I must now show that connected with this there are a number of statements made by Dr. W., which are from traditional habits of thinking, not from scripture. The question of sin has wholly lost its judicial character in Dr. W.'s mind. He sees only the moral condition of the sinner. “He who continues in sin is struck by God's wrath against sin, nor is this relationship altered by the death of Christ.” “To be carnally minded is death; if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: whenever there is sin, there is unchangeably God's wrath, as surely as God is a righteous God, and salvation from this wrath is only to be obtained by justification from sin” (Rom. 5:99Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. (Romans 5:9)). Now all this seems fair enough; but it misrepresents the case, because it confounds the ceasing to be carnally minded (that is, my state) with justification from sin, which is wholly and solely by the work of another, though it may be accompanied by a work in me which does change my state. But the whole statement is a mistake as to the gospel, even as to the love shown in it. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them:” and this was when the blessed Lord was here in the world. It was God's way of dealing when the trespasses were there. And, as to justification, it is not the morally righteous He justifies, but the ungodly (Rom. 4:55But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (Romans 4:5)). We are “justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation [mercy-seat] through faith in his blood.”
Do not let the reader suppose that this implies continuance in sin. That question is met by Romans 6, but not by weakening what goes before in Romans, which really treats the judicial question, but by adding the truth of a new divine life, and death to sin, in Christ. It remains that by one man's obedience many are made righteous. The world will always charge this as being an allowance of sin; but the believer who has a new life knows better. A holy nature, Christ become his life, hates the sin; but this is holiness, not righteousness; and one who is convinced of guilt does not reject the forgiveness and justification of the guilty, because he knows he wants it, though he may be kept a long while from peace because he confounds the two.
Dr. W. does not deny, it will be said, that Christ was a propitiatory sacrifice. He does not. What then does a propitiatory sacrifice mean? Was it offered to God or to man? Whom does it propitiate? It is not that man is “versöht” (reconciled), but “sühne” (propitiation) presented to God. He accepts the words but denies the thing; for example, “If we regard the plain words of scripture respecting Christ's redemption, we find them treat solely of man's reconciliation.” “It is not, God laid His wrath on Him.” This is quite untrue. I do not use the word wrath; but stripes, chastisement. He was wounded, bruised for our iniquities, I read. Dr. W. will answer, It was that we might be healed. Thank God it was. But what happened that we might be? Dr. W. calls it “the curse of God's wrath.” How can he say God did not lay His wrath upon Him? His mind is running rightly on our being reconciled, and divine love in it; but he contradicts himself when he admits that, when Christ descended into our sin (was made sin for us), the curse of wrath came upon Him. And what he says just afterward is unfounded and contradictory to itself and scripture. “It is correct to say that God's justice was satisfied by Christ's atonement, not any demand of God's justice for vengeance over the sinner, for God loved him, but the demand of God's justice for the sinner's justification as a condition of his salvation.” This is the merest sophistry. What did that justice demand for this justification? Was it not, according to Dr. W., “the curse of wrath” on Christ? Call it “curse of wrath” or just vengeance against sin, is alike. “Vengeance is mine: I will recompense, saith the Lord'; ἐμοὶ ἐκδίκησις ἐγὼ 'νταποδώσω, λέγει κύριος. נקם ושלם belong to God, and wrath is revealed now from heaven against all ungodliness, not merely temporal judgment, as in the government of the world. What was the “demand of God's justice for the sinner's justification? Was it “the curse of wrath” or not? I use in both cases Dr. W.'s words. All this reasoning of Dr. W. avoids the question. The object of the atonement he tells us, was to remove his (man's) sins; but this was not all: there was glorifying God; but I only ask now, What in the atonement did remove the sins? Was it “the curse of wrath?” and, if so, whose wrath?
But I turn now to expressions in which Dr. W. states his system, for which he has no warrant in scripture: “I find it everywhere written that God through Christ reconciled the world to himself.” It is nowhere so written. If it be said, Let us have “faithful adherence to the words of scripture,” I read, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world.” But, so far from its being reconciled, “the world knew him not,” and “his own received him not.” It is the statement of God's dealing with the world when here, and goes on then, as a distinct thing, to “the ministry of reconciliation” in the apostle; Christ, who knew no sin, having been “made sin for us.” But in no way or form does it say the world has been reconciled. 2 Cor. 5:17, 1817Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 18And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; (2 Corinthians 5:17‑18), distinctly shows that it is those who belong to the “new creation” who are reconciled, and what follows shows that it is by the word; and that God in love is beseeching men to be reconciled. God could not beseech the men of the world to be reconciled if they already were. Again, in 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), he speaks of the time to come, when the whole order of things in heaven and earth will be reconciled, and then speaks of Christian believers, the holy and faithful brethren at Colosse, “and you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled.” So far from saying the world is reconciled, scripture carefully teaches an exclusive actual present reconciliation of believers. The nearest approach to such a thought does not refer to the efficacy of Christ's death at all, but to the dispensational dealings of God, in which the casting away of the Jews opened the door of grace to the Gentiles as such (Rom. 11:1515For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? (Romans 11:15)). In Ephesians again you have peace being made: it was to make of Jew and Gentile together one new man, reconciling both to God in one body, and to that end He goes and preaches peace to the nigh (Jews), and those afar off (Gentiles): but a reconciled world by the cross is unknown to, and denied by, scripture. “The whole world is lying in wickedness.” That the door of grace and preaching peace to it is opened is true; but believers only are reconciled (“you hath he reconciled,” you who are in the faith) according to the positive statement of scripture; and this affects the whole scheme of Dr. W.
