Without the shedding of blood (i. e., without vicarious punishment) there is no remission. This is recorded, not merely as a fact under the Mosaic dispensation, but as embodying a principle valid under all dispensations. It is not, therefore, this or that declaration of Scripture, or this or that institution which must be explained away if the justice of God be denied, but the whole form and structure of the religion of the Bible. That religion as the religion for sinners rests on the assumption of the necessity of expiation. This is its corner-stone, and the whole fabric falls into ruin if that stone be removed. That God cannot pardon sin without a satisfaction to justice, and that He cannot have fellowship with the unholy, are the two great truths which are revealed in the constitution of our nature as well as in the Scriptures, and which are recognized in all forms of religion, human or divine. It is because the demands of justice are met by the work of Christ, that his gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and that it is so unspeakably precious to those whom the Spirit of God has convinced of sin. (c.) We accordingly find that the plan of salvation as unfolded in the New Testament is founded on the assumption that God is just. The argument of the sacred writers is this: The wrath of God is revealed against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men. That is, God is determined to punish sin. All men, whether Gentiles or Jews, are sinners. Therefore the whole world is guilty before God. Hence no man can be justified by works. It is a contradiction to say that those who are under condemnation for their character and conduct can be justified on the ground of anything they are or can do. There is no force in this argument unless there is a necessity for the punishment of sin. Human sovereigns pardon criminals; earthly parents forgive their children. If the penalty of the law could be as easily remitted in the divine government then it would not follow from the fact that all men are sinners that they cannot be forgiven on the ground of their repentance and reformation. The Scriptures, however, assume that if a man sins he must die. On this assumption all their representations and arguments are founded. Hence the plan of salvation which the Bible reveals supposes that the justice of God which renders the punishment of sin necessary has been satisfied. Men can be pardoned and restored to the favour of God, because Christ was set forth as an expiation for their sins, through faith in his blood; because He was made a curse for us; because He died, the just for the unjust; because He bore our sins in his own body on the tree; and because the penalty due to us was laid on Him. It is clear,

therefore, that the Scriptures recognize the truth that God is just, in the sense that He is determined by his moral excellence to punish all sin, and therefore that the satisfaction of Christ which secures the pardon of sinners is rendered to the justice of God. Its primary and principal design is neither to make a moral impression upon the offenders themselves, nor to operate didactically on other intelligent creatures, but to satisfy the demands of justice; so that God can be just in justifying the ungodly.

§ 5. The Work of Christ Satisfies the Demands of the Law.

A third point involved in the Church doctrine on the work of Christ, is that it is a satisfaction to the divine law. This indeed may seem to be included under the foregoing head. If a satisfaction to justice, it must be a satisfaction to law. But in the ordinary use of the terms, the word law is more comprehensive than justice. To satisfy justice is to satisfy the demand which justice makes for the punishment of sin. But the law demands far more than the punishment of sin, and therefore satisfaction to the law includes more than the satisfaction of vindicatory justice. In its relation to the law of God the Scriptural doctrine concerning the work of Christ includes the following points:

1. The law of God is immutable. It can neither be abrogated nor dispensed with. This is true both as respects its precepts and penalty. Such is the nature of God as holy, that He cannot cease to require his rational creatures to be holy. It can never cease to be obligatory on them to love and obey God. And such is the nature of God as just, that He cannot cease to condemn sin, and therefore all those who are guilty of sin.

2. Our relation to the law is two-fold, federal and moral. It is of the nature of a covenant prescribing the conditions of life. It says, "Ye shall keep my statutes and my judgments; which if a man do, he shall live in them." And, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them."

3. From this federal relation to the law we are, under the gospel, delivered. We are no longer bound to be free from all sin, and to render perfect obedience to the law, as the condition of salvation. If this were not the case, no flesh living could be saved. We are not under law but under grace.

4. This deliverance from the law is not effected by its abrogation, or by lowering its demands, but by the work of Christ. He was made under the law that He might redeem those who were under the law.

5. The work of Christ was therefore of the nature of a satisfaction to the demands of the law. By his obedience and sufferings, by his whole righteousness, active and passive, He, as our representative and substitute, did and endured all that the law demands.

6. Those, who by faith receive this righteousness, and trust upon it for justification, are saved; and receive the renewing of their whole nature into the image of God. Those who refuse to submit to this righteousness of God, and go about to establish their own righteousness, are left under the demands of the law; they are required to be free from all sin, or having sinned, to bear the penalty.

Proof of the Immutability of the Law.

The principles above stated are not arbitrarily assumed; they are not deductions from any à priori maxims or axioms; they are not the constituent elements of a humanly constructed theory; they are not even the mere obiter dicta of inspired men; they are the principles which the sacred writers not only announce as true, but on which they argue, and which they employ in the construction of that system of doctrine which they present as the object of faith and ground of hope to fallen men. The only legitimate way therefore of combating these principles, is to prove, not that they fail to satisfy the reason, the feelings, or the imagination, or that they are incumbered with this or that difficulty; but that they are not Scriptural. If the sacred writers do announce and embrace them, then they are true, or we have no solid ground on which to rest our hopes for eternity.

