored by undergoing the process of melting, thus does the disciple of the law, after having sinned, find the way of recovering his state of purity by repentance" (R. Akiba in Ḥag. 15a). Therefore he who assumes a high public office after the confession of his sins in the past is "made a new creature, free from sin like a child" (Sanh. 14a; compare Midr. Sam. xvii., "Saul was as one year old"; I Sam. xiii. 1, A. V. "reigned one year'" R. V. "was thirty years old"). In fact, the Rabbis declare that the scholar, the bridegroom, and the Nasi, as well as the proselyte, on entering their new station in life, are freed from all their sins, because, having by confession of sins, fasting, and prayer prepared themselves for the new state, they are, as it were, born anew (Yer. Bik. iii. 65c, d; Midr. Sam. l.c.). This is the case also with the change of name or locality when combined with change of heart (Pesiḳ. xxx. 191a; R. H. 16b). The following classical passage elucidates the rabbinical view as taught by R. Ishmael (of the second century; Yoma, 86a):

(compare Mishnah Shebu. i. 1-6).

"There are four different modes of Atonement. If a man fails to fulfil the duty incumbent upon him in case of a sin of omission, for him repentance suffices, as Jeremiah (iii. 22) says, 'Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backsliding.' If he has transgressed a prohibitory law—a sin of commission—the Day of Atonement atones: of him the Löw says, 'On this day He shall atone for your sins to cleanse you' (Lev. xvi. 30). If he be guilty of crimes such as entail the death penalty and the like, repentance and the Day of Atone ment can not expiate them unless suffering works as a purifying factor: to this the Psalmist refers when he says, 'I will visit their transgressions with the rod and their iniquities with stripes' (Ps. lxxxix. 33 [A. V. 32]). And if the crime amount to a desecration of the name of God and the doing of great harm to the people at large, nothing but death can be the penalty; as Isaiah (xxii. 14) says, 'Surely this iniquity shall not be atoned for you [A. V. "purged from you"] till ye die, saith the Lord God of Hosts'"

Whether the Day of Atonement atoned only for sins committed in error and ignorance or involuntarily (Heb. ix. 7), or also for those committed wilfully with a high hand (Num. xv. 26, 30), whether only after due repentance or without it, is discussed by the Rabbis (Shebu. 13a; Yoma 85b); and the resulting opinion is that just as the scapegoat atoned for all the sins of the nation, whether committed involuntarily or wilfully (Shebu. i. 6), so also does the Day of Atonement, true repentance having the power of turning all sins into mere errors, such as are forgiven to the whole congregation according to Num. xv. 26. All the greater emphasis is laid on sincere repentance, without which the Day of Atonement is inefficient (Maimonides, "Yad," Teshubah, i. 3).

Annual Redintegration of Man.

All the various elements effecting Atonement are in a marked degree combined in the Day of Atonement, to make it the occasion of the great annual redintegration of man. It is called "Shabbat Shabbaton," the holiest of rest-days as the Shabbath of the Sabbatical month (Lev. xxiii. 32), because it was to prepare the people for the festival of harvest joy, the Succoth feast at the close of the agricultural season (Ex. xxiii. 16, xxxiv. 22; Lev. xxiii. 34, xxv. 9, 10; Ezek. xl. 1). Whereas Ezekiel (xlv. 18-20) intended to have the first and the seventh day of the first month rendered days of Atonement for the year, the Mosaic law ordained that the new moon of the seventh month should be a Sabbath (Lev. xxiii. 24), heralding forth with the trumpet in more solemn sounds than on other new-moon days (Num. x. 10) the holy month; and this was to be followed by the day which was to consecrate both the nation and the sanctuary by imposing atoning rites. These rites were of a two-fold character.

Day of Atonement.

Atonement for the people was made in a form without any parallel in the entire sacrificial system, Lev. xvi. 7-22, or Deut. xxi. 4, perhaps excepted. A scapegoat, upon which the high priest laid the sins of the people, was sent forth into the wilderness to Azazel (a demon,according to Ibn Ezra on Lev. xvi. 10, related to the goatlike demons, or satyrs, referred to in Lev. xvii. 7; compare Yoma 67b); and its arrival at the rock of Ḥadudo,where it was cast down the precipice, was signalized as the moment of the granting of pardon to the people by the waving of a wisp of snow-white wool in place of one of scarlet, over the Temple gate, crowds of young people waiting on the hills of Jerusalem to celebrate the event by dancing (Yoma iv. 1-8; Ta'anit iv. 8).

Obviously this primitive rite was not of late origin, as is alleged by modern critics, but was a concession rather to ancient Semitic practise, and its great popularity is shown by the men of rank accompanying it, by the cries with which the crowd followed it, and by tales of a miraculous character related in the Mishnah and the Gemara (Yoma 66a, 67a, 68b). On the other hand, the sprinkling by the high priest of the blood of the bullock, the ram, and the second goat, consecrated to the Lord, was in full keeping with the usual Temple ritual, and distinguished itself from the sacrificial worship of other days only by the ministrations of the high priest, who, clad in his fine linen garb, offered the incense and sprinkled blood of each sin-offering upon the Holy of Holies and the veil of the Holy Place for the purification of the whole sanctuary as well as of his own household and the nation. The impressiveness of these functions, minutely described in Mishnah (Yoma ii.-vii.), has been vividly pictured by Ben Sira, whose words in Ecclus. (Sirach) 1. were embodied in the synagogue liturgy at the close of the 'Abodah. But while, according to Scripture, the high priest made Atonement (Lev. xvi. 30), tradition transferred the atoning power to God, as was expressed in the high priest's prayer commencing, "Kapper na" (O Lord, atone Thou for the iniquities, the sins, and the transgressions," Yoma iii. 8, iv. 2, vi. 2); interpreting the verse (Lev. xvi. 30): "Through that day He, the Lord, shall atone for you" (Yoma iii. 8; Sifra, Aḥare Mot, viii.).

Great stress was laid on the cloud of incense in which the high priest was enveloped when entering the Holy of Holies; and many mystic or divinatory powers were ascribed to him as he stood there alone in the darkness, as also to the prayer he offered, to the Foundation Stone ("Eben Shetiyah"), on which he placed the censer, and to the smoke of the sacrifice (Yoma, 53a, b et seq.; Tan., Aḥare 3; Lev. R. xx., xxi.; compare Book of Jubilees xii. 16). The prayer offered by the high priest (according to Yer. Yoma v. 2; Tan., 'Aḥare 4; Lev. R. xx.) was that the year might be blessed with rain, heat, and dew, and might yield plenty, prosperity, independence, and comfort to the inhabitants of the land.

In the course of time the whole Temple ritual was taken symbolically, and more stress was laid on the fasting, the prayers, and the supplications, to which the people devoted the whole day, entreating pardon for their sins, and imploring God's mercy. This at least is the view expressed by Philo ("De Septenario," 23), even if it was not yet shared by the people in general, when the Epistle to the Hebrews (ix.) and that of Barnabas (vii.) were written. It was after the destruction of the Temple, and through the synagogue, that the Day of Atonement assumed its high spiritual character as the great annual regenerator of Jewish life in connection with New-Year's Day.

Day of Sealing God's Decree.

Down to the first century, in Apocalyptical as well as in New Testament writings, the idea of the divine judgment was mainly eschatological in character, as deciding the destiny of the soul after death rather than of men on earth. But under the influence of Babylonian mythology, which spoke of the beginning of the year—"zagmuk"—on the first day of Nisan, as the time when the gods decided the destiny of life (Jensen, "Kosmologie," pp. 84-86, 238), the idea developed also in Jewish circles that on the first of Tishri, the sacred New-Year's Day and the anniversary of Creation, man's doings were judged and his destiny was decided; and that on the tenth of Tishri the decree of heaven was sealed (Tosef., R. H. i. 13; R. H. 11a, 16a), a view still unknown to Philo ("De Septenario," 22) and disputed by some rabbis (R. H. 16a). Thus, the first ten days of Tishri grew to be the Ten Penitential Days of the year, intended to bring about a perfect change of heart, and to make Israel like new-born creatures (Pesiḳ. xxiii., xxiv.; Lev. R. xxix.), the culmination being reached on the Day of Atonement, when religion's greatest gift, God's condoning mercy, was to be offered to man. It was on this day that Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the Tables of the Law received in token of God's pardon of the sin of the golden calf, while the whole congregation fasted and prayed. The Day of Atonement was thenceforth made the annual day of divine forgiveness of sin, when Satan, the accuser, failed to find blame in the people of Israel, who on that day appeared pure from sin like the angels (see Seder 'Olam R. vi.; Tan., Ki Tissa, 4; Pirḳe R. El. xlvi.). According to Pirḳe R. El. xxix., the circumcision of Abraham took place on the Day of Atonement, and the blood which dropped down on the very spot where the altar afterward stood in the temple on Moriah is still before the eyes of God to serve as means of Atonement.

A Day of Confiding Joy.

Far from being the means of "pacifying an angry God," as suggested by Cheyne ("Encyc. Bibl." s.v.), or from leaving a feeling of uncertainty and dread of suspense concerning God's pardoning love in the heart, as Weber ("Altsynagogale Theologie," p. 321) maintains, these ten days are the days of special grace when the Shekinah is nigh, and God longs to grant pardon to His people (Pesiḳ. xxiv.). The Day of Atonement is the "one day" prepared from the beginning to unite the world divided between the light of goodness and the darkness of sin (Gen. R. ii., iii.), "a day of great joy to God" (Tanna debe Eliyahu R.i.). "Not depressed and in somber garments as the suppliant appears before the earthly judge and ruler should Israel on New-Year's Day and on the Day of Atonement stand before the Ruler and the Judge on high, but with joy and in white garments betokening a cheerful and confiding spirit" (Yer. R. H. i. 57b). Only later generations regarded these white garments, the Sargenes—in which also the dead were dressed in order to appear before the Judge of all flesh full of gladsome hope—as shrouds, and considered them as reminders of death (Yer. R. H. l.c.; Eccl. R. ix. 7; Gen. R. l.c.; Brueck, "Pharisäische Volkssitten," 1368). "The firstday of Succoth is called the first day [Lev. xxiii. 35] because on it a new record begins, the sins of the year having been wiped off on Atonement Day" (Tan., Emor., 22). The sins of the preceding year therefore, unless they have been repeated, should not be confessed anew (Tosef., Yoma, v. 15; Yoma 86b; Ex. R. lii.).

(Yoma viii. 9).

"He who says, 'I will sin, and the Day of Atonement shall make atonement for me,' for him the Day of Atonement is of no avail. Only such sins as concern man's relation to God will be pardoned. Sins committed by man against his fellow man are pardoned only after his fellow man's pardon has been obtained; for it is said: 'From all your sins before the Lord ye shall be cleansed' (Lev. xvi. 30), thus excluding sins before man"

Both Fast-Day and Festal Day.

The Day of Atonement has thus a double character; it is both a fast-day and a festal day. It comprises the elements of the great fast-day of the year, on which are prohibited all those things from which the people abstained on any other public fast-day, such as eating and drinking, bathing and anointing, the wearing of sandals or shoes, etc. (Yoma 76b and 77a). Another mode of affliction or penitence, however, is prohibited (Yoma 74b; Sifra, Aḥare, vii.). There were likewise embodied in the liturgy of the Day of Atonement all those forms of supplications and portions of the liturgy used on public fast-days (Ta'anit iv. 1), including the most characteristic portion recited at sunset, Ne'ilah ("the closing of the gates of the sun"). Of these the confession of sins forms the oldest and most prominent part of each portion of the day's liturgy, the alphabetical order in the catalogue of sins having originated in Ḥasidic circles (Rom. i. 29 et seq.; Didache v.; Shab. 54a) rather than in the Temple liturgy (Sifra i.; Yoma iii. 8). This is to be followed by the "Seliḥot," the appeals to God's forgiveness as expressed in the thirteen Attributes of God as He appeared to Moses on Sinai, promising "Salaḥti," "I have forgiven" (Num. xiv. 18-20). The reading from the Law of the chapter on the Atonement sacrifice in Lev. xvi., in the morning portion, is followed by the reading from the prophet Isaiah (lvii. 15-lviii. 14) as Hafṭarah, which has been significantly chosen to impress the worshipers with the lesson that the external rite of fasting is valueless without the works of righteousness and beneficence.

Differing in this respect from any other fast-day, and resembling all Sabbath and festival days, the celebration of the Day of Atonement begins in the synagogue on the preceding evening, in conformity with Lev. xxiii. 32 (Yoma 81b). It probably did so during the time of the Temple (Yoma 19b), but not in the Temple itself (Yoma i. 2). This evening service—called Kol-Nidre from its opening formula, which canceled rash vows—with its strongly marked melodies and songs, assumed in the course of time a very impressive character. On the Day of Atonement itself, the noon or "musaf" (additional) service—presenting as its chief feature the 'Abodah, a graphic description of the whole Atonement service of the Temple—is followed by the afternoon or "Minḥah" service, which begins with the reading from the Law of the chapter on incestuous marriages, with a side-reference, as it were, to Azazel, the seducer to lewdness (Meg. 31a; Tos. ad loc.; Yoma 67b), and as Hafṭarah, the Book of Jonah, containing the great lesson of God's forgiving love extended to Gentiles as well as to Jews. This is followed by the Ne'ilah service, in which the main ideas of the day are especially emphasized—repentance conditioning forgiveness, and God's sealing the decree of man for the ensuing year. The service ends with a solemn invocation of God's name, the Shema', and the sevenfold exclamation, "The Lord, He is God" (compare I Kings xviii. 39), forming the climax of the continuous devotions of the day. As a signal of the close of the sacred day, so that the people may know that they can work or eat (Tos. to Shab. 114b), or for other reasons (see Kol Bo, lxx.; Shulḥan 'Aruk, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 623, 6; Ṭur Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 624), the trumpet is blown once, or, as in Palestine, four times—"Teḳi'ah, Shebarim, Teru'ah, Teḳi'ah" (see Maḥzor Vitry, pp. 345, 356; Abudrahim, "Seder Tef. Yom Kippurim."). Either in the Kol-Nidre service, as in Jerusalem, before the main prayers (Schwartz, "Das Heilige Land," p. 336), or after the morning service (Maḥzor Vitry, p. 353; Shulḥan 'Aruk, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 621, 6), the dead are commemorated, and gifts are offered for their salvation (see Tan., Haazinu, i. ed. Vienna, 1853, p. 28; Pesiḳ. xxvii. 174b, and Roḳeaḥ, quoted in Beth Joseph to Ṭur Oraḥ Ḥayyim, l.c.)—a custom which in the Reform liturgy has been made a more prominent part of the service. In preparation for the Day of Atonement it is usual to offer gifts of charity, according to Prov. x. 2, "Righteousness [charity] delivereth from death," and to go to the cemetery to visit the graves of the dead, a practise taken over from the fast-days (Ta'anit 16a; Yer. Ta'anit ii. 65a).

The custom of bringing candles to burn in the synagogue the whole day, in memory of the dead, may have originated in the desire to light up the otherwise dark synagogue for the recital of prayers and psalms by the pious during the entire night. This is the one view expressed in Kol Bo lxviii.; but other reasons of a mystic nature are given for it there as well as in Maḥzor Vitry, p. 340; Abudrahim, l.c.; and Shulḥan 'Aruk, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 610.

Very significant, as showing a deep-rooted desire for some form of atoning sacrifice, is the custom—known already in the time of the Geonim, and found in Asia and Africa (see Benjamin II., "Acht Yahre in Asien und Africa," 1858, p. 273), as well as in Europe (Asheri Yoma viii. 23; Maḥzor Vitry, p. 339; Kol Bo lxviii.; Shulḥan 'Aruk, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 605), though disapproved by Naḥmanides, Solomon ben Adret, and Joseph Caro (Ṭur Oraḥ Ḥayyim, l.c.)—of swinging over one's head, on or before the eve of Atonement Day, a fowl, usually a rooster or hen; solemnly pronouncing the same to be a vicarious sacrifice to be killed in place of the Jew or Jewess who might be guilty of death by his or her sin. Fishes and plants, also (see Rashi, Shab. 81b), perhaps originally only these, were used in the gaonic time. The slaughtered animal or its equivalent was then given to the poor (see Kapparot). Another custom of similar character is the receiving on the eve of Atonement Day, either in the synagogue or at home—the latter is usually the place in Jerusalem (see Schwartz, l.c.)—of thirty-nine stripes at the hand of a neighboras penalty for one's sins, according to Deut. xxv. 3, while reciting the Confession of Sins. (See Maḥzor Vitry, p. 344; Kol Bo, lxviii.; Shulḥan 'Aruk, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 607.) According to Benjamin II., l.c., people in Persia strip themselves to the loins in order to receive these stripes on the naked body (see Malḳut Schlagen). This is followed by bathing, so that man may appear pure in both body and soul before God on "the great day."

The Karaite Day of Atonement with its liturgy is to a great extent similar to that of the Rabbinite Jews. It also begins half an hour before sunset of the preceding day, and lasts until half an hour after sunset of the day itself (see Karaites).

Day of Atonement in the Synagogue (Center). Rites on Preceding Day (Surrounding). 1. "Malḳut." 2. "Teshubah." 3. Visiting the graves. 4. "Ẓedaḳah." in graveyard. 5. "Kapparah."(From Bodenschatz, "Kirchliche Verfassung.)

The Samaritans, also, adopted the custom of preparing for the day by a purificative bath and of spending the night and the day in the synagogue with prayer and fasting, singing hymns, and reading from the Law (See Samaritans).

Bibliography:

Hamburger, R. B. T. i., under Versöhnung und Versöhnungstag;

Zunz, S. P. pp. 76-80;

Sachs, Die Religiöse Poesic der Juden in Spanien, 1845, pp. 172 et seq.;

Brueck, Pharisäische Volkssitten, 1855, pp. 135-146.

