I am told it was to justify us, to make us righteous. All true; and His not sparing His own Son was the infinite love of God. But what was Christ doing and suffering then in order to that end? We must not slip away from it by confounding the effect in believers and the work or suffering which wrought that effect. God does look upon believers with complacency as righteous in Christ, and the result is far greater and more admirable than all that Dr. W. speaks of. He has obtained for us to be partakers of His own glory according to the counsels of God; but the wrath of God, His judicial wrath against the sin, was removed by Christ's being made sin for us and bearing our sins, not by our state in consequence of it, which is the effect of that. “He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” If the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, He was substituted in drinking that dreadful cup for us. He was our (believers') representative there. God dealt with Him so because of our sins which were laid upon Him, and for that reason peace comes to us; not because we became actually righteous: our peace is the effect of His chastisement. You may quarrel with the word “appease,” and confound judicial stripes with “hatred;” but do not let us lose what Dr. W. does not deny, though he argues it away in taking “wrath” for “hatred,” and making the ground of our peace our actual state of righteousness; whereas we are made the righteousness of God in Christ because He has been made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:2121For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)).
Our peace is the fruit of God's judicial chastisement falling on Christ. If not, of what is it the fruit? “He was struck when he descended into our sin” (was made sin for us) “by the curse of God's wrath against sin.” The sin then, according to Dr. W., has been dealt with in wrath. Whose sin? If Christ descended into our sin (an expression by no means agreeable to me), and the curse of God's wrath came upon Him for it, it is not simply God's loving us. Righteousness dealt with sin in wrath, and thus God's anger (the curse) was executed, and so peace was made: His anger was turned away from us. When He who knew no sin was made sin for us, the curse fell on Him. Never was Christ so precious to His Father as then. “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life.” But this is not the question. Did not “the curse of God's wrath” which was due to our sins come upon Him? He had no sin; He was delivered for our offenses, and “the curse of wrath” came. If as our representative He bore our sins, and God's curse and wrath came upon Him, He was our representative so as to have the curse upon Him, for because of those sins He so suffered and drank the cup, and the anger was over and gone, as regards all that believe. The anger against our sins had to be executed, and so ceased; with us it would have been eternal condemnation, but through a mediator's stepping in and taking the curse He has redeemed us from it. Christ has redeemed us from the curse by being made a curse for us. Infinite love, no doubt; but whom did Christ represent when “the curse” came upon Him for sin? Was it God when He laid on Him our iniquity? That He was God, and else could not have done it, is all blessedly true; but it is not the question. Did He represent God in suffering the curse which God laid upon Him? He glorified God: that is true (“Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him"). And glorifying God was the, first grand object, and not merely love to us. This was part of the glory, no doubt, but it was not all. It is not simply that God was putting away our sins, but there was a mediator with whom He was dealing about sins. God was making Him sin, and dealing with Him in the way of a curse because of it, when He had “offered himself without spot to God.” Curse and wrath have been executed; and thus peace has been made. It is not without God's dealing with sin, that He has treated us as righteous nor was our being made righteous “recovering our righteousness” (a wholly unscriptural thought) which made God righteously favorable to us; but He held us to be righteous because of what the mediator had done, and this was not representing God, but “the man Christ Jesus” bearing the curse of wrath from God. According to Dr. W. himself, God takes vengeance. He is not unrighteous who taketh vengeance, and He claims it exclusively to Himself: “Vengeance is mine, I will recompense, saith the Lord.” Assuredly this is righteous judgment with Him, not passion or hatred; but it is real. Christ will appear “taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
But through a mediator there is peace made for us. The Red Sea which destroyed the Egyptians was a safeguard, and the way of deliverance, for Israel. And it is to this work of Christ, God looks in sparing and forgiving, not to the state we are in consequence of it, true as that consequence may be. When Jehovah executed judgment in Egypt, He did not say “When I see them righteous, (through the slain lamb of course) I shall not smite them;” nor “I will spare them because they have recovered righteousness.” The blood was to be put outside the house to meet God's eye, and He says— “When I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Ex. 12:1313And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. (Exodus 12:13)). And if I am justified by faith, faith in what? Not faith in my state of righteousness; but faith in the person and blood-shedding and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. I do know I am forgiven and cleansed through it, but my faith is not in that; for faith in my being righteous cannot be what justifies me, but faith in Christ and His work does justify me. I believe that God has accepted that work. Anger and wrath rested on me; Christ stepped in between and drank the dreadful cup, and there is no more anger for me. There was wrath outstanding against me, and now there is not: call it “appeasing” or not, that is the truth. It is not that God does not impute my sins, because I am now righteous and there is nothing to impute, but because Christ has borne them. I believe on Him who raised up Christ from the dead, delivered for our offenses, raised again for our justification; and having been justified by faith I have peace with God (Rom. 4:24, 25; 5:124But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; 25Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. (Romans 4:24‑25)
1Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: (Romans 5:1)).