The Scriptural character of these principles being the only question of real importance, appeal must be made at once to the Word of God. Throughout the Scriptures, the immutability of the divine law; the necessity of its demands being satisfied; the impossibility of sinners making that satisfaction for themselves; the possibility of its being rendered by substitution; and that a wonderfully constituted person, could and would, and in fact has, accomplished this work in our behalf, are the great constituent principles of the religion of the Bible. As the revelation contained in the Scriptures has been made in a progressive form, we find all these principles culminating in their full development in the later writings of the New Testament. In St. Paul's epistle to the Romans, for example, the following positions are assumed and established: (1.) The law must be fulfilled. (2.) It demands perfect obedience; and, in case of transgression, the penalty of death. (3.) No fallen man can fulfil those conditions, or satisfy the demands of the

law. (4.) Christ, the Eternal Son of God, clothed in our nature, has made this satisfaction to law for us. (5.) We are thus freed from the law. We are not under law, but under grace. (6.) All that is now required of us is faith in Christ. To those who are in Him there is no condemnation. (7.) By his obedience we are constituted righteous, and, being thus reconciled to God, we become partakers of the holy and immortal life of Christ, and are delivered not only from the penalty, but from the power of sin, and made the sons and heirs of God. (8.) The great condemning sin of men under the gospel, is rejecting the righteousness and Spirit of Christ, and insisting either that they need no Saviour, or that they can in some way save themselves; that they can satisfy all God's just demands, and deliver themselves from the power of sin. If the foregoing principles are eliminated from the Pauline epistles, their whole life and power are gone. And Paul assures us that he received his doctrines, not from men, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. It is against this rock, the substitution of Christ in the place of sinners; his making a full satisfaction to the justice and law of God, thus working out for us a perfect righteousness, by which we may be justified,—that the assaults of philosophy, falsely so called, and of heresy in all its forms have been directed from the beginning. This it is that the Gnostics and New Platonists in the first centuries; the Scotists and Franciscans during the Middle Ages; the Socinians and Remonstrants at, and after the Reformation; and Rationalists and the speculative philosophy of our own age, have striven to overthrow. But it remains, what it ever has been, the foundation of the faith, hope, and life of the Church.

§ 6. Proof of the Doctrine.

The Scriptural evidence in support of this great doctrine, as far as it can well be presented within reasonable limits, has already, in great measure, been exhibited, in the statement and vindication of the several elements which it includes.

It has been shown, (1.) That the work of Christ for our salvation, was a real satisfaction of infinite inherent dignity and worth. (2.) That it was a satisfaction not to commutative justice (as paying a sum of money would be), nor to the rectoral justice or benevolence of God, but to his distributive and vindicatory justice which renders necessary the punishment of sin; and (3.) That it was a satisfaction to the law of God, meeting its demands of a perfect righteousness for the justification of sinners. If these points be admitted, the Church doctrine concerning the satisfaction, or

atonement of Christ, is admitted in all that is essential to its integrity. It remains, therefore, only to refer to certain classes of passages and modes of representation pervading the Scriptures, which assume or assert the truth of all the principles above stated.

Christ saves us as our Priest.

Christ is said to save men as a priest. It is not by the mere exercise of power, nor by instruction and mental illumination; nor by any objective, persuasive, moral influence; nor by any subjective operation, whether natural or supernatural, whether intelligible or mystical, but by acting for them the part of a representative, substitute, propitiator, and intercessor. It was in the Old Testament foretold that the Messiah was to be both priest and king; that he was to be a priest after the order of Melchisedec. In the New Testament, and especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is devoted almost exclusively to the exhibition of the priestly character and work of Christ, it is taught,

1. That a priest is a substitute or representative, appointed to do for sinners what they could not do for themselves. Their guilt and pollution forbid their access to God. Some one, therefore, must be authorized to appear before God in their behalf, and effect a reconciliation of God to sinners.

2. That this reconciliation can only be effected by means of an expiation for sin. The guilt of sin can be removed in no other way. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. A priest, therefore, is one appointed for men (i. e., to act in their behalf), to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sin.

3. That this expiation was effected by the substitution of a victim in the place of the sinner, to die in his stead, i. e., in Scriptural language, "to bear his sins." "Guilt," says Ebrard, in a passage already quoted, "can be removed only by being actually punished, i. e., expiated. Either the sinner himself must bear the punishment, or a substitute must be found, which can assume the guilt, bear the penalty, and give the freedom from guilt or righteousness thus secured, to the offender." This he gives as the fundamental idea of the epistle to the Hebrews.

4. Such being the nature of the priesthood and the way in which a priest saves those for whom he acts, the Apostle shows, first, with regard to the priests under the old economy, that such was the method, ordained by God, by which the remission of ceremonial sins and restoration to the privileges of the theocracy, were to be

1 Dogmatik, II., iii. 1, § 401. Königsberg, 1852, vol. ii. p. 159.