ATONEMENT.—The word ‘atonement’ (at-onement), in English, denotes the making to be at one, or reconciling, of persons who have been at variance. In OT usage it signifies that by which sin is ‘covered’ or ‘expiated,’ or the wrath of God averted. Thus, in EV [Note: English Version.] , of the Levitical sacrifices (Lev 1:4; Lev 4:21; Lev 4:26; Lev 4:31; Lev 4:35 etc.), of the half-shekel of ransom-money (Exo 30:15-16), of the intercession of Moses (Exo 32:30), of the zeal of Phinehas (Num 25:13), etc. In the NT the word occurs once in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] as tr. [Note: translate or translation.] of the Gr. word katallagç, ordinarily and in RV [Note: Revised Version.] rendered ‘reconciliation’ (Rom 5:11). The ‘reconciliation’ here intended, however, as the expression ‘received,’ and also Rom 5:10 (‘reconciled to God through the death of his Son’) show, is that made by the death of Christ on behalf of sinners (cf. Col 1:20 ‘having made peace through the blood of his cross’). In both OT and NT the implication is that the ‘reconciliation’ or ‘making-at-one’ of mankind and God is effected through expiation or propitiation. In its theological use, therefore, the word ‘atonement’ has come to denote, not the actual state of reconciliation into which believers are introduced through Christ, whose work is the means to this end, but the reconciling act itself—the work accomplished by Christ in His sufferings and death for the salvation of the world.

i. In the Old Testament.—In tracing the Scripture teaching on the subject of atonement, it is desirable to begin with the OT, in which the foundations of the NT doctrine are laid. Here several lines of preparation are to be distinguished, which, as OT revelation draws to its close, tend to unite.

1. The most general, but indispensable, preparation in the OT lies in its doctrines of the holiness, righteousness, and grace of God; also, of the sin and guilt of man. God’s holiness (including in this His ethical purity, His awful elevation above the creature, and His zeal for His own honour) is the background of every doctrine of atonement. As holy, God abhors sin, and cannot but in righteousness eternally react against it. His grace shows itself in forgiveness (Exo 34:6-7); but even forgiveness must be bestowed in such a way, and on such conditions, that the interest of holiness shall not be compromised, but shall be upheld and magnified. Hence the bestowal of forgiveness in connexion with intercession (Moses, etc.), with sacrificial atonements, with signal vindications of the Divine righteousness (Phinehas). On man’s side sin is viewed as voluntary, as infinitely heinous, as entailing a Divine condemnation that needs to be removed. All the world has gone astray from God, and the connexion in which each individual stands with his family, nation, and race entails on him a corporate as well as an individual responsibility.

2. A second important line of preparation in the OT is in the doctrine of sacrifice. Whatever the origins or ethnic associations of sacrifice, it is indisputable that sacrifice in the OT has a peculiar meaning, in accordance with the ideas of God and His holiness above indicated. From the beginning, sacrifice was the appointed means of approach to God. Whether, in the earliest narrative, the difference in the sacrifices of Cain and Abel had to do with the fact that the one was bloodless and the other an animal sacrifice (Gen 4:3-5), or lay solely in the disposition of the offerers (Gen 4:7), is not clear. Probably, however, from the commencement, a mystic virtue was attached to the shedding and presentation of the sacred element of the blood. Up to the Exodus, we have only the generic type of the burnt-offering; the Exodus itself gave birth to the Passover, in which blood sprinkled gave protection from destruction; at the ratification of the Covenant, peace-offerings appear with burnt-offerings (Exo 20:24; Exo 24:5); finally, the Levitical ritual provided a cultus in which the idea of atonement had a leading place. Critical questions as to the age of this legislation need not detain us, for there is an increasing tendency to recognize that, whatever the date of the final codification of the Levitical laws, the bulk of these laws rest on older usages. That the propitiatory idea in sacrifice goes back to early times may be seen in such pictures of patriarchal piety as Job 1:5; Job 42:7-8; while an atoning virtue is expressly assumed as belonging to sacrifice in 1Sa 3:14. Cf. also allusions to sin- and guilt-offerings, and to propitiatory rites in so old a stratum of laws as the ‘Law of Holiness’ (Lev 19:21-22; Lev 23:19), and in Hos 4:8, Mic 6:6-7, Eze 40:39; Eze 42:13 etc.

It is in the Levitical system that all the ideas involved in OT sacrifice come to clearest expression. The Epistle to the Hebrews admirably seizes the idea of the system. It has absolutely nothing to do with the ideas that underlay heathen rites, but rests on a basis of its own. It provides a means by which the people, notwithstanding their sin, maintain their fellowship with God, and enjoy His favour. It rests in all its parts on the idea of the holiness of God, and is designed throughout to impress on the mind of the worshipper the sense of the separation which sin has made between him and God. Even with sacrifice the people could not approach God directly, but only through the priesthood. The priests alone could enter the sacred enclosure; into the Most Holy Place even the priests were not permitted to enter, but only the high priest, and he but once a year, and then only with blood of sacrifice, offered first for himself and then for the people; all this signifying that ‘the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest’ (Heb 9:7-8).

The details of the sacrificial ritual must be sought elsewhere (see Sacrifice). It is to be noted generally that the animal sacrifices were of four kinds—the burnt-offering, the sin-offering, the guilt-offering (a species of sin-offering which included a money-compensation to the person injured), the peace-offering. The victims must be unblemished; the presentation was accompanied by imposition of hands (on meaning, cf. Lev 16:21); the blood, after the victim was killed, was sprinkled on and about the altar: on the Day of Atonement it was taken also within the veil. The burnt-offering was wholly consumed; in the case of the peace-offering a feast was held with part of the flesh. No sacrifice was permitted for sins done ‘presumptuously,’ or with ‘a high hand’ (Num 15:30).

The design of all these sacrifices (even of the peace-offering, as features of the ritual show) was ‘to make atonement’ for the sin of the offerer, or of the congregation (Lev 1:4; Lev 4:20; Lev 4:26; Lev 4:31; Lev 5:6; Lev 17:11 etc.). The word so translated means primarily ‘to cover,’ then ‘to propitiate’ or ‘expiate.’ The atoning virtue is declared in Lev 17:11 to reside in the blood, as the vehicle of the soul or life. The effect of the offering was to ‘cover’ the person or offence from the eyes of a holy God, i.e. to annul guilt and procure forgiveness. It ‘cleansed’ from moral and ceremonial pollution.

From this point theories take their origin as to the precise signification of sacrificial atonement. (1) Was the act purely symbolical—an expression of penitence, confession, prayer, consecration, surrender of one’s life to God? Hardly; for if, in one way, the victim is identified with the offerer, in another it is distinguished from him as a creature through whose blood-shedding expiation is made for his sin. (2) Is the idea, then, as many hold, that the blood represents a pure life put between the sinful soul and God—an innocent life covering a polluted one? In this case the death is held to be immaterial, and the manipulation of the blood, regarded as still fresh and living, is the one thing of importance. The theory comes short in not recognizing that, in any case, there is in the act the acknowledgment of God’s righteous sentence upon sin—else why bring sacrifice of atonement at all? It is true that the blood represents the life, but it is surely not as life simply, but as life taken—life given up in death—that the blood is presented on the altar as a covering for sin. It would be hard otherwise to explain how in the NT so much stress is always laid on death, or the shedding of the blood, as the means of redemption. (3) There remains the view that the victim is regarded as expiating the guilt of the offerer by itself dying in his room—yielding up its life in his stead in acknowledgment of the judgment of God on his sin. This, which is the older view, is probably still the truer. The theory of Ritschl, that the sacrifices had nothing to do with sin, but were simply a protection against the terrible ‘majesty’ of God, is generally allowed to be untenable.

3. There is yet a third line of preparation for this doctrine in the OT, viz.: the prophetic. The prophets, at first sight, seem to take up a position altogether antagonistic to sacrifices. Seeing, however, that in many indirect ways they recognize its legitimacy, and even include it in their pictures of a restored theocracy (cf. Isa 56:6-7; Isa 60:7; Isa 66:23, Jer 17:24-27; Jer 33:17-18 etc.), their polemic must be regarded as against the abuse rather than the use. The proper prophetic preparation, however, lay along a different line from the sacrificial. The basis of it is in the idea of the Righteous Sufferer, which is seen shaping itself in the Prophets and the Psalms (cf. Psa 22:1-31). The righteous man, both through the persecutions he sustains and the national calamities arising from the people’s sins which he shares, is a living exemplification of the law of the innocent suffering for the guilty. Such suffering, however, while giving weight to intercession, is not in itself atoning. But in the picture of the Servant of Jehovah in Is 53 a new idea emerges. The sufferings arising from the people’s sins have, in this Holy One, become, through the spirit in which they are borne, and the Divine purpose in permitting them, sufferings for sin—vicarious, healing, expiatory. Their expiatory character is affirmed in the strongest manner in the successive verses, and sacrificial language is freely taken over upon the sufferer (Isa 53:5-6; Isa 53:8; Isa 53:10-12). Here at length the ideas of prophecy and those of sacrificial law coincide, and, though there is no second instance of like clear and detailed portraiture, it is not difficult to recognize the recurrence of the same ideas in later prophecies, e.g., in Zec 3:9; Zec 12:10; Zec 13:1; Zec 13:7, Dan 9:24-26. With such predictions on its lips OT prophecy closes, awaiting the time when, in Malachi’s words, the Lord, whom men sought, would come suddenly to His Temple (Mal 3:1).

ii. In the New Testament.—The period between the OT and the NT affords little for our purpose. It is certain that, in the time of our Lord, even if, as some think, there were partial exceptions, the great mass of the Jewish people had no idea of a suffering Messiah, or thought of any connexion between the Messiah and the sacrifices. If atonement was needed, it was to be sought for, apart from the sacrifices, in almsgiving and other good deeds; and the virtues of the righteous were regarded as in some degree availing for the wicked. It was a new departure when Jesus taught that ‘the Christ should suffer’ (cf. Mar 9:12, Luk 24:46). Yet in His own suffering and death He claimed to be fulfilling the Law and the Prophets (Luk 22:37; Luk 24:46).

1. Life and Teaching of Jesus.—The main task of Jesus on earth was to reveal the Father, to disclose the true nature of the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, in opposition to false ideals, to lead men to the recognition of His Messiahship, to recover the lost, to attach a few faithful souls to Himself as the foundation of His new Kingdom, and prepare their minds for His death and resurrection, and for the after duty of spreading His gospel among mankind. The dependence of the Messianic salvation on His Person and activity is everywhere presupposed; but it was only in fragmentary and partial utterances that He was able for a time to speak of its connexion with His death. Alike in the Synoptics and in John we see how this dénouement is gradually led up to. At His birth it is declared of Him that ‘he shall save his people from their sins’ (Mat 1:21); He is the promised ‘Saviour’ of the house of David (Luk 1:31-33; Luk 2:11); the Baptist announced Him, with probable reference to Is 53, as ‘the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world’ (Joh 1:29, cf. Joh 1:36). From the hour of His definite acceptance of His vocation of Messiahship in His baptism, and at the Temptation, combined as this was with the clear consciousness of a break with the ideals of His nation, Jesus could not but have been aware that His mission would cost Him His life. He who recalled the fate of all past prophets, and sent forth His disciples with predictions of persecutions and death (Mat 10:1-42), could be under no delusions as to His own fate at the hands of scribes and Pharisees (cf. Mat 9:15). But it was not simply as a ‘fate’ that Jesus recognized the inevitableness of His death; there is abundant attestation that He saw in it a Divine ordination, the necessary fulfilment of prophecy, and an essential means to the salvation of the world. As early as the Judæan ministry, accordingly, we find Him speaking to Nicodemus of the Son of Man being lifted up, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish (Joh 3:14 f.). He sets Himself forth in the discourse at Capernaum as the Bread of Life, in terms which imply the surrender of His body to death for the life of the world (Joh 6:32 ff.). Later, He repeatedly speaks of the voluntary surrender of His life for His sheep (Joh 10:11; Joh 10:15; Joh 10:17-18 etc.). After Peter’s great confession, He makes full announcement of His approaching sufferings and death, always coupling this with His after resurrection (Mat 16:21; Mat 17:22-23; Mat 20:18-19 ||). He dwells on the necessity of His death for the fulfilment of the Divine purpose, and is straitened till it is accomplished (Mar 10:32, Luk 9:51; Luk 12:50). It was the subject of converse at the Transfiguration (Luk 9:31). Yet clearer intimations were given. There is first the well-known announcement to the disciples, called forth by their disputes about pre-eminence: ‘The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many’ (Mat 20:28 ||). Here Christ announces that His death was the purpose of His coming, and, further, that it was of the nature of a saving ransom. His life was given to redeem the lives of others. To the same effect are the solemn words at the Last Supper. Here Christ declares that His body, symbolized by the broken bread, and His blood, symbolized by the poured-out wine, are given for His disciples for the remission of sins and the making of a New Covenant, and they are invited to eat and drink of the spiritual food thus provided (Mat 26:26 ff. ||, 1Co 11:23 ff.). It is reasonable to infer from these utterances that Jesus attached a supreme importance and saving efficacy to His death, and that His death was a deliberate and voluntary surrender of Himself for the end of the salvation of the world.

If we inquire, next, as to the nature of this connexion of Christ’s death with human salvation, we can scarcely err if we assume Jesus to have understood it in the light of the great prophecy which we know to have been often in His thoughts (Is 53). Already at the commencement of His Galilæan ministry He publicly identified Himself with the Servant of Jehovah (Luk 4:13 ff.); the words of Isa 53:12 were present to His mind as the last hour drew near (Luk 22:37). What prophecy of all He studied could be more instructive to Him as to the meaning of His sufferings and death? This yields the key to His utterances quoted above, and confirms the view we have taken of their meaning. Then came the crisis-hour itself. All the Evangelists dwell minutely on the scenes of the betrayal, Gethsemane, the trial, the mocking and scourging, the crucifixion. But how mysterious are many of the elements in these sufferings (e.g. Mar 14:33 ff; Mar 15:34, Joh 12:27); how strange to see them submitted to by the Prince of Life; how awful the horror of great darkness in which the Christ passed away! Can we explain it on the hypothesis of a simple martyrdom? Do we not need the solution which the other passages suggest of a sin-bearing Redeemer? Finally, there is the crowning attestation to His Messiahship, and seal upon His work, in the Resurrection, and the commission given to the disciples to preach remission of sins in His name to all nations—a clear proof that through His death and resurrection a fundamental change had been wrought in the relations of God to humanity (Mat 28:18-20, Luk 24:47, Joh 20:21-23).

2. The Apostolic teaching.—The OT had spoken; the Son of Man had come and yielded up His life a ransom for many. He was now exalted, and had shed forth the Holy Spirit (Act 2:32-33). There remained the task of putting these things together, and of definitely interpreting the work Christ had accomplished, in the light of the prophecies and symbols of the Old Covenant. This was the task of the Apostles, guided by the same Spirit that had inspired the prophets; and from it arose the Apostolic doctrine of the atonement. Varied in standpoints and in modes of representation, the Apostolic writings are singularly consentient in their testimony to the central fact of the propitiatory and redeeming efficacy of Christ’s death. St. Paul states it as the common doctrine of the Church ‘how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures’ (1Co 15:3-4). St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Book of Revelation, are at one here. The class of expressions in which this idea is set forth is familiar: Christ ‘bore our sins,’ ‘died for our sins,’ ‘suffered for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous,’ ‘was made sin for us,’ was ‘the propitiation for our sins,’ was ‘a sin-offering,’ ‘reconciled us to God in the body of his flesh through death,’ was our ‘ransom,’ procured for us ‘forgiveness of sins through his blood,’ etc. (cf. 1Pe 1:2; 1Pe 1:18-19; 1Pe 2:21; 1Pe 2:24; 1Pe 3:18, Rom 3:24-25; Rom 5:8-11; Rom 8:34, 2Co 5:21, Gal 1:4; Gal 3:13; Gal 4:4-5, Eph 1:7; Eph 2:13-17; Eph 2:20; Eph 5:2, Col 1:14; Col 1:20-22, 1Ti 2:5; 1Ti 2:8, Tit 2:14, Heb 1:3; Heb 2:17; Heb 7:26; Heb 9:24-28; Heb 10:10-14, 1Jn 1:7; 1Jn 2:2; 1Jn 3:5; 1Jn 4:10, Rev 1:5; Rev 5:9 etc.). It is customary to speak of the sacrificial terms employed as ‘figures’ borrowed from the older dispensation. The NT point of view rather is that the sacrifices of the Old Covenant are the figures, and Christ’s perfect offering of Himself to God, once for all, for man’s redemption, is the reality of which the earlier sacrifices were the shadows and types (Heb 10:1 ff.).

Several things stand out clearly in the Apostolic doctrine of the atonement; each of them in harmony with what we have learned from our study of the subject in the OT. The presuppositions are the same—“the holiness, righteousness, and grace of God, and the sin and guilt of man, entailing on the individual and the race a Divine condemnation and exposure to wrath which man is unable of himself to remove (wrought out most fully by St. Paul, Rom 1:17; Rom 3:9; Rom 3:19-23, Gal 2:16 etc.). The atonement itself is represented (1) as the fruit, and not the cause of God’s love (Rom 5:8, 1Jn 4:10 etc.); (2) as a necessity for human salvation (Rom 3:19 ff., Heb 9:22); (3) as realizing perfectly what the ancient sacrifices did imperfectly and typically (Heb 9:10); as an expiation, purging from guilt and cancelling condemnation (Rom 8:1; Rom 8:32-33, Heb 1:3; Heb 9:11-14, 1Jn 1:7, Rev 1:5 etc.), and at the same time a ‘propitiation,’ averting wrath, and opening the way for a display of mercy (Rom 3:25, Heb 2:17, 1Jn 2:2; 1Jn 4:10); (4) as containing in itself the most powerful ethical motive—to repentance, a new life, active godliness, Christian service, etc. (Rom 6:1 ff., 1Co 6:20, 2Co 5:14-15, Gal 2:20; Gal 6:14, Eph 5:1-2, 1Pe 1:21-22, 1Jn 4:11 etc.; with this is connected the work of the Holy Spirit, which operates these sanctifying changes in the soul); (5) as, therefore, effecting a true ‘redemption,’ both in respect of the magnitude of the price at which our salvation is bought (Rom 8:32, 1Ti 2:6, Heb 10:29, 1Pe 1:18-19 etc.), and the completeness of the deliverance accomplished—from wrath (Rom 5:9, 1Th 1:10), from the power of indwelling sin (Rom 6:6; Rom 6:12-14; Rom 8:2 etc.), from bondage to Satan (Eph 2:2-3; Eph 6:12, Heb 2:14-15 etc.), from the tyranny of the evil world (Gal 1:4; Gal 6:14, Tit 2:14, 1Pe 1:18 etc.), finally, from the effects of sin in death and all other evils (Rom 8:23, 1Co 15:20 ff. etc.).