My present state of righteousness, though it may be the reason why there is no cause for wrath now, says nothing about my past sins, nor can it be the means of clearing them away; but a real work of Christ suffering for sins, the Just for the unjust. That work may be the means of bringing us into that state, so that God looks upon us with complacency. But what did the work? what cleared the sins? Was the cup, and what Dr. W. calls “the curse of wrath,” love in itself? Love to us may have caused its being done; but what was it that was done?
And here I must make a remark as to Dr. W.'s use of Romans. He only uses the second part, which does not treat of our guilt by our sins, but of our state by Adam's sin. “By one man's disobedience many were made sinners” (Rom. 5:1919For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. (Romans 5:19)). The two parts of the Epistle are quite distinct. The division is between verses 11 and 12 of chapter 5. The first treats of our sins and guilt, the second of our sin and state before God; and, though the cross be the remedy for both, yet the difference of its use is very marked. “Christ died for our sins” is what avails in the first part. Believers have died with Christ in the second; they are no longer before God in the flesh. They are “in Christ,” “in the Spirit.” Their status is changed, they pass (having been “crucified with Christ”) out of Adam into Christ. Now this does refer to their standing or state. The first part of the Epistle on the contrary deals with the guilt of their own sins, the sins they are guilty of as children of Adam. This first part escapes Dr. W.'s attention altogether, and it is in this that “propitiation” is found (Rom. 3:2525Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; (Romans 3:25)), not in the second. Christ died for us in the first part; in the second we are “in Christ,” not “in the flesh.” He was “delivered for our offenses” in the first part (Rom. 4:2525Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. (Romans 4:25)); “our old man is crucified with him” in the second.
Now I shall have some remarks to make on the use of the second part; but I here notice the first. After having spoken of the guilt of Gentiles and Jews, and that God's wrath was revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness, the apostle tells us that God had set forth Christ “for a mercy-seat through faith in his blood to declare his [God's] righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed.... to declare at this time his righteousness, so that he is righteous and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus” (Rom. 3:25, 2625Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. (Romans 3:25‑26)). It is not man's righteousness, but God's in justifying a sinner. God's wrath has been “revealed from heaven.” Guilt was there, and consequently wrath was there. Guilt is put away, so that wrath should not and does not reach the believer, though one guilty and deserving it. How so? Christ is presented to man as “a mercy-seat,” where he could approach God according to “God's righteousness.” And how so? “By faith in his blood.” And to whom was the blood presented on the mercy-seat, as on the lintel and the two door-posts? To God. It was not God seeing man's righteousness, and so having nothing about which to show wrath, but having Christ's blood presented to Him which caused the wrath due to man, as guilty, to be passed away, and not to be inflicted. God sets forth Christ in this character to poor sinners in the gospel to reconcile them; but what He presents is that the blood has been presented to Him in the sanctuary, and He sees the blood and passes over, and man can approach through faith in Christ's blood.
