It may be recognized also that it is a theory to the production of which Scripture is called on to contribute but little. Its main concern for us being that contribution, we must again follow—remarking surely, however, how true Prof. Orr's statement would seem to be concerning the aversion of these modern theories to everything of the sacrificial and expiatory in Christ's death. It is abundantly evidenced from what we have quoted. It remains, however, that we consider briefly what is supposed to be Scripture evidence for it, and what measure of truth, if any, it makes a perverted use of. The Ransom and Substitutionary theories had both of them large elements of truth. “The Son of man came” not only to minister but “to give his life a ransom for many.” And “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” Nor indeed, whatever may be thought of the old Governmental Theory associated with the name of Anselm, can there be found absolutely no element of truth in this emphasizing of the ethical or moral side of that atoning work of Christ, this “finding of the essence of Christ's sacrifice to consist in the yielding up of His holy will to the Father.” “Sin,” it is said, “has its essence in self-will, in the setting up of the human will against God, and Christ has retracted this root-sin of humanity by offering up to God, under experience of suffering and death, the well-pleasing sacrifice of a will wholly obedient and self-surrendered.” Whatever we may think of the expression, or whether this idea of the retraction of the root-sin of humanity is at all a scriptural thought, we certainly learn from 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) that “as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”
Not, of course, that Christ's work of atonement is at all the subject of 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), at least directly. Rather is it the larger, more general, question of the contrast of Adam and Christ in their respective headships, with the results accruing respectively to those ranged under such headships from the characteristic act with which the “one man” in each case is credited. That with which Adam is to be associated is the act of disobedience which proved so disastrous to the race. That which those who are Christ's ever look back to as the ground of their being constituted righteous is His perfect obedience. Not at all in the sense of His keeping the law for us throughout His life, needless to say—for when in scripture is legal righteousness ever treated as vicarious?—but in that obedience “unto death, even the death of the cross,” which so amply fulfilled the will of God. It is, as one has said, the burnt-offering aspect of Christ's work, the full sweet savor of that in which God was glorified. There was undoubtedly that in the sacrifice of Christ which had to say to the will of God flagrantly disobeyed, as well as to His character and honor vilely traduced by man's sin. And, as constituting part of the God-glorifying character of what was accomplished when Christ laid down His life, His obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, is not to be forgotten.
And thus also as to Heb. 10. That scripture is fastened on, and rightly so, as the great exposition of what is called the New Testament conception of sacrifice. Now does this differ, radically so, from what one would gather from the Old Testament on the subject? There need be no doubt as to what that latter is. Crude, semi-pagan, material, or whatever else it may be reviled as, there is undeniably a definite and consistent doctrine of sacrifice apparent throughout the Old Testament. And even the advocates of the new theory are forced to admit that the primary thought underlying the sacrificial language of ritual is just this of vicarious suffering and expiatory death. From Abel's more excellent sacrifice onward, the attention is directed always and unvaryingly to these as the essential element in the matter of atonement for sin. That is clear. What then of the claim that in the New Testament we come to something entirely different? On any right understanding of what it means for the Bible to be God's Word, inspired of Him, this of course would be an impossible idea, this divergence of teaching on the important question of sacrifice for sin. But apart from that, does what the New Testament scriptures teach contradict the older revelation?
Take this tenth of Hebrews as a case in point. That the atonement of Christ is set in contradistinction to, and is presented as superseding the sacrifices of the law is plain; but in what sense? Is it in that these gave, and could give no other than, a wholly erroneous and false idea of how God could be approached, or could remit sins, whereas Christian teaching expresses the truth entirely unknown to and never hinted at by them? Or is it not rather the case that just what gave them value, and to the writer of Hebrews justified this extended reference, was that, appointed by Jehovah as they were, these sacrifices and offerings prefigured, and should have been seen to point out, that which has been fulfilled, and reduced to reality by what Christ has done. What says the opening verse of the chapter. The law had “a shadow of good things to come,” if not “the very image.” That would seem to imply surely that between the two systems there is that which calls for comparison as well as that which provokes contrast. To stand in the relation of substance and shadow there must be a resemblance, at least in outline, which would be quite incompatible with divergent ideas of such a primary matter as atonement.