In the NT teaching, therefore, the sacrifice of Christ fulfils all that was prefigurative in the OT doctrine of atonement; yet, as the true and perfect sacrifice, it infinitely transcends, while it supersedes, all OT pre-figurations. The relation of the Christian atonement to that of the Law is, accordingly, as much one of contrast as of fulfilment. This is the thesis wrought out in the Epistle to the Hebrews, but its truth is recognized in all parts of the NT. The sacrifices of the OT were, in their very nature, incapable of really removing sin (Heb 10:4). Their imperfection was shown in the irrational character of the victims, in their frequent repetition, in their multiplication, etc. (Heb 9:10). In Jesus, however, every character meets, qualifying Him to make atonement for humanity—Himself at once perfect priest and perfect sacrifice: Divine dignity as Son of God (Rom 1:4; Rom 8:32, Heb 1:2-3 etc.); a perfect participation in human nature (Rom 1:3; Rom 8:3, Gal 4:4, Heb 2:14-18 etc.); absolute sinlessness (2Co 5:21, Heb 4:15, 1Pe 1:19; 1Pe 2:22, 1Jn 3:5 etc.); entire human sympathy (Rom 8:34, Heb 2:17; Heb 4:14-16); as regards God, undeviating obedience and surrender to the will of the Father (Php 2:7-8, Heb 4:8-9; Heb 10:8-10). He is ‘Jesus Christ the righteous’ (1Jn 2:1), and His sacrificial death is the culmination of His obedience (Rom 5:19, Php 2:8, Heb 10:9-10).

iii. Rationale of the Atonement.—The way is now open to our last question—How was atonement for sin by Christ possible? And in what did Christ’s atonement consist? The NT does not develop a theology of the atonement; yet a theology would not be possible if the NT did not yield the principles, and lay down the lines, of at least a partial solution of this problem.

A chief clue to an answer to the above questions lies in what is taught (1) of Christ’s original, essential relation to the creation (cf. Joh 1:3-4, 1Co 8:5, Eph 1:19, Col 1:15-20, Heb 1:2, Rev 1:11; Rev 3:14); and (2), as arising out of that, of His archetypal, representative relation to the race He came to save (cf. Joh 1:4; Joh 1:8-14, Rom 5:12 ff., 1Co 15:21-22; 1Co 15:45-47). This connects itself with what is said of Christ’s Divine dignity. Deeper even than the value His Divine Sonship gives to His sacrifice is the original relation to humanity of the Creative Word which renders His unique representative relation to the race possible. It is not going beyond the representations of the NT to say, with Maurice and others, that He is the ‘root of humanity.’ In Him it is grounded; by Him it is sustained; from Him it derives all the powers of its development. While He condescends to take on Him the nature of created humanity, His personality is above humanity. Hence His generic relation to the race—‘Son of God’—‘Son of Man.’ In this ‘mystery of godliness’ (1Ti 3:16) lies the possibility of a representative atonement for the race.

For this is the next point in the solution of our problem; Christ’s identification of Himself with the race He came to save is complete. It is not merely ‘federal’ or ‘legal’; it is vital, and this in every respect. His love is unbounded; His sympathy is complete; His purpose and desire to save are unfaltering. He identifies Himself with humanity, with a perfect consciousness (1) of what He is; (2) of what the race He came to save is and needs; (3) of what a perfect atonement involves (cf. Joh 8:14 ff.). Himself holy, the well-beloved Son, He knows with unerring clearness what sin is, and what the mind of God is about sin. He does not shrink from anything His identification with a sinful race entails upon Him, but freely accepts its position and responsibilities as His own. He is ‘made under the law’ (Gal 4:4); a law not merely preceptive, but broken and violated, and entailing ‘curse.’ Identifying Himself thus perfectly with the race of men as under sin on the one hand, and with the mind of God about sin on the other, He is the natural mediator between God and man, and is alone in the position to render to God whatever is necessary as atonement for sin.

But what is necessary, and how did Christ render it? Here come in the ‘theories’ of atonement; most of them ‘broken lights’; all needed to do full justice to the Divine reality. We would dismiss as infra-Scriptural all theories which affirm that atonement—reparation to the violated law of righteousness—is not necessary. Christ’s work, while bringing forgiveness, conserves holiness, magnifies law, vindicates righteousness (Rom 3:21-31). Also defective are theories which seek the sole explanation of atonement in the ethical motive; purely moral theories. Atonement is taken here in the sense only of ‘reconciliation’—the reconciliation of man to God. Scripture recognizes obstacles to salvation on the side of righteousness in God as well as in man’s unwillingness, and atonement aims at the removal of both. It has the aspect of propitiation, of expiation, of restitutio in integrum, as well as of moral influence. It is an act of reconciliation, embracing God’s relation to the world equally with the world’s relation to God (cf. Rom 3:25; Rom 5:11; Rom 5:10, 2Co 5:18-21).

There remain two views, one finding the essence of Christ’s atonement in the surrender of a holy will to God—in the obedience of Christ unto death, even the death of the Cross (Maurice and others). This assuredly is a vital element in atonement, but is it the whole? Does Scripture not recognize also the submission of Christ to the endurance of the actual penal evil of sin—specially to death—as that rests in the judgment of God upon our race? All that has preceded necessitates the answer that it does. The other,—the legal or forensic view,—accordingly, puts the essence of atonement in this penal endurance; in the substitutionary submission of Christ to the penalty due to us for sin. But this also is one-sided and unethical, if divorced from the other, and from the recognition of the fact that not simply endurance of evil, but the spirit in which the evil is endured, and the response made to the Divine mind in it, is the one acceptable thing to God (cf. J. M‘Leod Campbell). It is here, therefore, that we must seek the inmost secret of atonement. The innocent suffering with and for the guilty is a law from which Jesus did not withdraw Himself. In His consciousness of solidarity with mankind, He freely submitted to those evils (shame, ignominy, suffering, temptation, death) which express the judgment of God on the sin of the world, and in the experience of them—peculiarly in the yielding up of His life—did such honour to all the principles of righteousness involved, rendered so inward and spiritual a response to the whole mind of God in His attitude to the sin of the world, as constituted a perfect atonement for that sin for such as believingly accept it, and make its spirit their own. ‘By the which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all’ (Heb 10:10). See Propitiation, Reconciliation, Redemption.

James Orr.

Reconciliation of sinners with God through the Incarnation, sufferings, and death of Christ.. In early days Western writers held that Christ by His sufferings made a payment to Satan to have him relinquish his right to man. Following Anselm, it is now usually held that Satan had no rights over man, but that Christ suffered because man by sin had incurred a debt to Divine justice and that this required a satisfaction that could be paid only by a God-Man Redeemer. It is also held, in accordance with Abelard, that a full equivalent satisfaction such as was made by Christ’s death was not absolutely necessary; therefore the Incarnation was an act of love, though not exclusively so.

a-tōn´ment: Translates כּפר, kāphar; חטא, ḥāṭā’; רצה, rācāh, the last employed only of human relations (1Sa 29:4); translates the following Greek stems hilas-, simple and compounded with various prepositions; allag- in composition only, but with numerous prepositions and even two at a time, e.g. Mat 5:24; lip- rarely (Dan 9:24).

I. Terms Employed

1. Hebrew and Greek Words

The root meanings of the Hebrew words, taking them in the order cited above, are, to “cover,” hence expiate, condone, cancel, placate; to “offer,” or “receive a sin offering,” hence, make atonement, appease, propitiate; “effect reconciliation,” i.e. by some conduct, or course of action. Of the Greek words the meanings, in order, are “to be,” or “cause to be, friendly”; “to render other,” hence to restore; “to leave” and with preposition to leave off, i.e. enmity, or evil, etc.; “to render holy,” “to set apart for”; hence, of the Deity, to appropriate or accept for Himself.

2. The English Word

It is obvious that the English word “atonement” does not correspond etymologically with any Hebrew or Greek word which it translates. Furthermore, the Greek words in both Septuagint and New Testament do not correspond exactly to the Hebrew words; especially is it true that the root idea of the most frequently employed Hebrew word, “cover,” is not found in any of the Greek words employed. These remarks apply to both verbs and substantives The English word is derived from the phrase “at one,” and signifies, etymologically, harmony of relationship or unity of life, etc. It is a rare instance of an AS theological term; and, like all purely English terms employed in theology, takes its meaning, not from its origin, but from theological content of the thinking of the Continental and Latin-speaking Schoolmen who employed such English terms as seemed most nearly to convey to the hearers and readers their ideas. Not only was no effort made to convey the original Hebrew and Greek meanings by means of English words, but no effort was made toward uniformity in translating of Hebrew and Greek words by their English equivalents.

3. Not to Be Settled by Lexicon Merely

It is at once clear that no mere word-study can determine the Bible teaching concerning atonement. Even when first employed for expressing Hebrew and Christian thought, these terms, like all other religious terms, already had a content that had grown up with their use, and it is by no means easy to tell how far heathen conceptions might be imported into our theology by a rigidly etymological study of terms employed. In any case such a study could only yield a dictionary of terms, whereas what we seek is a body of teaching, a circle of ideas, whatever words and phrases, or combinations of words and phrases, have been employed to express the teaching.

4. Not Chiefly a Study in Theology

There is even greater danger of making the study of the Atonement a study in dogmatic theology. The frequent employment of the expression “the Atonement” shows this tendency. The work of Christ in reconciling the world to God has occupied so central a place in Christian dogmatics that the very term atonement has come to have a theological rather than a practical atmosphere, and it is by no means easy for the student, or even for the seeker after the saving relation with God, to pass beyond the accumulated interpretation of the Atonement and learn of atonement.

5. Notes on Use of Terms

The history of the explanation of the Atonement and the terms of preaching atonement cannot, of course, be ignored. Nor can the original meaning of the terms employed and the manner of their use be neglected. There are significant features in the use of terms, and we have to take account of the history of interpretation. Only we must not bind ourselves nor the word of God in such forms.

(1) The most frequently employed Hebrew word, kāphar, is found in the Prophets only in the priestly section (Eze 45:15, Eze 45:20; Dan 9:24) where English Versions of the Bible have “make reconciliation,” margin, “purge away.” Furthermore, it is not found in Deuteronomy, which is the prophetic book of the Pentateuch (Hexateuch). This indicates that it is an essentially priestly conception. The same term is frequently translated by “reconcile,” construed as equivalent to “make atonement” (Lev 6:30; Lev 8:15; Lev 16:20; 1Sa 29:4; Eze 45:15, Eze 45:20; Dan 9:24). In this latter sense it connects itself with ḥāṭā’̌. In 2Ch 29:24 both words are used: the priests make a sin offering ḥāṭā’ to effect an atonement kāphař. But the first word is frequently used by metonymy to include, at least suggestively, the end in view, the reconciliation; and, on the other hand, the latter word is so used as to involve, also, doing that by which atonement is realized.

(2) Of the Greek words employed hiláskesthai means “to make propitious” (Heb 2:17; Lev 6:30; Lev 16:20; Eze 45:20); alláttein, used however only in composition with preposition, means “to render other,” “to restore” to another (former?) condition of harmony (compare Mat 5:24 = “to be reconciled” to a fellow-man as a condition of making an acceptable sacrifice to God).

(3) In the English New Testament the word “atonement” is found only at Rom 5:11 and the American Standard Revised Version changes this to “reconciliation.” While in strict etymology this word need signify only the active or conscious exercise of unity of life or harmony of relations, the causative idea probably belongs to the original use of the term, as it certainly is present in all current Christian use of the term. As employed in Christian theology, both practical and technical, the term includes with more or less distinctness: (a) The fact of union with God, and this always looked upon as (b) a broken union to be restored or an ideal union to be realized, (c) The procuring cause of atonement, variously defined, (d) the crucial act wherein the union is effected, the work of God and the response of the soul in which the union becomes actual. Inasmuch as the reconciliation between man and God is always conceived of as effected through Jesus Christ (2Co 5:18-21) the expression, “the Atonement of Christ,” is one of the most frequent in Christian theology. Questions and controversies have turned mainly on the procuring cause of atonement, (c) above, and at this point have arisen the various “theories of the Atonement.”

II. Bible Teaching Concerning Atonement in General

The Atonement of Christ must be interpreted in connection with the conception of atonement in general in the Scriptures. This idea of atonement is, moreover, part of the general circle of fundamental ideas of the religion of Yahweh and Jesus. Theories of the Atonement root themselves in conceptions of the nature and character of God, His holiness, love, grace, mercy, etc.; of man, his nature, disposition and capacities; of sin and guilt.

1. Primary Assumption of Unity of God and Man

The basal conception for the Bible doctrine of atonement is the assumption that God and man are ideally one in life and interests, so far as man’s true life and interest may be conceived as corresponding with those of God. Hence, it is everywhere assumed that God and man should be in all respects in harmonious relations, “at-one.” Such is the ideal picture of Adam and Eve in Eden. Such is the assumption in the parable of the Prodigal Son; man ought to be at home with God, at peace in the Father’s house (Lk 15). Such also is the ideal of Jesus as seen especially in Jn 14 through 17; compare particularly Joh 17:21; compare also Eph 2:11-22; 1Co 15:28. This is quite possibly the underlying idea of all those offerings in which the priests - God’s representatives - and the people joined in eating at a common meal parts of what had been presented to God. The prohibition of the use of blood in food or drink is grounded on the statement that the life is in the blood (Lev 17:10 f) or is the blood (Gen 9:4; Deu 12:23). Blood was used in the consecration of tabernacle, temple, vessels, altars, priests; all things and persons set apart for Yahweh. Then blood was required in offerings made to atone for sin and uncleanness. The reason for all this is not easy to see; but if we seek an explanation that will account for all the facts on a single principle, shall we not find it in the idea that in the life-principle of the blood God’s own life was present? Through this life from God all living beings shared God’s life. The blood passing out of any living being must therefore return to God and not be consumed. In sprinkling blood, the life-element, or certainly the life-symbol, over persons and things set apart for God they were, so to say, visibly taken up into the life of God, and His life extending over them made them essentially of His own person. Finally the blood of sacrifices was the returning to God of the life of the man for whom the beasts stood. And this blood was not burned with the dead sacrifice but poured out beside the holy altar. The now dead sin offering was burned, but the blood, the life, returned to God. In peace-offerings of various sorts there was the common meal in which the common life was typified.

In the claim of the first-fruits of all crops, of all flocks and of all increase, God emphasized the common life in production; asserted His claim to the total life of His people and their products. God claimed the lives of all as belonging essentially to Himself and a man must recognize this by paying a ransom price (Exo 30:12). This did not purchase for the man a right to his own life in separation from God, for it was in no sense an equivalent in value to the man’s time. It the rather committed the man to living the common life with God, without which recognition the man was not fit to live at all. And the use of this recognition-money by the priests in the temple was regarded as placing the man who paid his money in a sort of continuous worshipful service in the tabernacle (or temple) itself (Ech 30:11-16).

2. The Breach in the Unity

In both Old Testament and New Testament the assumption of unity between God and man stands over against the contrasted fact that there is a radical breach in this unity. This breach is recognized in all God’s relations to men; and even when healed it is always subject to new failures which must be provided for, by the daily oblations in the Old Testament, by the continuous intercession of the Christ (Heb 7:25; Heb 9:24) in the New Testament. Even when there is no conscious breach, man is taught to recognize that it may exist and he must avail himself of the appointed means for its healing, e.g. daily sacrifices. This breach is universally attributed to some behavior on man’s part. This may be moral or ceremonial uncleanness on man’s part. He may have broken with God fundamentally in character or conduct and so by committing sin have incurred guilt; or he may have neglected the fitting recognition that his life is in common with God and so by his disregard have incurred uncleanness. After the first breach between God and man it is always necessary that man shall approach God on the assumption that this breach needs healing, and so always come with an offering. In human nature the sin breach is rooted and universal (Rom 3:9-19; Rom 5:12-14).

3. Means for Expressing, Restoring and Maintaining

Numerous and various means were employed for expressing this essential unity of life, for restoring it since it was broken off in sin, and for maintaining it. These means were primarily spiritual and ethical but made extensive use of material substances, physical acts and symbolical ceremonials; and these tended always to obscure and supplant the spiritual and ethical qualities which it was their function to exhibit. The prophet came to the rescue of the spiritual and ethical and reached his highest insight and function in the doctrine of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh through whom God was to be united with a redeemed race (compare among many passages, Isa 49:1-7; Isa 66:18; Y 22:27ff).

Atonement is conceived in both Old Testament and New Testament as partly personal and partly social, extending to the universal conception. The acts and attitudes by which it is procured, restored and maintained are partly those of the individual alone (Y 51), partly those in which the individual secures the assistance of the priest or the priestly body, and partly such as the priest performs for the whole people on his own account. This involves the distinction that in Israel atonement was both personal and social, as also were both sin and uncleanness. Atonement was made for the group by the priest without specific participation by the people although they were, originally at least, to take cognizance of the fact and at the time. At all the great feasts, especially upon the DAY OF ATONEMENT (which see) the whole group was receptively to take conscious part in the work of atonement (Num 29:7-11).

The various sacrifices and offerings by means of which atonement was effected in the life and worship of Israel will be found to be discussed under the proper words and are to be spoken of here only summarily. The series of offerings, guilt-offerings, burnt-offerings, sin-offerings, peace-offerings, reveal a sense of the breach with God, a conviction of the sin making the breach and an ethical appreciation of the holiness of God entirely unique among religions of ancient or modern times, and this fact must never be overlooked in interpreting the New Testament Christian doctrine of the Atonement. In the Old Testament there are sins and sinful circumstances for which no atonement is possible. Many passages, indeed, almost seem to provide against atonement for any voluntary wrongdoing (e.g. Lev 4:2, Lev 4:13, Lev 4:22, Lev 4:27; Lev 5:14). This is, no doubt, an extreme interpretation, out of harmony with the general spirit of the Old Testament, but it does show how seriously sin ought to be taken under the Old Testament régime. No atonement for murder could make possible the residence of the murderer again in that section of the land where the murder was done (Num 35:33), although the land was not by the murder rendered unfit for occupation by others. When Israel sinned in making the golden calf, God refused to accept any atonement (Exo 32:20) until there had been a great loss of life from among the sinners. No repentance could find atonement for the refusal to follow Yahweh’s lead at Kadesh-barnea (Num 14:20-25), and complete atonement was effected only when all the unbelieving generation had died in the wilderness (Num 26:65; Num 32:10); i.e. no atonement was possible, but the people died in that sin, outside the Land of Promise, although the sin was not allowed to cut off finally from Yahweh (Num 14:29 f).

