(Concluded from page 252.)
As regards propitiation and substitution, they are points of great importance, and important to distinguish; but in order to deny the true import of these words, and the truth connected with them, Dr. Bonar has made confusion and indeed most mischievous error out of it. That Christ, for God's glory, stood as the representative man before God, and in a certain sense took our place, and died for all, making propitiation for the whole world, is true; and, I add, that if Dr. Bonar chose to call this substitution, though I should regret it as unfitting, and enfeebling its use in other vital aspects, yet it would not be my place to prescribe words to him. But he does a great deal more than this. By his hatred of the truth, and fondness for his own views, he has upset the whole gospel. “The blood brought within the veil,” he tells us (p. 109), “contained a world-wide message, so that each one hearing of that atoning blood might at once say, then God is summoning me back to Himself,” &c. Be it so; but then “propitiation,” he continues, “rests on substitution. In all these symbolical transactions we have one vast thought, the transference of guilt from one to another, legally and judicially.” If this be so, then if each one hearing of it could apply it, the guilt of all had been transferred to Christ, and it cannot be untransferred, or transferred back again, for Christ has died under it, a work “perfectly valid for all ends of justice;” consequently there can be no imputation of sins to anybody at all—the guilt has been transferred. Scripture carefully distinguishes propitiation and the transfer of guilt, Jehovah's lot and the people's lot on the great day of atonement. Sin being come in, God's glory was in question, and our sin too. The blood was brought under God's eye as propitiation, and the sins of the people were laid by their representative on the head of the scape-goat. Both ends were met, God glorified in what He was, and the people's guilt put away. So Christ appeared at the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; but, besides that, He was once offered to bear the sins of many.
Dr. Bonar confounds it all, and there is no sure gospel for the believer; for the transfer of his guilt to Christ does not assure his salvation, nor set him in divine righteousness before God; for this is equally true of the lost, according to Dr. Bonar, and there is no true gospel for the sinner, for propitiation and transfer of guilt are the same; and the latter is not true, or all the world is saved. God has been perfectly glorified in the work of atonement, and that in the very place of sin, that is, Christ made sin, His righteousness against sin, His love to sinners, His majesty, all He is. God has been, then, glorified in the Son of man; and the testimony of grace founded on propitiation can go out to all the world. But, besides that, in the same work He has borne the sins of many, and they are cleared forever. Propitiation, by the force of the term, refers to God—substitution to men. And though propitiation is by reason of man's sin, yet it refers to what God is. His nature and character, and God's glory, is involved in it. It goes a great deal further than meeting the sin which may have occasioned it. Substitution takes up the sins it is occupied with, as its whole subject and measure. But on this I will say no more here. if blessed truth is to be spoken of, it must not be in answering such a book as Dr. Bonar's.
Only a point or two remains before I say a few words on Hebrews. He quotes the beautiful Psalm (of confidence) 16: “Therefore my heart is glad, yea, any glory rejoiceth” (p. 88). Here is his commentary. “He speaks as an exile far from home, weary, troubled, exceeding sorrowful even unto death” (p. 94). “Looking upwards to the happy heaven which He had left, He could say “How many servants in my Father's house have bread and to spare, and I perish with hunger” (p. 97). The statements in pages 152, 153 are all utter confusion and mistake. In 1 Cor. 3 the apostle is insisting on the responsibility of man in the work; and where it was of wood, hay, and stubble, all would be burned. Nay, more; if a man corrupted the temple, he would be destroyed. It is the temple of God, not now such as is spoken of here by Dr. Bonar, but that temple under man's responsibility. And Paul speaks of laying the foundation of it. Strange if Old Testament saints were in it! It is confounding what Christ builds and what comes of man's responsibility;—just what God is carefully distinguishing now, and which Dr. Bonar confounds together, without finding out the difference which stares us in the face, in the passage he quotes.
How completely the work of Christ is looked at as completing the progressive operation of God in the education of the old man may be seen in page 79: “The ages of delay are over; the day of expectation has come to an end. The purpose of Jehovah is now consummated. The Father now delights in the accomplishment of His eternal design. Now grace and righteousness are one. So long as one burnt-offering remained unpresented, there was something wanting—something unfinished. But now the last of the long series has arrived. The type is perfected, the last stone has been laid; the last touch has been given to the picture; the last stroke of the chisel has fallen upon the statue. The imperfect has ended in the perfect—the unreal in the real.” It is arrant nonsense; but what a place it puts the previous series of sacrifices and Christ's in!