All this aspect of the truth is passed over by Dr. W. He turns to the state of those in Christ in contrast with Adam, the second part of the Romans, and speaks of “justification of life” for those who have died with Him, and forgets the justification of “the ungodly” through faith in the blood shed for our sins. My faith, in coming to the mercy-seat, is in that which has been done for the ungodly, in the blood which has been carried into the holiest, and not in my state as having “recovered righteousness,” so that there can be no wrath against me. God justifies the ungodly through faith in Christ's blood; not the righteous, because there is no ground for wrath. Justifying is even wrongly used. Even in the second part of Romans it is “of many offenses to justification;” not complacency and absence of wrath, because man has righteousness. And wrath is not spoken of there as ceased; but that, if He has reconciled us when enemies, having been reconciled “we shall be saved from wrath through Him” in “the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”
Nor was it merely forgiving our transgressions that was the effect of Christ's work. He “suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” The great day of atonement tells us the same tale and the same truth: only then it was signified by “the veil” that men could not go into “the holiest;” whereas now the believer can boldly. Dr. W. affirms that there was but one meaning of both goats; but this is contrary both to the institution and to the explanation in Hebrews. As to the institution, one was called” —Jehovah's lot,” the other was for the people: not that the first was not in view of the people's sins, but there was the double thought—(1) of Jehovah's glory and nature in the holiest; and (2) the removing the sins of the people according to their responsibility, gone where they never should be found. Nothing can be more distinctly set before us than this double character; it is one that runs through all the sacrifices and estimates of sin. They may be measured by the responsibility of man as God's creature, and the law is the perfect measure of that, and that is a question of positive guilt, and, in general, sacrifices at the brazen altar were in view of that; or they may be looked at as fitting me for the presence of God in light. Into this the Jew could not come, whereas we have “boldness to enter into the holiest by the new and living way.” The goat whose blood was shed and Azazel were practically one; but it is evidently a double aspect of Christ's atoning sacrifice: the slain goat was “Jehovah's lot,” the other not. This surely meant something: all God's nature and character were connected with it.
I say this not as an opinion, but as stated of Christ as the ground of His being in glory as man. “Now” (when Judas went out) “is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him; if God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him” (John 13:3131Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. (John 13:31)). So in John 17:44I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. (John 17:4), “I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do; and now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory I had with thee before the world was.” God's glory and the glorifying of Christ are the effects of the cross here, not the putting away of our sins only, which lowers it in its character, blessed as that truth is for us. It was thus “Jehovah's lot.” So He was “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin [not the sins] of the world.” “He appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:2626For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26)), a matter clearly distinct in Hebrews ix. from “bearing the sins of many” (ver. 2 8). The blood was presented to God. God had been dishonored by sin, His fair creation all spoiled and come under the bondage of corruption, His race of predilection (man, in whom His purposes were) the slave of sin and Satan. His glory had to be retrieved, and in the very place of sin; thank God that such a thing should be! As a man, Christ did so. All that God is was glorified, man perfectly obedient at all cost, the Father perfectly loved, His majesty, truth, righteousness against sin, and love to sinners, all brought out and made good through the blessed One who suffered. We bless God unceasingly, and shall forever, that it was in that which was done for us. Still we have the Lord's words for it that it was “glorifying God,” where He makes no allusion to its being for us. Only man is gone into God's glory through it.
Hence the blood was sprinkled on the mercy-seat and before it, and also on the altar of incense; and this was the way of approach to God, not merely of putting away guilt, for we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, and the incense altar is our place as priests. Nor though it was done in respect of the sins of the people, was it the cleansing them or forgiving them. It was what belonged to God, the holy place and the altar of incense, the place where God dwelt, which had to be cleansed, not the people. It was not forgiving them, though the basis of that, but “Jehovah's lot” cleansing the place of His presence, showing the character of Him who dwelt there who could not bear sin and uncleanness. Then the people's sins were laid on Azazel and carried away. But what concerns “Jehovah's lot” is all left out in Dr. W.'s scheme; it is reduced to what was accomplished in Azazel. Even as to this Dr. W. in his general thought loses its real force, and makes it a reconciliation of the world, an abstract putting away of sin for all, not the actual, real, effectual, putting away of sins; but of this I will speak further on, when I come to speak of certain passages which he quotes not according to the word of God.