Permanent uncleanness or confirmed disease of an unclean sort caused permanent separation from the temple and the people of Yahweh (e.g. Lev 7:20 f), and every uncleanness must be properly removed (Lev 5:2; Lev 17:15; Lev 22:2-8; Deu 23:10 f). A house in which an unclean disease was found must be cleansed - have atonement made for it (Lev 14:53), and in extreme cases must be utterly destroyed (Lev 14:43).

After childbirth (Lev 12:7 f) and in all cases of hemorrhage (compare Lev 15:30) atonement must be effected by prescribed offerings, a loss, diminution, or pollution of blood, wherein is the life, having been suffered. All this elaborate application of the principle of atonement shows the comprehensiveness with which it was sought by the religious teachers to impress the people with the unity of all life in the perfectly holy and majestic God whom they were called upon to serve. Not only must the priests be clean who bear the vessels of the Lord (Isa 52:11), but all the people must be clean also from all defilement of flesh and spirit, seeking perfect holiness in the fear of their God (compare 2Co 7:1).

III. The Atonement of Jesus Christ

1. Preparation for New Testament Doctrine

All the symbols, doctrine and examples of atonement in the Old Testament among the Hebrews find their counterpart, fulfillment and complete explanation in the new covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ (Mat 26:28; Heb 12:24). By interpreting the inner spirit of the sacrificial system, by insisting on the unity and holiness of God, by passionate pleas for purity in the people, and especially by teaching the principle of vicarious suffering for sin, the Prophets laid the foundation in thought-forms and in religious atmosphere for such a doctrine of atonement as is presented in the life and teaching of Jesus and as is unfolded in the teaching of His apostles.

The personal, parabolic sufferings of Hosea, the remarkable elaboration of the redemption of spiritual Israel through a Suffering Servant of Yahweh and the extension of that redemption to all mankind as presented in Isa 40 through 66, and the same element in such psalms as Ps 22, constitute a key to the understanding of the work of the Christ that unifies the entire revelation of God’s righteousness in passing over human sins (Rom 3:24 f). Yet it is remarkable that such a conception of the way of atonement was as far as possible from the general and average Jewish mind when Jesus came. In no sense can the New Testament doctrine of the Atonement be said to be the product of the thought and spirit of the times.

2. The One Clear Fact

However much theologians may disagree as to the rationale of the Atonement, there is, as there can be, no question that Jesus and all His interpreters in the New Testament represent the Atonement between God and men as somehow accomplished through Jesus Christ. It is also an agreed fact in exegesis that Jesus and His apostles understood His death to be radically connected with this Atonement.

(1) Jesus Himself teaches that He has come to reveal the Father (Joh 14:9), to recover the lost (Luk 19:10), to give life to men (Joh 6:33; Joh 10:10), to disclose and establish the kingdom of heaven (or of God), gathering a few faithful followers through whom His work will be perpetuated (Joh 17:2; Mat 16:13); that salvation, personal and social, is dependent upon His person (Joh 6:53; Joh 14:6). He cannot give full teaching concerning His death but He does clearly connect His sufferings with the salvation He seeks to give. He shows in Luk 4:16 and Luk 22:37 that He understands Isa 52 through 53 as realized in Himself; He is giving Himself (and His blood) a ransom for men (Mat 20:28; Mat 26:26; compare 1Co 11:23). He was not a mere martyr but gave Himself up willingly, and voluntarily (Joh 10:17 f; Gal 2:20), in accordance with the purpose of God (Act 2:23), as the Redeemer of the world, and expected that by His lifting up all men would be drawn to Him (Joh 12:31-33). It is possible to explain the attention which the Evangelists give to the death of Jesus only by supposing that they are reflecting the importance which they recall Jesus Himself to have attached to His death.

(2) All the New Testament writers agree in making Jesus the center of their idea of the way of salvation and that His death is an essential element in His saving power. This they do by combining Old Testament teaching with the facts of the life and death of the Lord, confirming their conclusion by appeal to the Resurrection. Paul represents himself as holding the common doctrine of Christianity at the time, and from the beginning, when in 1Co 15:3 he sums up his teaching that salvation is secured through the death and resurrection of Jesus according to the Scriptures. Elsewhere (Eph 2:16, Eph 2:18; 1Ti 2:5; compare Act 4:12) in all his writings he emfasizes his belief that Jesus Christ is the one Mediator between God and man, by the blood of His cross (Col 1:20; 1Co 2:2), removing the sin barrier between God and men. Peter, during the life of Jesus so full of the current Jewish notion that God accepted the Jews de facto, in his later ministry makes Jesus in His death the one way to God (Act 4:12; 1Pe 1:2, 1Pe 1:18, 1Pe 1:19; 1Pe 2:21, 1Pe 2:24; 1Pe 3:18).

John has this element so prominent in his Gospel that radical critical opinion questions its authorship partly on that account, while the epistles of John and the Revelation are, on the same ground, attributed to later Greek thought (compare 1Jn 1:7; 1Jn 2:2; 1Jn 3:5; 1Jn 4:10; Rev 1:5; Rev 5:9). The Epistle to the Hebrews finds in Jesus the fulfillment and extension of all the sacrificial system of Judaism and holds that the shedding of blood seems essential to the very idea of remission of sins (Heb 9:22; compare Heb 2:17; Heb 7:26 f; Heb 9:24-28).

3. How Shall We Understand the Atonement?

When we come to systematize the teaching concerning the Atonement we find, as in all doctrine, that definite system is not offered us in the New Testament, but all system, if it is to have any value for Christianity, must find its materials and principles in the New Testament. Proceeding in this way some features may be stated positively and finally, while others must be presented interrogatively, recognizing that interpretations may differ.

(1) An initial consideration is that the Atonement originates with God who “was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself” (2Co 5:19), and whose love gave Jesus to redeem sinful men (Joh 3:16; Rom 5:8, etc.). In all atonement in Old Testament and New Testament the initiative is of God who not only devises and reveals the way to reconciliation, but by means of angels, Prophets, priests and ultimately His only begotten Son applies the means of atonement and persuades men to accept the proffered reconciliation. Nothing in the speculation concerning the Atonement can be more false to its true nature than making a breach between God and His Christ in their attitude toward sinful men.

(2) It follows that atonement is fundamental in the nature of God in His relations to men, and that redemption is in the heart of God’s dealing in history. The “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8 the King James Version and the English Revised Version; compare Rev 5:5-7) is the interpreter of the seven-sealed book of God’s providence in history. In Jesus we behold the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world (Joh 1:29).

(3) The question will arise in the analysis of the doctrine: How does the death of Christ save us? No specific answer has ever been generally satisfactory. We have numerous theories of the Atonement. We have already intimated that the answer to this question will depend upon our idea of the nature of God, the nature of sin, the content of salvation, the nature of man, and our idea of Satan and evil spirits. We ought at once to dismiss all merely quantitative and commercial conceptions of exchange of merit. There is no longer any question that the doctrines of imputation, both of Adam’s sin and of Christ’s righteousness, were overwrought and applied by the early theologians with a fatal exclusiveness, without warrant in the Word of God. On the other hand no theory can hold much weight that presupposes that sin is a thing of light consequence in the nature of man and in the economy of God. Unless one is prepared to resist unto blood striving against sin (Heb 12:2-4), he cannot know the meaning of the Christ. Again, it may be said that the notion that the death of Christ is to be considered apart from His life, eternal and incarnate life, as the atoning work, is far too narrow to express the teaching of the Bible and far too shallow to meet the demands of an ethical conscience.

It would serve clearness if we reminded ourselves that the question of how in the Atonement may involve various elements. We may inquire: (a) for the ground on which God may righteously receive the sinner; (b) for the means by which God places the restoration within the reach of the sinner; (c) for the influence by which the sinner is persuaded to accept the reconciliation; (d) for the attitude or exercise of the sinner toward God in Christ wherein he actually enters the state of restored union with God. The various theories have seemed to be exclusive, or at least mutually antagonistic, largely because they have taken partial views of the whole subject and have emphasized some one feature of the whole content. All serious theories partly express the truth and all together are inadequate fully to declare how the Daystar from on high doth guide our feet into the way of peace (Luk 1:79).

(4) Another question over which theologians have sorely vexed themselves and each other concerns the extent of the Atonement, whether it is available for all men or only for certain particular, elect ones. That controversy may now be passed by. It is no longer possible to read the Bible and suppose that God relates himself sympathetically with only a part of the race. All segregated passages of Scripture formerly employed in support of such a view have now taken their place in the progressive self-interpretation of God to men through Christ who is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world (1Jn 2:2). No man cometh unto the Father but by Him (Joh 14:6): but whosoever does thus call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Joe 2:32; Act 2:21). See also ATONEMENT, DAY OF; PROPITIATION; RECONCILIATION; SACRIFICE.

Literature

In the vast literature on this subject the following is suggested: Articles by Orr in HDB; by Mackenzie in Standard Bible Dictionary; in the Catholic Encyclopedia; in Jewish Encyclopedia; by Simyon in Hastings, DCG; J. McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement; John Champion, The Living Atonement; W. M. Clow, The Cross in Christian Experience; T. J. Crawford, The Doctrine of Holy Scripture Respecting the Atonement; R. W. Dale, The Atonement; J. Denney, The Death of Christ: Its Place and Interpretation in the New Testament, and The Atonement and the Modern Mind; W. P. DuBose, The Soteriology of the New Testament; P. T. Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross; J. Scott Lidgett, The Spiritual Principle of the Atonement; Ochenham, The Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement; A. Ritschl, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, I, II; Riviere, Le dogme de la rédemption; D. W. Simon, Reconciliation by Incarnation; W. L. Walker, The Cross and the Kingdom; various writers, The Atonement and Modern Religious Thought.

Although found only once in the NT (Rom_5:11) and there in the Authorized Version alone, this word has become the elect symbol in theological thought to indicate the doctrine in the Apostolic Church which placed the death of Christ in some form of causative connexion with the forgiveness of sins and with the restoration of men to favour and fellowship with God. The development of a doctrine of atonement in the NT is almost entirely the product of the experience and thought of the Apostolic Church. It moved along two lines; these were neither divergent nor exactly parallel, nor is it probable that one was precisely supplementary to the other; they are best considered as converging towards an ultimate point of unity in which Godward and manward aspects are merged. They have been contrasted as objective and subjective, juridical and ethical, substitutionary and mystical. They correspond also to two definitions of the word itself. Originally and etymologically the word means ‘at-one-ment’; it is a synonym for ‘reconciliation’ as an accomplished fact. Historically its usage signifies ‘a satisfaction or reparation made by giving an equivalent for an injury, or by doing or suffering that which is received in satisfaction for an offence or injury’ (Imperial Dict., s.v.). Here its synonym is ‘expiation’ as a means to reconciliation. Theologically it has been chiefly used in this latter sense, to indicate ‘the expiation made by the obedience and suffering death of Christ to mark the relation of God to sin in the processes of human redemption.’ A decided modern tendency is to return to the more original use of the word. It will probably be seen that both uses are required to state the fullness of the apostolic doctrine.

The literature preserved in the NT witnesses to the undoubted fact that the Apostolic Church had very early established a close connexion between the death of Jesus the Messiah and the redemption of men from their sins. Within seven years of His death-or probably considerably less-a ‘doctrine of the cross’ was freely and authoritatively preached in the Christian community; it appears to have been distinctly Pauline in general character; it held a primary place in the apostolic preaching; it was declared to be the fulfilment of the OT Scripture; it was set forth as the essence of the gospel, and was definitely referred to the teaching of Jesus for its ultimate authority. This much seems to be implied in what is probably the earliest testimony, if regard be had to the date of the writings in which it occurs, concerning the apostolic doctrine of the atonement. It is St. Paul’s confident assertion, ‘I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received, bow that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures’ (1Co_15:3). This is undoubtedly typical of the teaching accepted by the primitive Church; whatever St. Paul’s differences with other apostolic teachers on other matters may have been, agreement seems to be found here. The confidence of this common witness so early in the Apostolic Church raises many interesting questions, some of which must be considered. To what extent can we find the more elaborate Pauline doctrine, which we shall find elsewhere in his writings, presented in such fragments of the teaching of the first Christians as we possess? How far is the apostolic interpretation of Christ’s death sustained by appeal to the experience and teaching of Jesus Himself? By what means had the swift transition been made by the apostolic teachers themselves from the state of mind concerning the death of Jesus which is presented in the Synoptic Gospels to the beliefs exhibited in their preaching in the Acts? How was the unconcealed dismay of a bewildering disappointment changed into a glorying? It is clear from the contents of the Synoptic Gospels that, whatever the confusion and distress in the minds of His disciples which immediately followed the death of Christ, they were already in possession of memories of His teaching which lay comparatively dormant until they were awakened into vigorous activity by subsequent events and experiences; these, together with the facts of their Lord’s life and the incidents of His death, may be spoken of as the sources of the apostolic doctrine of the atonement, as to its substance. For the forms into which it was cast we must look to the religious conceptions-legal, sacrificial, ethical, and eschatological-which constituted their world of theological ideas, and the background against which was set the teaching of Jesus.

I. Sources

1. In the Synoptic Gospels.-Briefly summarized these are: (1) The intense and consistent ethical interpretation that Jesus gave to the Kingdom He came to establish, and to the conception of the salvation He taught and promised as the sign of its establishment in the individual soul and in the social order. It was no mere change of status; it was a becoming in ethical and spiritual character sons of God in likeness and obedience; it was actual release from the selfishness of the unfilial and unbrotherly life, and access into living communion in holy love with His God and Father.

(2) The Baptism and the Temptation of Jesus, which initiated Him into the course of His public ministry, were events associated in the minds of those who preserved the Synoptic tradition with the voice from heaven, ‘Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased’ (Luk_3:22). Apparently the consciousness of Jesus as He realized His vocation, judging from what He afterwards taught His disciples of its inner meaning, was aware of this combination of Psa_2:7 with Isa_42:1 ff.-the Son of God as King, and the Buffering Servant of the Lord. The inference Denney draws, though obviously open to keen criticism from the eschatological school, has a suggestive value: the Messianic consciousness of Jesus from the beginning was one with the consciousness of the suffering Servant; He combined kingship and service in suffering from the first.* [Note: Death of Christ, 14 f.] This finds support in the accounts of the Temptation, which was supremely a temptation to avoid suffering by choosing the easy way.

(3) All the Synoptics assure us that, when Jesus received the first full recognition of Messiahship from His disciples, He instantly met it by the open confession that His suffering and death were a necessity. ‘The Son of Man must (äåῖ) suffer-must go up to Jerusalem and be killed’ (Mar_8:31, Mat_16:21, Luk_9:22). Henceforth His constant subject of instruction was concerning His death, which, when ‘the Son of Man was risen from the dead, His disciples were to interpret. The necessity associated with His death was not merely the inevitable sequence of His loyalty to His ideal of righteousness in face of the opposition of His enemies. It was that, but it was more. In the career of one such as Jesus the violent and unjust death to which He was moving could not be separated in thought from the Father’s will to which He was so exquisitely sensitive, and which He came perfectly to fulfil. What was in His Father’s will was appointed and could not be the mere drift of circumstances into which He was cast and from which the Divine purpose was absent. The necessity was inward, and identical with the will of God as expressed in Scripture; to His disciples it was incomprehensible.

(4) Jesus described His death as for others and as voluntarily endured. Definite terms are selected in. which the meaning more than the fact of the death is set forth. ‘The Son of Man came … to minister, and to give his fife a ransom (ëýôñïí) for many’ (Mar_10:45). Whether we approach the meaning of this term (see Ransom) from Christ’s conception of His life-work as a whole, or by closer exegetical or historical study of the word itself, it is clear that the giving of His life was to Jesus much more than the normal experience of dying; it was a dying which was to issue in largeness and freedom of life for mankind-it was probably even more than ‘on behalf of,’ ‘in the service of’; it was ‘instead of’ (ἀíôß) men. From what He is to release them, however, is not definitely stated. The objection often made that the term is an indication of Pauline influence on Mark is part of the general problem of Paulinism in the Gospels, too large for discussion here. The saying is in perfect harmony with its setting.

(5) The other selected term is connected with the critically difficult passages recording the institution of the Supper. ‘This is my blood of the covenant [possibly the ‘new’ covenant] which is shed for many unto remission of sins’ (Mat_26:28). Here the purpose or ground of the death of Jesus is set forth. It is only just to say that Matthew alone makes the reference to ‘remission of sins.’ The earliest account of the Supper-St. Paul’s (1Co_11:23-26)-omits this reference; he is followed by Mark and Luke. Questions also turn on the sacrificial significance of ‘blood of the covenant.’ The reference is obviously to the solemn ratification by blood-sprinkling of the covenant of Sinai (Exo_24:8). Whether this was strictly sacrificial blood with expiatory value is debated. Robertson Smith* [Note: Sem.2, London, 1894, p. 319 f.] and Driver† [Note: HDB, art. ‘Propitiation,’ iv. 132.] may both be quoted in favour of the view that ‘sacrificial blood was universally associated with propitiatory power.’‡ [Note: Denney, Death of Christ, 53.] Whilst too much should not be built upon a single authority for the precise word of Jesus, the criticism does not touch the value of the citation as an index to the mind of the Apostolic Church.

(6) The awful isolation of the cry of Jesus on the cross, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ (Mar_15:34) cannot easily be separated in the experience of the sinless Son of Cod from some mysterious connexion with the sin He clearly came to deal with by His death. It is at least capable of the suggestion that for a time His consciousness had lost the sense of God’s presence, whose unbroken continuity had hitherto been the ethical and spiritual certainty of His spirit.

To complete the material provided for the apostolic doctrine in the Synoptics there should be added to the points already mentioned the minuteness and wealth of detail-quite without parallel in the presentation of other important features of His life-with which the death of Jesus is recorded, and also the extent to which the writers insist upon the event as a fulfilment of the OT Scriptures We have, therefore, in the Synoptics, whatever view may be taken of the position largely held, that they were the issue of ‘the productive activity’ of the early Church under the stimulating influence of redemptive experiences attributed to the death of Christ, at least the starting-point of the ethical and juridical views of the atonement subsequently developed in the primitive community; they lack doctrinal definiteness, and distinctly favour the ethical more than the legal view of the process of redemption; they are also accompanied by evidences that the disciples listened unintelligently or with reluctant acquiescence to the words of Jesus concerning His death. This last feature indicates the dependence of the apostolic doctrine upon another source.