But I turn to Hebrews, my main object in all these lines; and very few words will suffice. “It assumes throughout,” says Dr. Bonar (Preface), “that the present condition of the church on earth is one continually requiring the application of the great sacrifice for cleansing. The theory of personal sinlessness has no place in it. Continual evil, failure, imperfection, are assumed as the condition of God's worshippers on earth during this dispensation. Personal imperfection on the one hand, and vicarious perfection on the other, are the solemn truths which pervade the whole. There is no day nor hour in which evil is not coming forth from us, and in which the great blood-shedding is not needed to wash it away God's purpose is that we should never, while here, get beyond the need of expiation and purging They who, whether conscious or unconscious of sin, will take this epistle as the declaration of God's mind as to the imperfection of the believing man on earth, will be constrained to acknowledge that the blood-shedding must be in constant requisition, not (as some say) to keep the believer in a sinless state, but to cleanse him from his hourly sinfulness.”
Now that the blood of Christ is the eternal security of all blessing, even in the new heavens and new earth, I wholly believe; and that no saint is personally perfect, I entirely accept. I see no perfection for a Christian but likeness to Christ in glory. That is before his soul now, and hence the intelligent Christian can have no thought of perfection here. He purifies himself as He, Christ, is pure. That in many things we all offend, as a fact, I believe—not taking my own failure as a rule from scripture itself. But the necessity, as “God's purpose,” that we should be always sinning here, as Dr. Bonar would have it, I reject. We should be walking always in communion, and manifesting the life of Christ in our bodies, always bearing about in the body His dying. That, and that only, is the normal state of the Christian. To say that we do fail is a very different thing from saying we must. I can never excuse myself, for Christ's grace is sufficient for me, and His strength made perfect in weakness; and God is faithful not to suffer me to be tempted beyond that we are able. If we are vicariously perfect, that is, perfect through Christ before God in God's sight, we cannot, in coming to Him, come with a bad conscience.
I have given thus fully, with a short clearing up of the point as to personal perfection, the statement of Dr. Bonar, to show that it is in every point exactly the contradiction of the epistle he is speaking of. Our imperfection in sinning is never spoken of in the Hebrews. When sinning is spoken of, it is unbelief; as Israel in the wilderness sinning willfully after the knowledge of the truth, apostasy, and profaneness, and in every case final hopeless and irrecoverable ruin. When sinning is spoken of in this epistle, it leaves a man without remedy, as chapters 3, 6, 10, 12. Priesthood, as now exercised by Christ (I do not speak of the work of the great high priest on the day of atonement, that is finished), is not for sins in the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is for grace to help in time of need, mercy and goodness in all our temptations and trials, that we—may be sustained, and not sin, but not for sins. The doctrine as to a perfect conscience, taught in chapters 9 and 10, would make it wholly out of place here. The conscience, in direct contradiction of Dr. Bonar's statement, is always perfect. For him the blood-shedding is in constant requisition. “There is no day nor hour in which.... the great blood-shedding is not needed to wash its evil away.” The epistle is just to show that in contrast with Judaism, where such repetition went on, it is not the case. Let us ask the epistle itself. Chapters 9 and 10 are the special chapters on this point. I beg my reader to read them through, and see how, once for all, 'eternal' is repeated. I can only quote a few texts directly to the point; and note, the question is purging the conscience, not merely putting away the sins before God, which of course must be done to purge it. He begins his great thesis in chapter 1. “When he had by himself purged our sins, sat down,” And this sitting down he emphatically uses afterward. “We have such an high priest, who is set down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.”
And now for the conscience—the value of Christ's work as to it. “Christ entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge our conscience?” That is its character and value. “He is not entered into the holy place made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” “Nor ye that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others, for then must be often have suffered since the foundation of the world.” But I must be more precise. The point in question (9: 9) is making him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience. What meets this is (ver. 12): “By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place.” This blood (ver. 14) purges the conscience.
Further, “Without shedding of blood is no remission.” “Christ is entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (ver. 23). Always there in the virtue and efficacy of that which he has wrought. Nor can He “offer himself often as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood for others, for then must he often have suffered.” There can be no renewal of imputation or guilt, no expiation, no blood-purging, but by taking the guilt, and drinking the cup. If Christ expiates and purges (that is, with blood), He must suffer. But He “hath appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin,” been “once offered to bear the sins of many,” and “appears the second time to them that look for him” without sin, χωρὶς ἁμαρτἰας having nothing more to do with it for them. Could anything more distinctly exclude repetition of purging, or repeated purifying, to make the conscience perfect? But is there not a repeated application of what is here spoken of as done once for all?