My object now is to show that the great effect of the distinction of the two goats, and, I may add, of what was done with the bullock, whose blood was employed as one of them, is lost and set aside by Dr. W., and the bringing us to God in the holiest (not merely clearing the world) dropped—the highest and especial blessing of the saint; and this done, not by forgiving His people, but by presentation of the blood to God, by whom the excellency of this sacrifice in which He has been glorified in respect, yea, through the very means, of sin, is justly estimated. It is far more than forgiveness, it is being brought to God; and by that which is done Godward, in respect of what God is, not manward, though the occasion be what man has done. It is entirely arbitrary to say that Jehovah's lot and the goat for the people have the same signification, though both refer to the sacrifice of Christ. In one, God was glorified in respect of the sin that had come in, in the other, the sins were removed from the people. It is not all, that men be forgiven: sin must be removed out of God's sight; and He has done what accomplishes this blessed purpose. It is what reveals and glorifies God Himself in a wholly new way.
Moreover, the just anger which rested on the guilty on God's part is removed as to the believer by the sacrifice of Christ, call it “appeasing” or what you will. It did not change God, but it changed the relative attitude of God towards the sinner. What He is, and will be in judging, actually towards the sinner, He is not towards the believer, not because of what the believer is become, but because of what has been done for him in the sacrifice of Christ. As when God said when He smelt the sweet savor of Noah's sacrifice, “I will no more curse;” not because man was become good, for He adds “for the imagination of man's heart [is] evil from his youth.”
In sum, then, the blood was presented to God for Him to see, on the door, on the mercy-seat; and Christ entering in not without blood was the witness that He had suffered, borne the sins, been forsaken of God, drunk the dreadful cup. That was not love, it was death, the curse, what Dr. W. calls “the curse of wrath” (an expression I should not use), and consequently God acted differently towards the believer from what He must have acted, had this not been done; not because He was changed, but because He was not; but acted according to His constantly righteous nature. He did not love us because we had recovered righteousness, but when we were sinners. The system of Dr. W. diminishes the love, and alters its character as much as it does the righteousness. God smelled a sweet savor, the odor of rest, and said, I will no more curse, and this is called ἱλασμός, ἱλάσκεσθαι, and the mercy-seat ἱλαστήριον in the New Testament. Now, those words refer to God. They involve forgiveness and favor, but favor obtained by the sacrifice of Christ presented to God. I do not say love caused, for it was infinite love gave the Son to be the lamb of propitiation; but that love wrought by a work which maintained the righteousness and holiness of God in forgiving and justifying: and, though the word may be used for the effect, it is applied to God in the New Testament, and its meaning is “propitiation” or “appeasing.” “Reconciling,” which is applied to believers, is a totally different word, καταλλάσσω, καταλλγή. The ἱλασμός was offered to God, ἱλαστήριον was where His blood was placed on God's throne, and it was God who was the object of ἱλάσκεσθαι, man of καταλλαγή (1 John 2:22And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2); Rom. 3:2525Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; (Romans 3:25); Heb. 17); and as to καταλλάσσω.), see Rom. 5:10. 11; 2 Cor. 5:18-2118And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 20Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. 21For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:18‑21); Col. 1:20, 2120And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. 21And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled (Colossians 1:20‑21). As to the last word Dr. W. is right. It is man, not God, who is reconciled: but Dr. W. has failed in giving its force to the former.
(Continued from p. 247)
(To be continued)