2. The apostolic experience.-The doctrine of atonement arose out of the Christian experience; it was the issue of a new religious feeling rather than a condition of faith. The springs of tins new spiritual emotion must be sought, if the doctrine which is its result in the Apostolic Church is to be rightly appreciated. In this way also we shall provide a statement of the transition from the desolation wrought by the death of Jesus in the hopes of His followers to the triumphant temper and abounding joy of the primitive faith and preaching. The elements of this experience are:

(1) The Resurrection.-This is the starting-point of the new experience; the ultimate root of the apostolic doctrine of atonement was the presence of the Risen Christ in the consciousness of the primitive Christian community; for it was the secret of the restoration and enrichment of personal faith, the re-creation of the corporate confidence of the community which ‘was begotten again unto a, living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead’ (1Pe_1:3). It was also the revealing light that brought meaning into the mystery of His death. Now and for always these two-death and resurrection-stood together. When the apostles stated the one, they implied the other; the Resurrection was the great theme of the apostolic preaching because it interpreted the significance of the Death. Both were closely and instinctively connected with the forgiveness of sins: ‘The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew, hanging him upon a tree. Him did God exalt with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins’ (Act_5:30 f.). The redeeming virtue issues from the Death and Resurrection as from a common source, though the cross ultimately became its chosen symbol. Beginning to search the Scriptures to discover whether death had a place in the prophetic presentation of the Messiah, the disciples were surprised into the apprehension of the meaning of the words of Jesus spoken whilst He was yet with them; they thus came to see that the Death was only the shadow side of an experience by which He passed to the exaltation and authority of His redeeming work; the catastrophe was seen to have a place in the moral order of God, and the scandal of the cross was transfigured into the glory of the Divine purpose of redemption. This experience was followed by-

(2) The Great Commission.-The terms of this are influential for discerning the apostolic doctrine. As they appear in Mt. (Mat_28:19 f.) and in Mk. (Mar_16:15 f.) associated with baptism, which in the primitive Church was always connected with remission of sins, they are suggestive, but not free from critical difficulties. As they appear in Lk. (Luk_24:44 ff.). from an excellent source, they have their chief significance’ they are there bound up with ‘my words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you’; with the fulfilling of the Scriptures concerning the necessity that ‘the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name’; and especially with the opening of the minds of those who were to be ‘witnesses of these things’ that they might understand them. The historicity of this as conveying the experience and convictions of the Apostolic Church is strong, and it affords exactly the link needed to unite what we find in the Synoptics with what appears as preaching and teaching in the primitive society. The illumination of the apostolic mind for its construction of a doctrine of atonement resulting from the Resurrection and the Great Commission was perfected by the experiences of-

(3) Pentecost.-The coming to abide with them of the Holy Spirit, ‘the promise of the Father’ (Act_1:4), ‘the Spirit of Christ,’ was for the Apostolic Church the ultimate certainty of guidance into all the truth, and the supreme authority for its adequate utterance. The work of the Spirit as Jesus had defined it was; ‘He shall take of mine and shall declare it unto you’ (Joh_16:14). To the fullness of His ministry the Apostolic Church owed the interpretation of the cross, the inspiration of its preaching, the construction of its doctrine, and especially the moral and spiritual results in the life of the individual and of the community which were the living verification of its power, and also the justification of the moral grounds on which the declaration and experience of remission of sins were based. The meaning of the words of Jesus is understood through the works of His Spirit; the significance of His death can be apprehended only in the light of the experience it creates. Only so can an adequate soteriology be reached. From first to last the apostolic doctrine of the atonement is the effort to interpret this experience in the relations in which it was conceived to stand to the Christian conceptions of God and man.

II. The doctrine preached

1. In the Acts of the Apostles.-The early chapters of the Acts contain the one particular account of the earliest form the doctrine of atonement took in the Apostolic Church; for it is generally admitted that some source of considerable value underlies the speeches of Peter. Both their christology and soteriology are primitive in type-it is surely not the doctrine of the 2nd century. In this account the sufferings and death of Jesus the Messiah have a fundamental place. The cross is now more than a scandal; the ‘word of the cross’ is more than an apologetic device for getting over the difficulties of accepting a crucified Messiah. Although the great feature of the apostolic preaching is not the explanation of the death of Christ in relation to the remission of sins, but its power in spiritual renewal, it contains much which enables us to perceive how the primitive community was taught to regard it. Summarized, this is-(1) The death of Christ was a Divine necessity, appointed by God’s counsel and foreknowledge It was a crime whose issue God thwarted for His redeeming purpose (Act_2:23; Act_3:18).-(2) Jesus as the Messiah is identified with the suffering Servant of the Lord (Act_4:27; Act_8:32-35). This conception, abhorrent to the Jewish mind and a sufficient ground for rejecting the Messianic claims of Jesus, is the assertion of the vicarious principle of the righteous one suffering for the unrighteous many and also the sign of a Divine fellowship.-(3) The great gift of the gospel-remission of sins-is set in direct relation to the crucified Jesus (Act_2:38; Act_3:19; Act_5:31; Act_10:43). The prominence given to this in every sermon suggests that this connexion cannot be considered accidental.-(4) Reference to the frequent observance of the Lord’s Supper (Act_2:42). When it is remembered that nothing in the Apostolic Church is more primitive than the sacraments, and that both of them bear implications of Christ’s relation to the remission of sins, this reference is significant.-(5) Christ’s death is not distinctly represented as the ground of forgiveness, by setting forth the Messiah’s death as a satisfaction for sin or as a substitute for sin’s penalty. It is set forth as a motive to repentance and a means of turning men away from sin, but its saving value is not more closely defined. It is certain, however, that the early Apostolic Church attached a saving significance to the death of Christ.

2. In 1 Peter.-It is usual to associate with the indications of the doctrine in the early chapters of Acts the constructive tendencies found in 1 Peter. The Epistle of James is too uncertain in its date and authority, and its aim is too purely practical to warrant appeal to it on the apostolic doctrine of atonement. Indeed 1 Peter is far from being free from difficulty when used for this purpose. The signs of Pauline influence are too strong for its use as a source of primitive Christian ideas without some hesitation. Still, the fact that St. Paul and St. Peter are represented as in harmony on the significance of the redemptive work of Christ, when they are manifestly at variance in other important factors of the primitive faith, is not without its value; it is possible also that their similarities may be accounted for by their common loyalty to the accepted Christian tradition. Taken as it stands, St. Peter’s contribution may be epitomized thus: (1) Whilst the suffering death of Christ holds, as elsewhere in apostolic writings, the central place, its strongest appeal is made in regard to the moral quality of the sufferings. The patience and innocence of the Sufferer for righteousness’ sake control its theological presentation. The exhortation to suffer with Christ by expressing His spirit in the life of discipleship obviously emphasizes the ethical appeal of His example, but this is based upon a due appreciation of His sufferings on our behalf. Quite a procession of theological ideas thus emerges.-(2) The covenant idea with its sacrificial implication in ‘sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ’ is present (1Pe_1:2), possibly reminiscent of the words at the Supper.-(3) Ransomed ‘with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ’ (1Pe_1:19), combines the idea of the sacrificial lamb with possibly an echo of the ‘ransom’ of Mar_10:45.-(4) The close connexion of Christ who ‘suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow his steps, and its ethical appeal, with the clear interpretation of the Passion as a sin-bearing, ‘who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree’ (1Pe_2:24), and its profound moral issues, ‘that we having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed’-shows how intimately what are termed the objective and subjective conceptions of the atonement are associated in the writer’s thought; the end is moral and dominates the means, but the means are clearly substitutionary, to the extent that the obligations to righteousness involved in ‘our sins’ are assumed by the sinless Lamb of God.-(5) The writer once again glides with simple ease and familiarity from the force of the example of Christ to the abiding fact of His sin-bearing (1Pe_3:18): ‘Because Christ also suffered for sins once (ἅðáî, ‘once fur all’), the righteous for (ὑðÝñ) the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God.) Access to God is regarded as a high privilege obtained by a great self-surrender and not as a native right to be taken for granted. Of course these ideas, which the writer of 1 Peter discusses in this apparently incidental way, are closely akin to those of the righteousness by faith and ethical obedience ‘in Christ’ which St. Paul discusses so fully and of set purpose in Romans 3, 6 respectively, and this may suggest his influence. If so, then the evidence of 1 Peter will fall into the Later Pauline period of apostolic doctrine, which we shall now consider at length; but that would not depreciate its value as a witness to the faith of the Apostolic Church in its wider range.

III. The doctrine developed

1. The Pauline type.-It will be obvious to any reader of the literature of the Apostolic Church that its doctrine of atonement was the subject of considerable development in form. In tracing this the Pauline writings must be our main source. Of all NT writers, St. Paul goes into the greatest detail and has most deliberately and continually reflected upon this subject. Indeed, the abundance of the material he provides is embarrassing to any one seeking a unified doctrine. In St. Paul we find for the first time a philosophy of the death of Christ in relation to the forgiveness of sins, which is ultimately based upon an analysis of the Divine attributes and their place in the interpretation of the doctrine of the cross. At the same time the emphasis he lays upon this is regarded by him as in accordance with the belief and teaching of the primitive community; it is the centre of his gospel and theirs. It may be assumed, therefore, that we are as likely to learn from him as from any other source what was the inner meaning of the primitive Christian belief. He declared that what he preached concerning the dying of Christ for our sins according to the Scriptures he ‘received’ (1Co_15:3). Whilst it is possible that this statement finds a fuller definition in his further assertion, ‘Neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ’ (Gal_1:12), it seems clear that St. Paul’s doctrine rested upon the common apostolic data given in (1) the words of Jesus respecting the necessity of His death on man’s behalf; (2) the very early Christian idea that it was included in the Divine purpose; (3) the conception of the vicarious sufferings of the righteous and their merit founded on Is 53 which had been elaborated in later Jewish thought.* [Note: Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Salvation, 59, 122.] Although it seems clear that this late Jewish doctrine was a source of St. Paul’s theory, it underwent partial transformation at his hands; it was ethicized; moreover, it was probably the vicarious idea, as it was associated with the prophetic rather than with the priestly or legal conceptions, that he appropriated; it was not the literal legal substitution and transfer, but the vicariousness of a real experience in which the righteous bear upon their hearts the woes and sins of the sinful.† [Note: G. A. Smith, Mod. Crit. and Preaching of OT, London, 1901, p. 120 ff.]

(1) St. Paul’s early preaching.-The earliest Indication of St. Paul’s view of atonement would naturally be sought in his preaching during the fifteen or more years before he wrote the letters in which he sets forth more deliberately and with obvious carefulness his matured doctrinal judgments. The author of the Acts gives little light on St. Paul’s method of setting out his interpretation of the death of Christ in his discourses; how he was accustomed to place it in relation to forgiveness of sin in his earliest preaching does not definitely appear. The discourse at Antioch in Pisidia may illustrate the character of his reference to it: ‘through this man is preached unto you forgiveness of sins’ (Act_13:38); but nothing is defined more closely. To the Ephesian elders at Miletus be speaks about ‘the Church of God, which he purchased with his own blood’ (Act_20:28). St. Paul himself gives us the only valuable account of his preaching, its dominant topic was the crucifixion-‘the preaching of the cross’ (1Co_1:18); ‘I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified’ (1Co_2:2). No explanation is given. But the fact that he made the cross supreme when it was regarded as a direct antagonism and provocative by those he sought to win-a scandal to Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles-implies that it was associated with an interpretation that made it something different from a martyrdom. Such a martyrdom neither Jew nor Greek would have regarded with the scorn they exhibited for the interpretation St. Paul gave them in order to meet their challenge for explanation.

(2) The Pauline Epistles.-On the whole, St. Paul’s preaching carries us no further towards a knowledge of any reasoned doctrine of atonement than the position reached in the preaching of his fellow-apostles-that ‘Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.’ Of course this is in itself a vast doctrinal implication. Still, for the structure of the Pauline doctrine we are shut up to his teaching in his Epistles. In his earliest writings-the Thessalonian Epistles.-we practically get no further towards his doctrine than in his preaching, except perhaps that the idea emerges that in some way Christ identifies Himself with our evil that He may identify us with Himself in His own good (1Th_5:9 f.). We meet the organized body of his doctrine in the well-authenticated group of his writings to the Galatians, Romans, and Corinthians, with a supplementary view in the Imprisonment. Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians. We may differentiate this teaching, but it has throughout most important underlying principles in common. It falls conveniently into five divisions-Atonement and Law; Atonement and Righteousness; Atonement and Personality; Atonement and Newness of Life; Atonement and the Universe. In briefly reviewing these, it should be remembered that according to St. Paul the love of God is the first arid last motive of redemption, and that none of the atoning processes is separable from the full activities of the Divine Personality.

(a) Atonement and Law.-This is the form in which St. Paul construes his doctrine in the Galatian I Epistle, which deals more exclusively than any other NT document with the significance of the death of Christ. ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for (ὑðÝñ) us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth upon a tree’ (Gal_3:13). The conception here is distinctly juridical; whether it is also penal will depend upon the definition of ‘penal.’ If punishment implies guilt, the sufferings of Christ were not. strictly penal, for He is always set forth as guiltless; moreover, guilt cannot be transferred as guilt. His sufferings did, in St. Paul’s judgment, serve the end of punishment: they were representatively penal; Christ took the place of the guilty as far as it involved penal consequences; for special emphasis is laid upon the instrument of death-the cross-and upon its curse, though there seems nothing to justify the attributing to Christ of the position suggested by the allusion to Deu_21:23 of one ‘accursed of God’ which has at times been pressed by expositors. That He endured the consequences of such a position and in this sense was ‘made a curse on our behalf’ is the Apostle’s application of it. This endurance is regarded as the recognition of the just requirement of the law of God-not the ceremonial law alone, but also the moral demands arising out of God’s holy and righteous nature, and especially those which empirically St. Paul had put to tine test in vain in his seeking after personal righteousness. St. Paul does not deny the authority of this law; he asserts it, but the fact that it was added to the promise for ‘the sake of transgression’ resulted in its making men sinful; it brought a curse: ‘Cursed is every one which continued, not in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them’ (Gal_3:10). With this curse in its consequences Christ identifies Himself, as in the Apostle’s thought He had identified Himself with mankind in being ‘born of a woman, born under the law’ (Gal_4:4). By thus making Himself absolutely one with those under ban, absorbing into Himself all that it meant, He removed the obstacle to forgiveness in the righteous attitude of God towards sin which could not be overcome until sin had been virtually punished. It was thus that the way was opened for man to identify himself by personal faith and living experience with Christ’s death, so that St. Paul was justified in saying: ‘For I through the law died unto the law, that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ: yet I live: and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me’ (Gal_2:19 f.)

This conception of St. Paul’s adds the ethical idea of atonement to the juridical, which other passages reiterate (Gal_5:24; Gal_6:14). It is, however, essentially Pauline to regard the ethical as depending for its possibility and efficacy in experience upon the juridical; otherwise ‘Christ died for nought.’ God must vindicate His law so that He may justly forgive; the operation of grace is connected with the assertion of justice. But ultimately St. Paul’s conception really transcends these contrasts; for it is God Himself who in His love provides the way to be both just and gracious; He, not another, provides the satisfaction. In the last analysis God is presented as removing His own obstacles to forgiveness; the death in which His righteous law is exhibited is the provision of His antecedent love; the commending of His love is the prior purpose resulting in Christ being ‘made a curse on our behalf.’* [Note: P. Wernle, Anfänge unserer Religion, Tübingen, 1901, p. 146; Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Salvation, 67.] Consequently the whole Christian life is resolved into a response to God’s love exhibited in the death of His Son; it does away with the hindrance to forgiveness in God’s law, and at the same time inspires the faith which conducts into ethical conformity to Christ in man’s experience.

(b) Atonement and Righteousness.-This is dealt with exhaustively in the Epistle to the Romans; the great question the Epistle discusses is-How shall a sinful man be righteous with God? and the answer is-By receiving ‘a righteousness of God’ which is ‘revealed from faith to faith.’ In the interpretation of this answer we reach the heart of the apostolic doctrine, and upon it the great bulk of later historical discussions has turned. For more than the briefest hints here given of the points of exegesis involved, reference should be made to commentaries on the Epistle. St. Paul distinctly states the two aides of the meaning of atonement referred to in the beginning of this article. But his interest is primarily absorbed by the efficient cause of at-one-ment as the ideal end, viz. the atonement, the Divine provision of the satisfaction which the Divine righteousness requires to be exhibited in order that forgiveness of sins may be bestowed and a restoration of fellowship between God and man achieved. To this he devotes his utmost strength; he regards it as primary in the order of thought as well as in the redemptive process. Still he is nobly loyal to both conceptions, if, indeed, they were for him really two; for he thinks of the unity of the process with the end as exhibiting the perfectness of the Divine purpose of grace. This point will be discussed later. Meanwhile it must be pointed out that the strong divergencies revealed in the interpretation of the apostolic doctrine have frequently resulted from regarding one or other of these phases of the Pauline doctrine as in itself adequate to explain the whole. Ethical theories have sought to ignore the juridical means; juridical theories have often stopped short of the ethical end. The Pauline doctrine does neither. Both are met in the conception, essential to his doctrine, of the ideal and actual identification of Christ with man in his sin, and of man with Christ in newness of life; and also in the identification of both with God in His unchanging righteousness and in His eternal love; for St. Paul with ceaseless loyalty carries all the processes of redemption in time up to the initiative and executive of the Divine purpose.

Righteousness is the starting-point of his discussion; it, is seen in ‘the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men’ (Rom_1:18). Cod can never be at peace with sin. Law brings no righteousness; ‘by the law is the knowledge of sin’ (Rom_3:20). All have sinned; not one is righteous; the necessity for a righteousness apart from the law is obvious. The provision of this, ‘even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe’ (Rom_3:22), is the Divine atonement. This implies, of course, in its completion a great moral and spiritual change in the nature and character of those who ‘have received the atonement’; that end does not jet receive St. Paul’s attention; his mind is preoccupied with the means. He is not even at present intent on demonstrating the necessity of this ethical transformation; he is in subjection to the arresting fact that all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men was exposed to the Divine wrath, and is constrained to show how the wrath was withheld. This was not primarily to be sought in the measure in winch men might be arrested by the fact and cease to sin; they must and would do that in proportion as they received the atonement. But for the time being St. Paul is confining his thought entirely to the ‘objective’ work of Christ in the atonement, whereby was provided and set forth the means by which the ‘subjective’ work of Christ in personal union with the believing soul might be possible; indeed, in some respects it had been actual also in the past, for sins had already been remitted by 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, by his blood, to show his righteousness, because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; for the showing, 1 say, of his righteousness at this present season; that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus’ (Rom_3:24 ff.).