Further on, replying to Mr. Welinder, Dr. W. confounds the sovereign love of goodness to a fallen world with love of relationship. Both writers assume the world to be reconciled, and neither sees the difference of special affections and absolute general goodness. I ought to love everybody; but my love to my wife and children is another thing. God loved the world; but believers are His children, and the church of God Christ's bride and body. We are “God's children by faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3), “sons of God,” and Christ loved the church and gave himself for it “to present it to Himself as God did Eve to Adam. I cannot go farther into this here; but it does show that in both these writers theology and tradition have eclipsed the light of scripture.
Dr. W. says— “The atonement spoken of in scripture was an atonement by which the sins of the world were removed.” No such thought is found in scripture; that He is ἱλασμός for the world is said, but that the sins of the world are removed is wholly unscriptural. If so, there could be nothing to judge men for; for they are judged according to their works (Rev. 20; 13), and the Lord says— “If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins;” and the apostle, “Because of these things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience.” It is said of Christ that He is ὁ ἀίρων, not of the sins, but of “the sin of the world,” and that He baptizes with the Holy Ghost, not that he has taken away our sins. This taking away of sin will be completely fulfilled only in the new heavens and the new earth, and He, as Lamb of God, is this taker away; but that the atonement spoken of in scripture was one by which the sins of the world were removed is utterly and wholly untrue.
Further, there is no statement that God gave His Son that the world might recover the righteousness it had lost in the fall—not even that Adam had righteousness before the fall; nor had the world or Adam any union with God before the fall or after; nor is “union with God” a scriptural expression or thought at all: “dwelling in God and God in us” is, but not union. It is utterly unscriptural. Union with the glorified Man, Christ, is scriptural, and that is by the Holy Ghost. We are “members of his body,” but this is the result of redemption (see Eph. 1; 2); and this, even Adam unfallen had not at all. In what follows, both controversialists again, confound His love of divine goodness towards the world and the love of relationship, and that love of goodness towards the world, as such, with individuals personally; and though I doubt not, thank God, that God sought and seeks wandering sinners in their sins, Dr. W. forgets that in the prodigal son it was a returning prodigal come back to his father, to whom a father's love was displayed, and the best robe put on him, and he received into the house. The first two parables in Luke 15 give the love that seeks, the last the love that receives; and though all be grace in this chapter, and the father went out and sought the elder brother (the Pharisee), he never got what the father's love gave to the prodigal—his own fault, doubtless, but still true—he had neither kiss, nor best robe, nor ring.
When Dr. W. says “God's point of view is solely as follows: God loved the fallen world, and, moved solely by His own love, sent His Son to save and restore us from sin,” he states what is quite unscriptural. That God did so love the world is true, but that God's point of view is solely this is not true. Nor is it said that He might remove its sins. God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life; but His point of view is not solely this. This phrase, “that whosoever,” &c., is carefully repeated, and what Dr. W. states is not even put first; but “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever.” That is, the scripture carefully states two things, and puts that first which Dr. W. leaves out. I am not objecting, assuredly, to God's love being the source of it. I sympathize with Dr. W. wholly in this; but his statement is contrary to scripture on the point in question. It obliterates what was needed that this love might be made good. He will say, “I have stated elsewhere that the atonement, a propitiation, was needed.” He has; but he has, through pre-occupation with his side of the question, cast out what he fancies opposes this, and falsified its nature, and here falsely stated that God's only point of view is, “God so loved;” whereas, in the very place where this is said, another point of view is formally and in the first place stated, and the blessed Lord is revealed in another aspect in which He had to be presented to God, on man's part, for atonement. “So must the Son of man be lifted up.” Had not God given His Son, there could have been none such: but this is added as the way by which the first was accomplished. But there was need that man, for man, should be presented to God, and that “lifted up” —that is, take “the curse,” drink “the cup,” (suffer according to Dr. W.'s words) “the curse of wrath.” Love provided the Lamb in God's Son; but the Lamb must be slain, presenting Himself as man, “who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God” on man's behalf, and take “the curse” and drink “the cup” from God's hand, forsaken of God. This was not in itself love; but it was propitiation. God's love (though the work was so perfect for His glory that the blessed Lord could say, “Therefore doth my Father love me”) did not show itself to Christ then.
Dr. W.'s statement as to Eph. 1 is also ungrounded. He says, “it means;” but it is not what it says, but quite a different thing; and the meaning Dr. W. gives to it is wholly and utterly below and aside from God's thoughts in it. Saving us “through” is not choosing us “in.” Our being “in Christ,” “the last Adam, the Second man,” is a great scriptural truth, not yet in Dr. W.'s mind at all. But, for that very reason, I do not go farther with it here.