Let us see the next chapter, where this comes practically up. Dr. Bonar insists on repeated purging, repeated application of the great blood-shedding; that it is in constant requisition to cleanse him, is needed to wash evil away, and that in order to the worshippers drawing nigh. I read that the old Jewish sacrifices could not make the corners thereunto perfect, the repetition being a remembrance that sin was there; but if it had made them perfect, the purging and offering would cease, as Christ's sacrifice did, because the worshippers once purged would have no more conscience of sins. Does this look like admitting a perpetual cleansing with blood, once purged have no more conscience of sins? But it is more explicit still. Christ comes to do God's will in grace. “By the which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (10: 10). The Jewish priests were daily standing to accomplish a never-finished work; “but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God, expecting till his enemies are made his footstool.” For His friends He had no more to do as to this conscience-cleansing work. “For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” And this word forever, in verses 12 and 14, is not the word forever used when it is said a priest forever; εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, it is ε’ς τὸ διηνεκές—uninterruptedly, without discontinuance. Thus those sanctified by Christ's offering are continuously, perpetually perfect, as Christ sits continuously at God's right hand.
There is no interruption in that perfectness, no more conscience of sins, and this gives them boldness to enter into the holiest. There is not only no hint of reapplication of the blood, but a declaration of no more conscience of sins, that the sanctified ones were continuously perfect, uninterruptedly so, so that they had boldness to enter into the holiest. It is not personal perfectness, but it is perfectness of conscience uninterrupted; Christ appearing before God for us, sitting continuously at God's right hand, because all is done, and we are perfected forever-hence, in going to God, no more conscience for sins. It was the church not holding this fast that laid it open from the beginning to absolution and sacramental grace, and, till absolution was invented, that there was forgiveness for one sin after baptism: after this you must leave a sinner in God's hands. This is clear that the teaching of the Hebrews is formally, in a set and purposed way, the positive denial of Dr. Bonar's teaching; its object is to teach exactly the contrary to what he ascribes to it. There is, we learn elsewhere, a sprinkling of blood to seal the covenant, to cleanse the leper, to consecrate the priest; but not repetition. The repetition of the application of the blood is a denial of the gospel. And this truth comes in here, which I will notice to make all clear.
When it is not a question of conscience, and imputation, and guilt, which does require blood-shedding to put it away, but of communion, there is a cleansing of the state of the soul, but this is by water. The righteousness and propitiation remain unchanged in their value, and are the foundation of the other. In 1 John communion is spoken of. There, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins.” But an idle thought interrupts communion, and that has to be restored, and Christ's advocacy comes in. So John referring to what He does on high—He washes the disciples' feet, once washed and in this sense forever clean (this also with water); bathed as the high priest was, they have need only to wash their feet, where they have picked up dirt in their walk. But it is no repetition of blood applied: there is no such thing in scripture for a Christian. Practical cleansing for communion there is, but imputation, guilt, has no place; expiation, propitiation, no place; “the Lord imputeth no sin.” Christ must suffer often. If the sin is borne, put away, and He has washed us from our sins in His own blood, all that is done once for all; but to clear the conscience by blood Christ must suffer, but that is done once for all. He sits at God's right hand, because the sanctified are perfected forever. Dr. Bonar has no idea of anything but personal holiness, or perpetual cleansing by blood. If he will read the Hebrews, he will find perpetual perfectness, no more conscience of sins: There is besides this a washing of the feet with water, a kind of cleansing, which all who do not see the perfectness of conscience taught in the Hebrews always leave out, do not apprehend. The apprehension of what is taught in Hebrews takes the cleansing out of the domain of righteousness, as to which we are perfect, and places it in that of holiness and communion with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Water is the remedy for that; the word, that is, in the power of the Spirit, as blood is for expiation and remission.
I will only add further, that Hebrews never contemplates the church as such, but the people of God walking in weakness on the earth, and Christ for them a separate person on high. Union with Christ is not its subject, and it is just this gives it its preciousness. Nor does it speak of the Father, but how we believers stand with God, and how we approach; and that is with a perfect conscience through Christ's one offering, so that the worshippers once purged should have no more conscience of sins. If the reader examine the statements of the Epistle to the Hebrews, he will find that it is the work itself, or the offering of Himself, or it by Christ to God, not the process of application to us, which is spoken of; the effect is, but not the application. Thus we have, through the Eternal Spirit, offering Himself without spot to God, blood-shedding, the sacrifice of Himself, one offering, entering once into the holy place, not without blood, or in the power of His own blood, into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. It is the offering of Himself, or entering into the holy place, but no trace of application to us as the means of its efficacy, still less repeated application. By one offering He hath perfected forever, in perpetual continuance, them who are sanctified. They have no more conscience of sins. J. N. D.
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