Thus St. Paul conceived the method of deliverance from the wrath of God which was inevitable in the presence of unrighteousness; it is an objective work and is in response to faith, however full of personal renewal in righteousness its ethical implications may eventually become; for the destruction of sin and the gift of life are regarded as depending upon a free bestowal on sinners of a righteousness of God. The interpretation of this crucial passage and its context depends upon the meaning assigned to the terms ‘righteousness of God’ and propitiation.’ The idea expressed in the former term occupies the central place in St. Paul’s conception of atonement. Righteousness was his passion; its quest the summum bonum of his life; ‘he had sought it long in vain, and when at length he found it he gave to it a name expressive of its infinite worth to his heart: the righteousness of God.’* [Note: Bruce, St. Paul’s Conception of Christianity, 146.] To this title-‘a righteousness of God’-he firmly adheres; it is distinctive; to him it is something belonging to the Christian man, yet it is not his personal righteousness of character; he receives it. It also belongs to God, but it is not His personal righteousness which is imparted to the believer. St. Paul’s conception of it does not occur in the Gospels, where the term stands for the righteousness of which God is the centre, which is His essential attribute. The nearest approach to the Pauline sense in the teaching of Jesus is the grace of God in the free pardon of sin. In St. Paul, righteousness is a ‘gift’ from God to him who believes in Christ. He is dealt with as righteous. To regard the righteousness of God as essentially self-imparting, taking hold of human lives and filling them with its Divine energies, without any reference to the problem sin has created, is not Pauline. To St. Paul, as well as to all NT teaching, God’s righteousness was the affluent, overflowing source of all the goodness in the world, but he felt that sin made a difference to God; it was sin against His righteousness; and His righteousness had to be vindicated against it; it could not ignore it.

Any view which failed to appreciate this problem would miss the characteristic solution that St. Paul unceasingly presents in the ‘propitiation’ in the blood of Christ, ‘whom God had set forth to show his righteousness in passing over sins done aforetime. Ritschl’s view, that always in St. Paul the righteousness of God means the mode of procedure which is consistent with God’s having the salvation of believers as His end,* [Note: Rechtfertigung und Versöhnung, ii. 117.] overlooks the emphatic contention of the Apostle, that it is the ungodly to whom God is gracious rather than the faithful within the covenant privilege; this latter is the class referred to in the Psalms and Second Isaiah, to whom God exhibited His righteousness in presence of the wrongs done them by their enemies. Ritschl’s conception is an attractive presentation of the meaning of the term in other relations, but it is irrelevant to St. Paul’s distinctive meaning. The suggestive view of the term expounded by Seeberg in Der Tod Christi, that the righteousness of God means simply His moral activity to harmony with His true character, the norm of which is that He should institute and maintain fellowship with men; that if He did not do so He would not be righteous and would fail to act in His proper character, leaves unanswered in any distinctive Pauline fashion the question what means Cod takes to secure fellowship with sinful men so that He may act towards the ungodly in a way which does justice to Himself St. Paul does not leave the presentation of Christ as a means by which this fellowship may be instituted, without a much closer definition; he clearly relates it to the vicarious principle lying for him in his elect word ‘propitiation,’ whether it be taken as a strictly sacrificial term or not (see, in addition, article Propitiation).

Denney, who discusses these views at length,† [Note: Death of Christ, 164 ff.] maintains that the righteousness of God has not the same meaning throughout this passage (Rom_3:21 ff.); it has ‘in one place-say in Rom_3:22 -the half-technical sense which belongs to it as a summary of St. Paul’s gospel; and in another-say in Rom_3:26 -the larger and more general sense which might belong to it elsewhere in Scripture as a synonym for God’s character, or at least for one of His essential attributes.’ But these two views are not unrelated; they cannot be discussed apart; we see them harmonized as complements in the true meaning of ‘propitiation.’ Christ is set forth by God as a propitiation to exhibit their unity and consistency with each other. When the Pauline view of ‘propitiation,’ as ‘relative to some problem created by sin for a God who would justify sinners,’ is accepted in a substitutionary sense and the argument of the passage reaches its climax, the two senses of the righteousness of God in it ‘have sifted themselves out, so to speak, and stand distinctly side by side.’‡ [Note: ibid 165.] God is the Just in His own character; and at the same time, in providing it righteousness of God through faith, which stands to the good of the believing sinner, He is the Justifier. That both these meanings are present in atonement and are there harmonized with one another, is what St. Paul seeks to bring out.

St. Paul would show God righteous in His forbearance in ‘the passing over of sins done aforetime.’ But, as he defines the effects of the propitiation, he leaves the wrath of God in the background; the forbearance of God becomes the centre of his thought; that is a gracious fact and must be accounted for. Why has God never dealt with sinful men according to their sins? He has always been slow to anger and of great kindness, a gracious God and merciful; sins done aforetime were passed over. Does the doing of this impugn His righteousness? St. Paul finds his apology for, and explanation of, the universal graciousness of God in the propitiation which He has set forth in Christ by His blood. God cannot be charged with moral indifference because He has always been God, the Saviour. Sin has never been a trivial matter; any omission to mark it by inflicting its full penal consequences has been due to forbearance, which now in the propitiation justifies itself to His righteousness. If, apart from this, God had invested with privilege those whose sin deserved the manifestation of His wrath, He would, St. Paul thinks, have suppressed His righteousness. To show the Justifier, whether ‘in respect of sins done aforetime’ or ‘at this present season,’ to be Himself just, St. Paul holds the setting forth of His righteousness by the propitiation in the blood of Christ to be necessary. Christ’s death, therefore, was something more than a great ethical appeal of the love of God in suffering for sin to the heart and conscience of men; it had been rendered necessary by the remission of sins in ages before the Advent, as well as to justify the readiness and desire of God to remit the sins of any man who ‘at this present season’ ‘hath faith in Jesus.’

This exaltation of the forbearance of God as the ultimate explanation of the propitiation is intended to make known the ultimate fact that the wrath of God against sin lies within the supreme constraint of the love of God-‘His own love’ which He commendeth toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us (Rom_5:6 ff.). Christ was set forth by God Himself; His love provided the propitiation; there was no constraint upon Christ. He gave Himself up for us; there was no conflict between the Divine wrath and the Divine love; they were reconciled in God, and their reconciliation set forth in the propitiation in the blood of Christ. The wrath is the expression and minister of the love; mere self-consideration is unknown in the Divine activity. Moreover, where the love has prevailed, the wrath fails, ‘While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; much more then being now justified in his blood shall we be saved through him from the wrath. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life’ (Rom_5:8 ff.). The achievement of redemption in its ethical value proceeds from the death of Christ as the supreme demonstration of the Divine love, by evoking in sinful souls the response of a personal surrender to the newness of life to which it constrains. This may introduce the classical passage in St. Paul’s writings on the doctrine of atonement. ‘All things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses, and having committed unto us the word of reconciliation. We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us; we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God, Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him’ (2Co_5:18 ff.). The Pauline doctrine receives its most satisfying and probably its most permanent interpretation in the restoration of acceptable personal relations between God and man, and the perfecting of these in a fellowship of holy love.

(c) Atonement and Personality.-Love, the perfect expression of the Divine Personality, constrained God to identify Himself in Christ with us, and constrains us to identify ourselves in Christ with God. Personality finds its perfection in fellowship; self-identification with others is the ultimate of fellowship. Identification is the principle on which an interpretation of reconciliation most easily proceeds (see Reconciliation). Love is essentially self-impartation. Reconciliation is an exchange, the giving and receiving of love; ‘at-one-ment’ is its issue. This is based in the Pauline thought upon the Divine initiative. God ‘made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf,’ that there might be identification of righteousness as well as of love in the reconciliation, ‘that we might become the righteousness of God in him,’ ‘not reckoning unto men their trespasses.’ These words suggest the idea of such an identification of men ‘in Christ’ that there is on God’s part a general justification of mankind in the form of a non-imputation of sins, on the purely objective ground of God’s satisfaction by self-giving in Him who knowing no sin was made sin on our behalf, Individual identification of man will follow, as, in response to God’s entreating, each man is reconciled to God. ‘For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died; and be died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose again’ (2Co_5:14 f.). As the race died in Christ, His death is a true crisis in every man’s history; there is a new creation, which includes both a new status and a new creature. That all died in Christ is neither wholly subjective nor wholly objective. St. Paul’s full doctrine requires both; their death is died by Him, and His death is died by thorn. But in the order of thought He must first die their death, that they may die His. We never read that God has been reconciled; He reconciled Himself to the world in Christ, but men are reconciled or ‘receive the reconciliation.’ St. Paul’s judgment is that the atonement is a finished work, but that the ‘atonement’ is progressive; reconciliation is first a work wrought on men’s behalf before it is wrought within their hearts; it is a work outside of men, that it may be a work within them; there is objective basis: for the subjective experience.

Some interpreters, e.g. Denney,* [Note: Death of Christ, 145.] would limit the reconciliation to what God in Christ has done outside of up; others, e.g. Kaftan,† [Note: Dogmatik, § 52 ff.] hold that nothing is to be called reconciliation unless men are actually reconciled. St. Paul’s doctrine is consistent with the view that reconciliation is both something which is done and something which is being done. The expression of that which is done and the source of that which is being done are seen in the solemn assertion that God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf. No exegesis is more than a halting interpretation of the profound significance of this saying. At least the words mean that He died for our sin in regard to its consequences. They seem, however, to mean more; but in what sense God’s love in the gift of Christ can be said to be identified with ‘sin on our behalf,’ it is impossible to say. Certain it is that St. Paul had other and more usual ways of saying that the sinless One was a sin-bearer in the sense of an offering for sin. The strength of the saying is that He died to all that sin could mean, and that, in this dying unto sin once for all, the race with which Ho identified Himself in His sufferings and death died with Him; it is a death which contains the death of all, rather than solely a death which would otherwise have been died by all; in it their trespasses are not imputed unto them, and by the constraint of its demonstration of love they live not unto themselves but unto Him who died for them and rose again. The statement that all this was the work of ‘God in Christ’ suffices to refute any reading of the process of reconciliation which suggests a contrast that approaches competition between the righteousness of Cod and the love of Christ. It is identification which is supreme here. For, while it is no doubt true that the conception of Christ as substitute suits the interpretation of His death as sacrificial, the idea of representation best accords with the whole group of passages from which by induction St. Paul’s law of redemption is to be gathered. In these, Christ appears as a central Person, in whom the race is gathered into an ethical unity, having one responsibility and one inheritance. In this identity even those realities usually regarded as inseparable from personality, such as sin and righteousness, are treated as separable entities passing freely from the one participant in the identification to the other-sin to the Sinless One, righteousness to the unrighteous. An objective identity of this order, however, does not permanently satisfy so keen a thinker as St. Paul; he cannot rest short of subjective identity between Redeemer and redeemed. Not only in virtual oneness by Divine appointment, but in actual union by living experience, is identification to be achieved. This provides the basis for St. Paul’s teaching on-

(d) Atonement and Newness of Life.-The work of redemption was not wholly a matter of juridical substitution and imputation. Another line of thought of great importance is pursued, besides the freeing from the curse and the deliverance from wrath. The relation of men to the salvation of Christ is not purely passive.* [Note: C. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897, p. 120.] They must enter into intimate union of life with Him. They must die in effect with Christ to sin on His cross, and rise with Him in newness of life. Through their faith they constitute His mystical body; they have corporate identity with Him in ‘the life which is life indeed’; they are saved from the power as well as the guilt of sin; freedom from the law of sin and death completes the release from its condemnation; the release from past sin in the atonement in Christ’s death does not exhaust its aim; it involves the actual renunciation of the selfish life and the realization of the life of holy love.

Although this conception is not wholly out of mind in chs. 3 and 4 of Romans and elsewhere (cf. Gal_2:19 f., Col_2:20; Col_3:3, Php_3:9 f.), in which the juridical view of Christ’s death is developed, it finds its full presentation in reply to an imaginary objection to the juridical view in Romans 6 and the following three chapters. The question, Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? starts St. Paul upon an exposition of the essential relation between the righteousness which is by faith in Christ as ‘propitiation,’ and the righteousness which is personal and real, through vital fellowship with His death and resurrection; ‘crucified with him, buried with him, raised with him,’ believers also walk with Him ‘in newness of life.’ There is something in the experience of Christ which they repeat so far as its ethical implications can be realized in their own experience; for the closest of links exists between the saving deed of Christ and the ethical issues of the salvation it has brought about. Although St. Paul does not make any direct use of the spotless holiness and perfect obedience of Christ save in so far as they issue in His death, still these ethical qualities of the Redeemer become the ethical demand in the redeemed as their union of life with Him is unfolded. The great Pauline conception ‘in Christ’ is required to complete on its ethical side the salvation which is ‘through Christ’ on the legal side.

In recent exposition the relation between these two-the ‘subjective-mystical’ view of salvation and the ‘objective-juridical’-has been much discussed. Is the former an addition, a supplement, a correlative, or a transformation of the latter? ‘Probably a majority of recent scholars hold that the conception of freedom from sin through a new moral life is primary in the thought of the Apostle’;† [Note: g. Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Salvation, 70; W. Beyschlag, NT Theol., Eng. tr., 1895, ii. 198-201; C. v. Weizsäcker, Das apostolische Zeitalter, Freiburg i. B., 1890, p. 139 (Eng. tr., London, 1895, ii. 104 f.).] others reverse this relation.‡ [Note: g. O. Pfleiderer, Das Urchristentum, Berlin, 1887, p. 229; E. Ménégoz, Le Péché et la Rédemption d’après St. Paul, 1882, ii. 251 ff.] Denney strongly maintains that Christ’s substitutionary death is primary, and that the ethico-mystical views are directly deduced from it; the latter indicate the inevitable result of a true appropriating faith in the substitutionary death of Christ, the sole object of which was to atone for sin; gratitude to Christ for this redemptive act of love Being sufficient to evoke the whole experience of salvation on its ethical side. St. Paul’s thought has only one focus-Christ’s ‘finished work,’ His ‘atonement outside of us,’* [Note: Death of Christ, 179-192.] A. B. Bruce fears that the practical schism between these two experiences of faith in the objective work of Christ and personal union in His death and resurrection is too real for such, a view; he thinks that the doctrine of an objective righteousness wrought out by Christ was first elaborated, that this ‘met the spiritual need of the conversion crisis,’ and that ‘the doctrine of subjective righteousness came in due season to solve problems arising out of Christian experience’; consequently they are ‘two doctrines,’ two revelations serving different purposes, but not incompatible with or cancelling one another.† [Note: Paul’s Conception of Christianity, 214 ff.] Lipsius regards the two lines of thought as parallel or interpenetrating.‡ [Note: Dogmatik3, Brunswick, 1893, p. 510.] H. J. Holtzmann makes the interesting suggestion that the expiatory doctrine is built up by St. Paul’s use of popular Jewish conceptions and sacrificial categories applied to Christ’s death, while the ethico-mystical view is the more direct product of his experience interpreted through Hellenistic ideas, especially the contrast of flesh and spirit.§ [Note: NT Theol. ii. 117 f.] Whilst the two doctrines lie side by side within the same Epistle, it is difficult to regard them as separate doctrines representing quite distinct epochs of thought or experience in St. Paul. His teaching elsewhere on the work of the Holy Spirit should not be ignored in making adjustments between the two sides of his view of the atonement. It is on the interpretation of the place of St. Paul’s ethical teaching on this doctrine that most marked differences exist; his doctrine of expiation is expounded with substantially the same results by scholars of the most divergent theological tendencies.|| [Note: | E.g. Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Salvation, pt. i. ch. iv.; Denney, Death of Christ, ch. iii.; Pfleiderer, Paulinismus2, Leipzig, 1890, ch. iii. (Eng. tr., 1877); Ménégoz, Le Péché, etc., ii. ch. iii.; H. J. Holtzmann, NT Theol. ii. 97-121; H. Cremer, Die Paulinische Rechtfertigungslehre2, Gütersloh, 1900, pp. 424-448.]

(e) Atonement and the Universe.-In two of the Epistles of the Imprisonment-those to Eph. and Col. (Phil. repeats the same circle of ideas as Rom. and Gal.)-St. Paul extends the reconciliation wrought by the death of Christ from the human race to the universe as it sustains moral relations to God; it is the cosmic view of the atonement, and is a result of seeking to provide a basis for the ruling idea of the absoluteness of his gospel. The ‘world’ for which Christ died is no longer the world of sinful men, as in 2Co_5:19 and Rom_3:19; it is vaster (cf. Rom_8:19 ff.); it includes angelic and possibly super-angelic beings, ‘things in (or above) the heavens’ (Eph_1:10); God has been pleased ‘through him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross, through him, whether they be things on earth, or things in heaven’ (Col_1:20). Here we pass from the region of the historical and experimental into that of vision and spiritual imagination. How far the categories of juridical and ethical, into which St. Paul’s doctrine has been cast elsewhere, may be applied to the processes of the restoration of the whole universe to perfect unity with God in Christ, it is difficult to say. R. W. Dale¶ [Note: The Atonement3, 253 ff.] argues that they are fulfilled in removing the objective cause of estrangement; but it is evident that, if this is in itself inadequate for the realized salvation of the human race, it will not be likely to suffice for a higher race of moral intelligences; the personal union of sympathy and life implied in the subjective and mystical view will still be necessary for at-one-ment.

The Pastoral Epistles, though probably much inter than St. Paul’s earlier group in which his doctrine is chiefly stated, add no fresh ideas to his interpretation. This may imply that his doctrine had already become fixed in form and could be taken for granted, or that it is unwise to lay stress upon the view that it was a slowly developed teaching. The influence upon other NT writers of St. Paul’s doctrine of the relation of the death of Christ to the forgiveness of sins should be carefully considered; the subject goes beyond the scope of this article.