As to His justice suffering a violation, and so demanding an indemnity, I should not perhaps so express it. But “the Son of man must be lifted up” is just that; “the chastisement of our peace” being upon Him is just that. “He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities.” His being “made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him,” and countless other passages, state clearly what Dr. W. denies. Righteousness declared in the remission of past (that is, Old Testament) sins is declared by Christ's shedding His blood; forbearance had been exercised to them. This was now proved to be righteous.
Dr. W. has not at all seen that it is God's righteousness which is revealed, when things “worthy of death had been done, and that through Christ's death, God's wrath being revealed as well as His love: “We are justified by his blood,” and using such words as “indemnity will not alter the divine and substantial truth that “by stripes” and “chastisement from God” we are justified and healed; that by His bearing our sins and receiving from God what was due to them, the cup He had to drink, being forsaken of God and dying, we are cleared and justified. He offered Himself without spot to God to be a sacrifice, He must be lifted up; He prayed that if it were possible the cup might pass, but it was not if we were to be saved; and so, call it “indemnity” or what you please, we are saved from wrath through Him His death was an ἀπολύτρωσις, it was a λύτρωσις, without which there is no ἀπολύτρωσις for us. Luke and Hebrews both use the word λύτρωσις which is just redemption by ransom, “losegeld,” or indemnity, “loskaufung.” These are exactly what Dr. W. says is not in scripture. He says “we obtained the righteousness which was a necessary condition for our salvation.” Where is this in scripture? And so far as it is scriptural that “we are made the righteousness of God in him,” how is that so? is the question. “He was made sin for us.”
Dr. W., as I have said, forgets it is God's righteousness. God's wrath is the shape or form assumed by God's justice with reference to sin. I agree. But where was this displayed? Was it not in Christ's suffering “the Just for the unjust,” a λύτρωσις, the substitution of Christ as “made in for us?” And Dr. W.'s argument is all false. He says, Quenching wrath is then the same as quenching justice. Supposing another is punished in my stead: as to me the wrath or punishment is quenched, and by justice; and justice is executed. The justice remains: but in my going free, and there being no wrath for me God's wrath against the sinner by reason of the sin and guilt he lay under, is taken away for the believer by the death of Christ; “by His stripes we are healed.” The Lord has laid on Him our iniquity. We were children of wrath, a wrath which will be executed against unbelievers, but we are saved from wrath by Him; He is our deliverer from the wrath to come (1 Thess. 1:1010And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. (1 Thessalonians 1:10)). And this was by Jehovah laying on Him our iniquity when He made His soul an offering for sin, and by His taking the stripes due to us.
It is written; the whole of Isa. 53 states it. “Christ bare our sins [1 Peter 2:2424Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:24)] in his own body on the tree,” and drank that dreadful cup, the thought of which made Him sweat as it were great drops of blood, “suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust” (chap. 3:12), “bore the sins of many,” and, had He not then fully completed the work, must have suffered often (Heb. 9). “He was offered to bear the sins of mans.” Before whom, and from whom, did He suffer? He is gone in “not without blood.” To whom presented? Blood must be shed for remission. Why? Dr. W. tells us it was to cleanse us, to obtain righteousness: but why that in order to such an end? He will say he cannot tell. Scripture says it was a λύτρωσις, an ἰγασμός, and that it was presented to God. No Christian doubts its cleansing power for faith on which Dr. W. insists. But the present question does not lie there.
Dr. W. talks of God loving the world less after, than before, the fall. But all this is misapprehension. There was no world before the fall. There was a being whom God had formed according to His own mind, in which, as the fruit of His own handiwork, He could take pleasure, and view with complacency. After the fall there was not. It repented the Lord that He had made man upon the earth and grieved Him at His heart (Gen. 6:66And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. (Genesis 6:6)). “The friendship of the world is enmity against God.” “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” God could not have the love of complacency in a fallen sinful creature as He had in His own perfect handiwork; and the plain proof is, “He drove out the man.” What was that? His love, in the sense of sovereign mercy in Himself, was greater after the fall than before. Unfallen Adam did not need it.
But all this is lost in the confusion of Dr. W.'s statement. He confounds God's nature with His relationships in respect of good and evil, and leaves out His righteous judgment. He insists that the law condemns sin against it as before. Of course it does. But “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” The curse does not reach believers because Christ was made a curse for them. It is a poor cavil to say, Being made a curse was not punishment; it is “chastisement, stripes, wounding, bruising, forsaken of God,” according to the word of God; “the curse of wrath,” according to Dr. W. I do not at all admit that it is only unbelief that is punished: but God's wise order is that it is by faith we have forgiveness and justification; and the unbeliever dies in his sins, and is also guilty of refusing the Son of God and despising mercy. His whole theory and all its applications are false, because he holds without a trace of scripture that the atonement has removed the sins of the world. His confounding the distress of unrepentant David (“while I kept silence”) with Christ's taking the curse atoningly, shows how far a false theory can lead into darkness; and that is all.
(Continued from p. 261)
(To be continued)