Then examine the phraseology of the passage throughout. If the intention was to reject in totality the Old Testament doctrine of sacrifice, and to put aside the whole theory of vicarious suffering as worthless, we should imagine language entirely different from what the Jewish ritual had made familiar to be applied to what the death of Christ had effected. Yet what do we find? Deliberate intention to rule out the possibility of entertaining such a thought seems to be stamped on the chapter. Where could a more explicit reiteration of the very phrases familiar to one brought up under the Old Testament ritual be found? As one has said, “Instead of carefully avoiding sacrificial terms, because sacrifice is the thing repudiated, it emphatically reproduces them. 'Offering thou wouldest not'—yes, but this is spoken with another sacrifice, another offering, ‘the offering of the body of Christ ' full in view.” Of which sacrifice it is distinctly testified also that it avails in that very expiatory sense adumbrated by the sacrifices under the law. “But this man... offered one sacrifice for sins.” “By one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once.”
Plainly that last, that “offering of the body of Christ once” is the point of the whole passage. “A body hast thou prepared me” certainly is brought in along with the thought of the sacrifices offered by the law being rejected; but it is not on the “body prepared” but on the “body offered” that the stress is laid and the vicariousness of atonement made to depend. While it is exactly what the trend of modern speculation threatens to obscure, this agrees perfectly with the uniform account of His death in scripture as an objective act of propitiation, in itself an efficacious ransom for sinners.
It is in light of all this also that we must hear His word, “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.” The question with the new theory as to the interpretation of this verse has been narrowed down as follows by one writer— “Was this, as many now teach, a performing in a life of perfect general obedience, into which obedience we enter by the submission of our wills to God, was this the substitute for the sacrifices of the law? or was it the doing of the will of God in one specific and sacrificial act—was it His body offered as upon an altar? a body broken?] and blood poured out like wine?” Beyond a doubt our blessed Lord's obedience, His doing the will of God, comes into view in this passage, and that not merely incidentally, but of distinct purpose and as quite in the line of its reasoning. We may say that in its scheme of doctrine there are two things of central importance presented—the will of God, and the work of Christ. And it is quite clear that as surely as He to perfection performed the latter, so did He in fullness the former.
But, if we are to distinguish, on which let it be asked, are the requisite taking away of sins, the purging of the worshippers, or the perfecting of the sanctified made precisely to depend as foundation or basis?
The sacrificial work of Christ most undoubtedly. “He was once offered to hear the sins of many,” and “He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” No doubt all is to be traced to the will of God as its origin. The source of all is there. Nor are we to reason that Christ's doing the will of God was simply His carrying that will into effect as regards our salvation. There is something far deeper than that in His, “Lo, I come to do thy will,” even His personal and positive obedience thereto, wonderful beyond all as that is in itself when we remember who He was that rendered it. And again, who shall deny that this self-devotedness of the Son of God to His will formed the great element of value, the moral quality if you will, in the acceptable sacrifice He offered?
Nor is this aspect neglected in the eminently typical ritual of the Old Testament. What else is it that is presented in the burning of the fat upon the altar so continually prescribed but the energy of a will devoted unto God, specially emphasized on one occasion at least as “the food of the offering made by fire unto Jehovah.” And again, as has been said, what is it that is expressed in the burnt-offering if it be not this unreserved devotedness, and to death, His holy will entirely self-surrendered, and nothing but the will and glory of God in view as motive and end. This was par excellence “the offering of sweet savor,” as it is in such devotedness of obedience unto death that God can have delight and find pleasure as that in which He has been glorified. “Christ hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor.” And, as in Heb. 10 it is a question of an offering in which He can truly find pleasure and satisfaction, that aspect of the sacrifice is emphasized in which this is prominent. With what unmingled and infinite delight, may we not say, can God contemplate that offering of the body of Christ, when we remember that there and then, in presence of the declared failure of all that was offered under the law to give Him satisfaction, His own blessed Son, in the humanity He had assumed for that express purpose, accomplished all His will, and, in self-sacrificing devotedness in the place of death itself, not only satisfied, but glorified, Him perfectly even as to sin itself.
(Continued front page 192)
[ J. T.]
(To be continued)