2. The type presented in the Epistle to the Hebrews.-This is distinctive. Some suspect possible affinities with the thought of the apostolic group in the Church at Jerusalem. The writing exhibits many resemblances in language to the Pauline type, but the same terms are used with a different connotation, and there is an absence of many of St. Paul’s characteristic forms of thought; the Pauline principle of substitution prevails, but it is presented more in the spirit and method of the Alexandrine exegesis and philosophy of religion-the relation of shadow to reality-or in the symbolism of the Jewish sacrificial system. Although one of the most theological of all the NT writings, it assumes rather than states a philosophy of the Christian redemption. The death of Christ is regarded as exclusively sacrificial. As atonement it is presented mostly on the objective side; even more than St. Paul, the writer emphasizes the work Christ does outside us, ‘on our behalf.’ St. Paul’s supplement to this view in his ethico-mystical doctrine is only slightly considered. The term ‘in Christ’ does not occur; the circle of ideas it represents is absent; ethical implications of the vicarious view are found, but they are different and slighter. The idea of finality is the characteristic conception which dominates the presentation of Christ’s redeeming work; it is ‘eternal’ in this sense. The ethical value of a sinless Offerer in perfect sympathy with His sinful brethren, for whom He presents His sacrifice perfect and without blemish, is a prominent characteristic in the doctrine of the atoning work. The perfect humanity implied makes it possible to start the interpretation of the doctrine of atonement in the Epistle, with Westcott, from the Incarnation; or; with Seeberg, from the Passion of the Offerer as identical with the historic Jesus. As His perfect Priests hood, which is almost identical with the latter, also includes the former, both in the historic fact and in the mind of the writer of the Epistle, it is more satisfactory to adopt it as the ruling idea.

(1) Priesthood.-Priesthood is the clearest way of access to the writer’s main teaching; it unifies the distinguishable orders of sacrifice-sin-offering, burnt-offering, etc.-in the one characteristic function of the priest, which is to offer sacrifice and so to establish and to represent the fellowship of God with man, which is the root-idea of atonement. Such fellowship is visible and incorporate in the priest’s person; through him the people draw near to God themselves, have their fellowship with Him, and become His people. The necessity for a priest and his mediation is that sin stands in the way of this fellowship; it cannot be ignored: its defilement is the acute problem in thought and experience which constrains the writer to set forth the Divinely appointed way for its removal. For this end God has appointed His own Son a High Priest for ever, that He may make ‘propitiation’ for the sing of His people (Heb_2:17). This is possible in only one way-sacrifice. The OT conception, upon the analogy of which this NT structure is built, is that propitiation must be made for sin, if sinful men are to have fellowship with God at all; the only propitiation known is the shedding of blood in sacrificial offerings. A root-principle, therefore, of the writer’s theory is: ‘Apart from shedding of blood there is no remission’ (Heb_9:22). This sacrifice Christ provides in His blood; He is at once Priest and Sacrificial Offering; He is on this account capable of dealing effectively with sin as the obstacle to the fellowship of God and man; ‘once (ἅðáî-‘once for all’) at the end of this ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself’ (Heb_9:26).

(2) Sacrifice.-This offering of Himself is illustrated from the three elements of the Levitical system-(a) the sin-offering, (b) the covenant-offering, (c) the offering on the great Day of Atonement. As sin-offering, Christ’s death was a final sacrifice for sins (Heb_10:12; Heb_10:18), it made propitiation for the sins of the people (Heb_2:17), it put away sin (Heb_9:26). As a covenant sacrifice, it ratified the new covenant, of which He was the mediator by ‘blood of sprinkling’ (Heb_12:24); for this covenant also, that it might become operative, His death was necessary. As the high priest entered every year into the Holy Place, Christ has entered into the heavenly sanctuary to appear before the face of God for us (Heb_9:24). He also suffered without the camp (Heb_13:11 f.). The writer dwells much upon the fact that all these were only symbolic and morally ineffective as types. Only in Christ’s sacrificial offering of Himself and in the functions of His changeless Priesthood could be provided the eternal reality (see Sacrifice). The writer also further defines all that Christ did and suffered in its relation to God-and especially to His love. It was by the grace of God that He tasted death for every man (Heb_2:9). God is not conceived in any sense as a hostile Being who is to be won over by sacrificial gifts to be gracious to man; these are never said to ‘reconcile’ God. The Priesthood of Christ was God’s appointment and calling (Heb_5:4). Christ’s supreme ministry was ‘to do thy will, O God’ (Heb_10:7). The same will was fulfilled ‘through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all’ (ἅðáî, Heb_10:10). Christ’s life and death are in perfect obedience to God, and are a revelation of the mind and love of God; such is God’s gracious way of making it possible for the sinful to have fellowship with Him, of ‘bringing many sons unto glory’ (Heb_2:10); it was entirely congruous, the writer asserts, with God’s perfect ethical nature and with man’s sinful state. It is in the latter sense that the writer defines further the relation of the sacrifice of Christ to sin. His work is described as ‘having made purification of sins’ (Heb_1:3). He was offered to bear the sins of many (Heb_9:28; Heb_2:17; Heb_10:12 ff.). By whatever sacrificial illustrations His offering of Himself in His blood is set forth, the expiatory significance is common to them all; they represent the Divinely appointed way of dealing with sin as a hindrance to communion with God.

(3) Theory.-Beyond the relation to God and sin referred to, it is not easy, without going outside the pages of the Epistle, to state a doctrine which explains to the reason the grounds on which the sacrificial ministry of Christ as Priest and Offering becomes available for the establishing of the fellowship with God which is plainly set forth as its object. It is said ‘to sanctify’ men (Heb_2:11; Heb_10:10; Heb_10:14; Heb_13:12); to enable them ‘to draw near to God’ (Heb_4:16; Heb_7:19 ff., Heb_10:22); ‘to make perfect’ (Heb_2:10; Heb_7:19; Heb_10:14); ‘to purify’ (Heb_9:14). It is difficult, however, to give a close definition of these terms. Primarily they refer to status; men’s relation to God is altered rather than their character changed into ethical states befitting these terms as symbols of personal qualities; the immediate effect upon men is religious rather than ethical. But ultimately this effect is inadequate. As much as this was acknowledged to have been accomplished by the ancient priesthood and sacrifices, and it is the persistent plea of the writer that these ceased because they were inadequate: the blood of bulls and of goats can never take away sin or serve for the purification of the conscience. Christ’s Priesthood and Offering were, on the other hand, ‘better,’ ‘perfect,’ ‘eternal,’ or final; they did what others could not do. In the end, therefore, those who shared their benefits would enter into possession and enjoyment of the ethical realities for which they were the surety; such persons were to become partakers of Christ (Heb_3:14; Heb_3:1; Heb_6:4). Identification was to follow the more strictly vicarious relation. Meanwhile, however, the writer is Pauline to this extent that, whilst not excluding the ethical from the results of Christ’s substitutionary work, he emphasizes first and strongly the objective benefits. He holds that eventually conscience and character will share in the blessings assured by access to God, but the ethical change is considered as the outcome of the change in the religious and juridical relation. Before the ‘sanctified’ become sinless or the ‘perfect’ faultless or the ‘purified’ pure, they have the status towards God of these, which is expressed in the privilege of fellowship. This is the effect of Christ’s ‘finished work’ in His death: it is primary; and the moral renewal, though assured as its outcome, is secondary. Christ’s death has done something in regard to sin once for all, and by one offering has brought men for ever into a perfect religious relation to God. That such an objective result is thus brought about seems clear from the Epistle, but what it is precisely which in God is related to this work is not stated by the writer, nor what constitutes the necessity in God for the Divinely appointed death of Christ. He does not go behind the Divine appointment; that God wills it is sufficient; this is for him axiomatic; in what its absoluteness lies is not stated. How far it is legitimate to read into the Epistle the Pauline ideas is doubtful; it has only the value of inference. The efficiency of the fact that Christ’s death is the putting away of sin is the writer’s contribution to the apostolic doctrine of atonement rather than its explanation. Denney finds the one hint of an attempt at explanation in ‘Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God’ (Heb_9:14). The sinlessness of Jesus gave to His offering an absolute and ideal character beyond which nothing could be conceived as a response to God’s mind and requirements in relation to sin. The ideal obedience even unto death may be the clue-the spiritual principle of the atonement that gives the work of Christ its value. The Epistle lays great stress on Christ’s identification of Himself with man.

3. The Johannine type.-This is a sufficiently definite term to stand for a characteristic view of the atonement in the Apostolic Church found in the Fourth Gospel, in the three Catholic Epistles bearing the name of John, and in the Apocalypse. Criticism still leaves the problem of authorship in much uncertainty, but tends to greater agreement in ‘ascribing all these writings to the same locality, to pretty much the same period, and to the same circle of ideas and sympathies.’* [Note: Denney, Death of Christ, 241.] Reflecting probably the thought and experience of the last quarter, or even the last decade of the first century, they are later than all our other sources; and, being dominated by theological interest, they are of particular importance for judging the views taken of the death of Christ and its relation to sin towards the close of the Apostolic Age.

Whilst the Epistle which deals with the death of Christ presents a more reflective interpretation of it than is found in the Gospel, both unite in dwelling upon the ethical and spiritual results of Christ’s death in the experience and possibilities of the Christian sanctification rather than upon its relation to the satisfaction of the Divine law of righteousness. But the latter is by no means overlooked; it is present frequently by implication, it is occasionally explicitly referred to. The Johannine type is distinctly more favourable to the conception of ‘at-one-ment’ than to that of atonement; it is ethical and mystical rather than juridical. So much is this so that selected sayings could be collected which would easily weave themselves into a theory that Jesus saves by revelation, by the illumination of Divine light which becomes the light of life and the assurance of our fellowship in the life eternal. Redemption by revelation would be a fair interpretation, say, of the Prologue to the Gospel and of those portions of it in which the ideas of the Prologue rule. Salvation is in Christ’s Person: ‘this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ’ (Joh_17:3). Jesus redeems men by revealing to them the truth about God in Himself; His work is supremely that of the Prophet of God, who so redeems His people into fellowship with God. Knowledge of God as He is draws men from sin. Christ dies, but this is inevitable because He is the Word made flesh, and must therefore share the end of all flesh and die, and ‘so fulfil the destiny of a perfect man by a perfect death as by a perfect life.’* [Note: B. F. Westcott, Epistles of St. John, London, 1883, p. 34 ff., Epistle to the Hebrews, London, 1889, p. 293 ff.; H. Schultz, Die Gottheit Christi, Gotha, 1881, p. 447.] Broadly speaking this is true, but it is certainly not the only Johannine view of the saving work of Christ. It may be suggestive to discern the contrast between the Pauline view that revelation is by redemption, and the Johannine that redemption is by revelation, but it is not exhaustive; for the Johannine writings are also pervaded by a conviction of the necessity and saving value of Christ’s death; He is as truly ‘propitiation’ as ‘revelation.’ St. Paul’s view that, apart from His purpose of dying for redemption, Christ would not have come in the flesh at all, is not avowed by St. John, but it is not contradicted by him; his main interests are much more with the realities and issues of redemption than with its presuppositions and processes. Sin is the real problem for him as for St. Paul, and the death of Christ is the only means of removing it. This is stated in Gospel and Epistle with a wealth of variety. Whether they afford material for a full theory of expiation, as some expositors assume, may be questioned; but that they clearly state a connexion between the death of Christ and the cleansing away of sin, and indicate a theory of this relation which has affinities with the Pauline view and with that of the writer to the Hebrews, cannot, reasonably be doubted.

Whilst in the very brief review of these references we must refrain from reading the Pauline meaning into the Johannine ideas and terms, we must not decline to recognize such similarities as we find are present in the writings.

(1) References in Gospel.-These fall into characteristic groups:-(a) The references to the Lamb of God.-Whether the saying put into the mouth of the Baptist (Joh_1:29) be critically valid or not, it is good evidence of the Johannine thought. We accept the saying as referring to Jesus who ‘taketh away the sin of the world.’ Its chief value is the use of the sacrificial symbol, ‘the lamb’; Jesus takes away sin by the sacrificial method. The references in the Apocalypse to ‘the Lamb’ as it had ‘been slain’ (Rev_5:6; Rev_5:12), to ‘those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb’ (Rev_7:14), who overcame ‘because of the blood of the Lamb’ (Rev_12:11), indicate that the power and purity of the new life in Christ were definitely associated with the shedding and sprinkling of His blood in the sacrificial sense. The phrase ‘in the Lamb’s book of life’ (Rev_13:8), though it may not bear the strain of the idea of an eternal redemption, since ‘from the foundation of the world’ belongs grammatically to ‘written’ (see article Book of Life) rather than to ‘slain,’ indicates nevertheless that there is salvation in no other,-(b) The references to ‘the lifting up’ (Joh_3:14; Joh_12:32). These are best expounded by the comment of the writer himself. ‘This said (Jesus), indicating by what kind of death he was to die’ (Joh_12:33). They refer to the lifting up on the cross, though the exaltation that followed may be implied, in order that men might see Him in order to live and be drawn to Him by the appeal of His cross. If there be any expiatory idea here, it is implicit; it is not stated.-(c) The references to eating His flesh in John 6. Alone these might well be satisfied by the ethical interpretation of a spiritual appropriation of Christ; this conception is natural in the context; but, as it is scarcely possible at the late period of this writing to deny a reference to the ‘Supper’ and its connexion with remission of sins, the expiatory idea is most probably involved. In the exposition of any Johannine writings the place held by the sacraments in the Apostolic Church should never be ignored.-(d) The references to the laying down of His life.-‘The Good Shepherd’ (Joh_10:11), the prophecy of Caiaphas (Joh_11:50), the corn of wheat (Joh_12:23 ff.), life laid down for friends (Joh_15:13)-these with distinction of aspect show the application to Jesus of the vicarious principle; in the first and last instances the voluntary character of the self-sacrifice is important, whilst in the context of the third the soul-troubling of Jesus in presence of death suggests that the death was neither ordinary nor accidental. But there is no indication of a theory of how His death avails for the benefit of others. The one explanation that is sure is that He lays down His life in obedience to the constraint of love’s necessity. This love is regarded by the writer both as Christ’s own love and as the Father’s. ‘God so loved that he gave.’ Love in each case is the gift of self.

(2) References in Epistle.-In passing from the Gospel, where the Johannine writer has emphasized the fact of the self-surrender in the death of Christ, obviously bringing it in wherever possible without attempting a definition of its relations, to the Epistle, we find a closer definition of these realities awaiting us. But here also the stress is laid upon the correlation of the death of Christ with the actual cleansing from sin rather than with the cancelling of guilt or the satisfaction of the law. Still, whilst the realization of purification, and not merely a provision of the means of its cleansing, is the primary meaning of the references to the redemptive work of Christ as the bearer of light find salvation, the latter is set forth in terms so intimately allied with the sacrificial terminology of the writers of the earlier apostolic Epistles, that the contention that there lies behind the passages the assumption of a judicial satisfaction for sin cannot be fairly evaded. The passages are: ‘The blood, of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin’ (1Jn_1:7); ‘And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world’ (1Jn_2:1 f.); ‘Your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake’ (1Jn_2:12); ‘And ye know that he was manifested to take away sins; and in him is no sin’ (1Jn_3:5); ‘Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins’ (1Jn_4:10). With these it is convenient to associate the strongest saying in the Apocalypse on the subject: ‘Unto him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins in his blood’ (Rev_1:5). That the immediate interest in these references is to the ethical and spiritual results issuing from the death of Christ in its relation to sin will not be doubted. The question at issue is how far the inference from them, that they assume an antecedent value belonging to the death of Christ in putting away the judicial obstacle to the cleansing in the law and righteousness of God, can be established. The cleansing obviously depends upon the ‘death’ and the ‘blood’ of Christ.

We need not draw the distinction made by Westcott,* [Note: Epistles of St. John, 34 ff.; Epistle to the Hebrews, 293 ff.] between the blood in the double sense of a life given and of a life liberated and made available for men, in order to justify a backward as well as a forward look in the symbol. The main burden of proof that the Johannine doctrine includes an objective as well as a subjective work of Christ is upon the use of ‘propitiation.’ It is not the same word (ἱëáóìüò, not ἱëáóôÞñéïí) as is used in the Pauline Epistles, but it is very closely akin. Is it likely, in being applied here to the same object, to have a different meaning? Used in the same Christian community within approximately the same period, and dealing with the same element in a common faith, is not the term probably used in the same accepted sense by the Johannine writer as by the writer to the Hebrews and St. Paul? If we are to interpret it, these usages are the only means at our disposal unless the Johannine literature itself provides others. This is not done. On the contrary, other terms are used that suggest that the place of ἱëáóìüò is in the same system of redemptive ideas that we find in the other apostolic writings. It is, for instance, co-ordinated with Jesus Christ as ‘the righteous,’ standing thereby in some relation to the moral order of the world, and with ‘an Advocate,’ which touches the judicial system of ideas; it is connected also with ideas of sacrifice and intercession which relate it to a system of mediating priesthood; the marked contrast between ‘loveth’ and ‘loosed’ in the operation of the love of Christ, which is the source and efficient cause of redemption in His blood from our sins in Rev_1:5, may also suggest a combination between the progressive liberation from our sins and the achievement once for all of our redemption in Him. The further statement that the ‘propitiation’ is not for our sins only but also for ‘the whole world,’ is not satisfied by the merely personal, and therefore for the present partial, experience of a subjective salvation. These are only inferences and nothing more, but they are of value in construing the Johannine witness into terms of the general apostolic teaching. The supreme value, however, of this witness is the matchless grace with which the writer relates ‘propitiation’ to the love of God. St. Paul had taught this as the ultimate source of redemption, but had associated with its expression the righteousness of law and the wrath of God against sin. The Johannine writer transcends these in dwelling with holy joy upon the issues of the propitiation, not only in actual cleansing from sin, but in lifting men into the presence of an eternal reality in which propitiation is an interchangeable term with the Divine love itself. In Rev_4:10 he defines propitiation in terms of love: ‘He loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins’; in Rev_3:16 he reverently identifies love with ‘propitiation’-‘In this have we known love, in that he (ἐêåῖíïò) for us (ὑðὲñ ἡìῶí) laid down his life.’ The contrast such love implies is the ultimate of the apostolic doctrine of the atonement-it is the perfect expression of what the writer means when he declares that ‘God is love.’* [Note: Denney, Death of Christ, 276.]

4. The sub-apostolic period.-In the age immediately succeeding the apostolic, the Church appears to have exhibited no desire to interpret the relation of the death of Christ to the forgiveness of sins either with greater fullness than, or by any divergence of view from, that found in the apostolic writings; the forms exhibited there were found sufficient. The early Fathers treated the atonement as a fact, without any attempt to explain its grounds. They had no theory: they describe it mostly in the actual words of Scripture, with little or no comment; the types of interpretation given were sufficient to satisfy their intelligence concerning the experience of forgiveness of sins which so richly satisfied their heart. Clement of Rome in his First Epistle exhorts the Corinthians to ‘reverence the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood was given for us’ (xxi.), who ‘on account of the love He bore us gave His blood for us by the will of God; His flesh for our flesh and His soul for our souls’ (xlix.). There is no clear statement as to the reasons that moved the will of God. The ethical appeal of the death of Christ is predominant; it is the supreme motive to gratitude, humility, and self-sacrifice. The references in the writings of Ignatius are chiefly that the death of Christ on the cross reveals His love, and that through His death we become partakers of spiritual nourishment in His body and blood (cf. Trall. viii. and Rom. vi). Polycarp reminds his readers that ‘the earnest of their righteousness’ is Jesus Christ, who ‘bore our sins in His own body upon the tree; who did not sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, but endured all things for us, that we might live in Him’ (Phil. viii). The Epistle ascribed to Barnabas deals with the subject in its relation to the sacrifices of the Jewish Temple, which are abolished in order that ‘the new law of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is without the yoke of necessity, might have a human oblation’ (ii.). The Son of God is spoken of as One who ‘suffered that His stroke might give us life’; ‘let us therefore believe that the Son of God could not have suffered except for our sakes’ (vi.). Our Lord’s sufferings were necessary; why, it is not said. (For catena of quotations, consult R. W. Dale, The Atonement, 270ff.; Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 326ff.; Scott Lidgett, Spiritual Principle of Atonement, 420ff.).

IV. Conclusion

1. Is there an apostolic doctrine of the atonement?-Clearly the passages we have examined, which form the data for a doctrine of atonement, are brief and fragmentary in character. It is frequently pointed out that the books from which they are taken are in no strict sense a unity, and were not written with the object of being related to each other to form a unified volume; that they are only parts of a larger and richer whole which interpreted the faith of the Apostolic Age; that their unity is factitious.† [Note: p. 2, for typical illustrations.] This view is plausible. It must be admitted that the doctrine of atonement found no uniformity of expression in the Apostolic Church; but there is little room for doubt that there existed a central unity around which varied statements consistently moved; the latter were not a mere fortuitous grouping; they were orderly, and their movements were organized in response to a central gravity. The fact that the death of Christ had a direct relation to the forgiveness of sins and to the restoration of fellowship between God and man is fundamental to the most divergent interpretations of the fact. The occasion of the reference, the purpose of the writers, and especially their immediate conception of the character of God and His relation to the moral order of the world, largely account for the varying forms of expression and illustration. For, taken apart, the aspects in which the death of Christ is viewed in the apostolic writings give sufficient warrant for the main types-legal and ethical-which mark the history of the doctrine in the subsequent thought of the Church.

But the most critical survey of these aspects does not sanction the contention of some recent writers that an apostolic doctrine of the atonement cannot be constructed.* [Note: Life and Letters of Dean Church, London, 1895, p. 274.] A perfect doctrine may be so deeply grounded and so many-sided that no personal or corporate thought can completely expound it, and there may be many theories each having its value. The judgment expressed by R. F. Horton, ‘The NT has no theory about the Atonement,’† [Note: Faith and Criticism3, London, 1893, p. 222.] is too easy a release from the intellectual necessity of seeking an interpretation of the profound fact which dominated the whole of the apostolic experience and teaching. The materials are certainly present in the apostolic literature for the construction of a theory-and more, a theory itself is potentially present and virtually expressed in the common experience and preaching of apostolic times where it is not formally defined. It is quite contrary to the spirit and attitude of the Apostolic Church to speak of the atonement, as Coleridge does, as ‘the mysterious act, the operative cause transcendent. Factum est: and beyond the information contained in the enunciation of the fact, it can be characterized only by the consequences.’‡ [Note: Aids to Reflection, ed. London, 1913, Com. xix.] The apostolic writers regard fact and theory as permanently inseparable; ‘reconciliation’ involves its ‘logos,’ and they attempt an explanation of the great fact which had become the ground and appeal of their evangel; a fact of such a kind as the death of Christ, so rich in rational, ethical, and emotional content, and appealing to the whole ethical and spiritual being of man, could not be left without a ‘meaning.’ The simple connexion in any degree of causal relation between the fact of the death of Christ and the experience of forgiveness of sins is itself a profound theory as well as the mother of theories.

2. General character of the apostolic doctrine.-This, as presented in the literature of the Apostolic Age, is a unity in diversity. The diversity is apparent; it emerges as the stress of the interpretation of the death of Christ falls upon that which is accomplished by it objectively to man’s inner experience and moral desert, in contrast with the effects subjectively achieved in the spiritual history of the individual believer and of the Christian community. The former represents what God does in and of and by Himself which, as exhibited in the life and death of His Son, justifies to Himself and in Himself the manifestation of His grace in the remission of sins; the latter is what man experiences in actual cleansing from sin and in conscious reconciliation with God in Christ; the former is represented as accomplished once for all in the sacrificial obedience of Christ even unto death; the latter is realized in the self-surrender of man under the constraint of the love of God in Christ, so that he enters into an inward spiritual fellowship with the suffering death of Christ, and in the power of his resurrection experiences the reality of ethical union with Christ; the former is regarded as a finished work, the latter as a progressive achievement; the former is atonement, the latter is ‘at-one-ment.’ The presence of this diversity of view in the faith of the Apostolic Church seems undeniable. Both aspects are dwelt upon; neither appears to be adequate alone. Each is carried back to the abiding purpose of God and regarded as the interpretation of His eternal love; the juridical stands for a reality in His nature as truly as the ethical; much in the apostolic doctrine is not covered by the conception of atonement which represents it as a perfect confession of sin on behalf of man by Christ as man’s Representative; the juridical conception is not fairly stated as an argumentum ad Judœos, or as the mere inheritance of Jewish thought. For, although the idea of literal substitution lay so near to hand in later Jewish theology and was everywhere enriched for them by historic and Divinely-appointed ritual observance, the apostolic thinkers so deepen and transfigure it that it no longer tolerates the superficial conventional idea of an easy or mechanical transfer of man’s guilt and penalty to another so that the sinner is exempt from further responsibility.

An objective view of atonement exaggerated into a system of imputations and equivalents is not found in the teaching of the Apostolic Church, neither is it ever set forth as a device for overcoming God’s reluctance to forgive sins. We are presented rather with an intensely ethical conception of God’s requirements and with a mystical view of man’s relation to Christ as the Representative of the race. Substitution is thus deepened into moral identification and solidarity; even the outstanding feature of the apostolic view of atonement as ‘propitiation’ is explicitly correlated with the ethical nature of God; behind the figures of speech and juridical phraseology the redeeming work of Christ is presented as concerned primarily with personal relations and moral realities. In this reference in the processes of reconciliation to the Divine purpose and activity-‘God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself’-and, still further, in the recognition of the fact that the sufferings of the righteous benefit the unrighteous, the unity of the apostolic doctrine is found. Objective and subjective views being thus regarded as manifestations of the self-imparting love of God, originating in Him, not in Christ apart from Him, justice and mercy as contrasted attributes in the Divine nature are transcended. The apostolic mind also rests more upon the declaration of the Divine righteousness in the blood of Christ than upon its satisfaction thereby. God declares Himself reconciled by something He had done whilst men were yet sinners. On Christ’s part the reconciliation takes place through an act of self-emptying prior to, but manifest in, the Incarnation, with its obedience unto death, even the death of the cross. The unity of ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ is verified also in the true experience of personal redemption, which is never regarded in the apostolic teaching as adequate apart from an ethical surrender of the self to God in Christ by the obedience of faith. Union with God in Christ is in the apostolic teaching a closer definition of having ‘received the reconciliation.’

3. Finality and authority of the apostolic doctrine.-The interesting question whether the apostolic doctrine of the atonement is final for the thought of the Church and binding upon her teachers, is a phase of the living controversy respecting the permanent place of apostolic teaching in Christian thought, and lies beyond the scope of this article. It must suffice to point out that the teaching of the Apostolic Church gives no sanction for the view that the illumination of the minds of men respecting the significance of the death of Christ is limited to one type of interpretation or to one generation of men. It is possible to recognize a distinction between the contingent thought-forms of the Apostolic Age and the essential spiritual life with its fundamental certainties in an experience of reconciliation, made real God in Christ, which these thought-forms sought to express. This experience in the Apostolic Age, as in every other, was something more than a composite of the terms used in its interpretation, even when these terms were the coinage of the apostolic mind. The usual conditions for the discovery of truth which satisfies the intellectual nature will prevail here as elsewhere. The one way in which truth, which is the only reality having authority for the mind, reveals its authority is in taking possession of the mind for itself.* [Note: Denney, The Atonement and the Modern Mind, 6 ff.; W. L. Walker, The Gospel of Reconciliation, 60 ff.] Truth justifies itself in the mind that receives it; it derives its authority in the realm of the moral and spiritual by the experience it creates. The mind, once it has come to know itself, cannot submit to receive its convictions on blank authority; even when that authority is an utterance of the apostolic mind, it must commend itself to the Christian consciousness by its power rationally to justify the facts to which that Christian consciousness knows it owes its existence. The question, therefore, whether the forms of the apostolic explanation of the relation of the death of Christ to the forgiveness of sins are final and binding upon faith, will depend upon their adequacy permanently to interpret the experience that Christian men will always owe to their knowledge of those facts in which the Christian experience first originated. The conviction that those facts have been mediated to the world through the Apostolic Church, will probably always suggest that the apostolic explanation of them will antecedently be regarded with attention commensurate with the unique value of its source. It seems fair, therefore, to expect that where the modern mind finds the unity of the apostolic doctrine of the atonement, it will also find its finality; and, where finality is found, permanent authority is readily acknowledged. But finality is in the living truth of the doctrine, not in its human source.

Literature.-I. More directly on the apostolic doctrine: A. B. Bruce, St. Paul’s Conception of Christianity, Edinburgh, 1894; A. Cave, The Scriptural Doctrine of Sacrifice and Atonement2, do. 1890; T. J. Crawford, The Doctrine of Holy Scripture respecting the Atonement2, London, 1874; R. W. Dale, The Atonement, do. 1875 (141892); J. Denney, The Death of Christ: its Place and Interpretation in the NT, do. 1902; R. J. Drummond, The Relation of the Apostolic Teaching to the Teaching of Christ, Edinburgh, 1900; C. C. Everett, The Gospel of Paul, Boston, 1893; J. Scott Lidgett, The Spiritual Principle of the Atonement, London, 1897; E. Ménégoz, Le Péché et la Rédemption d’après St. Paul, Paris, 1882, and La Théologie de l’Epitre aux Hébreux, Paris, 1894; G. Milligan, The Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Edinburgh, 1899; G. F. Moore, article ‘Sacrifice’ in Encyclopaedia Biblica ; A. Ritschl, Recht fertigung und Versöhnung4, Bonn, 1895-1902 (Eng. translation The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, by Mackintosh and Macaulay, 1902); W. Sanday, Priesthood and Sacrifice, London, 1900; A. Seeberg, Der Tod Christi, Leipzig, 1895; G. Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Atonement as taught by the Apostles, Edinburgh, 1870; G. B. Stevens, The Christian Doctrine of Salvation, do. 1905; W. L. Walker, The Gospel of Reconciliation, do. 1909; relevant sections in (a) Bible Dictionaries, (b) NT Theologies (esp. those of H. J. Holtzmann [1911], B. Weiss [31880], G. B. Stevens [1899]). (c) Commentaries on the Apostolic Epistles (esp. Sanday-Headlam and B. Jowett on Rom., and Westcott on Hebrews and the Johannine writings).

11. Dealing with the doctrine generally: Anselm, Cur Deus Homo?, 1098; E. H. Askwith, in Cambr. Theol. Essays, London, 1906, p. 175ff.; Athanasius, de Incarnatione (circa, about 360); A. Barry, The Atonement of Christ, London, 1871; A. B. Bruce, The Humiliation of Christ2, Edinburgh, 1881, pp. 317-400; H. Bushnell, The Vicarious Sacrifice, London, ed. 1891; J. McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement5, do. 1878; R. S. Candlish, The Atonement: its Efficacy and Extent, do. 1867; A. B. Davidson, OT Theology, Edinburgh, 1904, div. iii. ch. 2; D. C. Davies, The Atonement and Intercession of Christ, do. 1901; J. Denney, The Atonement and the Modern Mind, London, 1903; C. A. Dinsmore, Atonement in Literature and life, Boston, 1906; A. M. Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, London, 1893; P. T. Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross, do. 1909; C. C. Hall, The Gospel of the Divine Sacrifice, New York, 1896; T. Häring, Zur Versöhnungslehre, Göttingen, 1893; W. Herrmann, Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott (Eng. translation The Communion of the Christian with God, London, 1906); F. R. M. Hitchcock, The Atonement and Modern Thought, do. 1911; A. A. Hodge, The Atonement, Philadelphia, 1867; J. T. Hutchinson, A View of the Atonement, New York, 1897; T. W. Jenkyn, The Extent of the Atonement in its Relation to God and the Universe, Boston, 1835; J. Kaftan, Dogmatik, Tübingen, 1897, p. 531ff.; G. Kreibig, Die Versöhnungslehre, Berlin, 1878; W. F. Lofthouse, Ethics and Atonement, London, 1906; A. Lyttelton, ‘Atonement’ in Lux Mundi12, 1891, p. 201ff.; F. D. Maurice, The Doctrine of Sacrifice, new ed., London, 1893; R. C. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, do. 1901; W. H. Moberly, ‘The Atonement’ in Foundations, A Statement of Christian Belief in Terms of Modern Thought, do. 1912; H. N. Oxenham, Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement, London, 1865; E. A. Park, The Atonement, Boston, 1863; L. Pullan, The Atonement, London, 1906; J. Rivière, Dogme de la rédemption, Paris, 1905; A. Sabatier, La Doctrine de l’expiation et son évolution historique, do. 1903 (Eng. translation , London, 1904); D. W. Simon, Reconciliation by Incarnation, Edinburgh, 1898; Turretin, On the Atonement of Christ, Eng. translation , New York, 1859; T. V. Tymms, The Christian Idea of the Atonement, London, 1904; W. L. Walker, The Cross and the Kingdom, Edinburgh, 1902; R. Wardlaw, The Extent of the Atonement, Glasgow, 1830; B. F. Westcott, The Victory of the Cross, London, 1888; G. C. Workman, At Onement, New York, 1911; The Atonement in Modern Religious Thought: a Theological Symposium, London, 1900; relevant articles in Bible Dictionaries and sections in Systematic Theologies, e.g. W. N. Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology, Edinburgh, 1898, pp. 321-362; J. A. Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, Eng. translation , Edinburgh, 1880-82, iv. 1-124; C. Hodge, Systematic Theology, London, 1873, ii. 464-591; W. B. Pope, A Compendium of Christian Theology, ii. [London, 1877] 141-316; W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, ii. [Edinburgh, 1889] 378ff.; A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, Philadelphia, 1907, ii. 713ff.

Frederic Platt.

Exo 29:36 (b) The word literally means "to cover up." The blood of the sacrifices in the Old Testament did cover up the sins of the believers, but not until CHRIST shed His Blood were the sins blotted out. (See also Rom 3:25).

Atonement may be defined as that act of dealing with sin whereby sin’s penalty is paid and sinners are brought into a right relation with God. In the Old Testament the word is used mainly in connection with the offering of sacrifices for sin. The word does not occur in most versions of the New Testament, but it is used broadly in the language of theology in relation to the sacrificial death of Christ.

One result of universal human sin is that all people are under God’s judgment. They are guilty, the penalty is death, and they cannot, by their own efforts, escape this penalty. They are cut off from God and there is no way they can bring themselves back to God (Psa 14:3; Isa 59:2; Rom 1:18; Rom 3:20; Rom 3:23; Rom 6:23; see SIN). God, however, gives them a way by which they may obtain forgiveness and be brought back to God. This is through the blood of a sacrifice, where blood is symbolic of the life of the innocent victim laid down as substitute for the guilty sinner (Lev 17:11; Heb 9:22; 1Jn 4:10; see BLOOD).

Atonement is therefore not something that people can achieve by their own efforts, but something that God provides. Whether in Old or New Testament times, forgiveness is solely by God’s grace and sinners receive it by faith (Psa 32:5; Psa 51:17; Mic 7:18; Eph 2:8). The Old Testament sacrifices were not a way of salvation. They were a means by which repentant sinners could demonstrate their faith in God and at the same time see what their atonement involved. The sacrifices showed them how it was possible for God to act rightly in punishing sin while forgiving repentant sinners. (See JUSTIFICATION; PROPITIATION; RECONCILIATION; REDEMPTION; SACRIFICE; SANCTIFICATION.)

The sacrifices of the Old Testament pointed to the one great sacrifice that is the only basis on which God can forgive a person’s sins, the death of Christ. Through that death God is able justly to forgive the sins of all who turn to him in faith, no matter what era they might have lived in (Mat 26:28; Rom 3:25-26; Rom 4:25; Heb 9:15; 1Pe 2:24). (See also DAY OF ATONEMENT.)

The removal of God’s punishment for sin through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ (see Romans 3:25). (For further study, turn to "The Solution: Jesus Christ.")

—New Believer’s Bible Glossary

To atone means to make amends, to repair a wrong done. Biblically, it means to remove sin. The Old Testament atonements offered by the high priest were temporary and a foreshadow of the real and final atonement made by Jesus. Jesus atoned for the sins of the world (1Jn 2:2). This atonement is received by faith (Rom 5:1; Eph 2:8-9).

Man is a sinner (Rom 5:8) and cannot atone for himself. Therefore, it was the love of the Father that sent Jesus (1Jn 4:10) to die in our place (1Pe 3:18) for our sins (1Pe 2:24). Because of the atonement, our fellowship with God is restored (Rom 5:10). (See Reconciliation.)