Substitutionary atonement

“ Then again, as the power that brings about a making-up for any wrong done by man to man, I believe in the atonement. Who that believes in Jesus does not long to atone to his brother for the injury he has done him? What repentant child, feeling he has wronged his father, does not desire to make atonement? Who is the mover, the causer, the persuader, the creator of the repentance, of the passion that restores fourfold?—Jesus, our propitiation, our atonement. ”

“ But it is not likely that a purely ethical and spiritual view of the atonement, which sees the problem as a strictly personal one—and this seems to the writer the only true position—can ever succeed in the hearts of the great body of the {152} membership of the churches, if it cannot show, at the same time, that it is able in some real way to take up into itself these thoughts of substitution and propitiation. The writer finds much of the old language about the atonement as offensive to his moral sense as any man well can. ”

“ It is necessary that the law which demands atonement, in order that its transgressor may be spared, should itself be perfect, else the fault would in part at least rest with the Law-giver, and not wholly with the sinner. Hence, the atonement when made does not take away the broken law, for that is perfect, but is expressly designed to take away the guilt of the transgressor. [116] Let it be remembered then that the fourth commandment is one of the ten precepts of God’s broken law ”

“ How hard it is to make amends to the majesty of God, dishonored by man's individual transgression of divine law—let the severity of the Christ's Atonement for man's sin bear witness; for it required all that the Christ gave in suffering and agony of spirit and body, to lay the grounds for man's forgiveness and reconciliation with God.
The severity of the Atonement should impress men with the fact that we live in a world of stern realities; that human actions draw with them tremendous consequences that may not be easily set aside if the actions in which they have their origin are wrong. ”

“ The penalty is paid in bitter shame and tears, in the consciousness of degradation and of eternal loss, in the deep humiliation of a spirit that has quenched within it the divine flame, and treated with no respect the image of God in which it was made. Can such a being sin and escape without atonement—can a spiritual creature darken the angel and cherish the animal, and yet pay no penalty, start at last with no horror, and throb with no remorseful agony? ”

“ The consequences of my sin, moreover, are rendered less terrible by virtues not my own. I am literally saved from penalties because another pays the penalty for me. The atonement, and what it accomplished for man, were therefore a sublime summing up as it were of what sublime men have to do for their race; an exemplification, rather than a contradiction, of Nature herself, as we know her in our own experience.
Now, all this was really intended as a defence of the atonement; but the President heard me that Sunday, and on the Monday he called me into his room. ”

“ Contemplated from this point of view, there is not a more rational doctrine within the whole Christian system, than that of the Atonement. Anything that ministers to a distinct and legitimate craving in man is reasonable, and necessary. That theorist, therefore, who would evince the unreasonableness of the atoning work of the Redeemer, must first evince the unreasonableness of the consciousness of guilt, and of the judicial craving of the conscience. ”

“ Thus the satisfaction for sin was perfect. The law passed sentence on man, and man endured it. The law claimed fulfilment, and man fulfilled it. The law required a worthy substitute for the whole race, and He, with all the attributes of the Godhead, was amply sufficient as a ransom for the world.
Thus his work is sometimes called atonement, because, by his own death, he atoned for sin, or presented an equivalent for the sinner’s guilt; sometimes expiation, because it expiated or took away the wrath due to sin; sometimes it is called satisfaction, because, in his death, he satisfied the law ”

“ Many, we are aware, find it difficult to reconcile the idea of intercession with the truth of a perfect atonement. If, say they, the atonement is perfect, what need is there of intercession? If the believer is made as white as snow by the blood of Christ—so white that the Spirit of God can dwell in his heart—then what does he want of a priest? If by one offering Christ has perfected for ever all them that are sanctified, then what need have these perfected and sanctified ones of an advocate? Surely we must either admit the thought of an imperfect atonement or deny the need of advocacy? ”

“ Having endured the penalty of the sinner, justice permits the sinner's discharge, but does not require it, except as the fulfilment of a promise to his substitute, and then only upon the appointed condition of repentance and faith. The atonement is unlimited,—the whole human race might be saved through it; the application of the atonement is limited,—only those who repent and believe are actually saved by it. ”

“ To the Entoans Andûmana̤, the Supreme One, is absolutely perfect, yet his perfection admits of righteous anger against his willfully offending children whom He, for their own good, chastises until, realizing their culpability, they make atonement for their sinfulness. In bygone times the atonement for sin against their Creator demanded human sacrifice, or, perhaps an offering of their most valued possessions, against which no one dared offer a protest. ”

“ In some passages the delivering power is more prominent than in others, as, for example, in Luke, xxi. 28, and Rom. viii. 23; but in all it is there, and I do not know of a single passage in which redemption stands for atonement alone as disconnected with the consequent deliverance. Whenever it occurs it implies atonement applied, or atonement enjoyed, p. 119atonement made effectual for the actual salvation of the soul. But, though it is thus clear in the word of God, there is great confusion in many religious books. ”

“ But there is more than that taught here, for redemption goes far beyond atonement, and includes the actual deliverance which is the result of that atonement, when applied to the heart by the Holy Spirit. It is not merely the payment of the ransom, but the liberation of the ransomed slave. Thus the sealed servants are said to have been “redeemed from among men.” Not merely was an atonement made for them, but, through the power of that atonement, they were delivered from the bondage of corruption unto the glorious liberty of the children of God. An atonement was made on their behalf ”

“ If one may be excused a personal reference, few things have astonished me more than to be charged with teaching a 'forensic' or 'legal' or 'judicial' doctrine of Atonement, resting, as such a doctrine must do, on a 'forensic' or 'legal' or 'judicial' conception of man's relation to God. It is all the more astonishing when the charge is combined with what one can only decline as in the circumstances totally unmerited compliments to the clearness with which he has expressed himself. ”

“ Neither the divine holiness nor justice was ever antagonized to the sinner, and therefore never needed to be conciliated, and certainly neither could ever be reconciled with sin; so that an atonement either to dispose God favorably toward sinners or to tolerate sin, or to make any allowance for sin or to pardon sin, is inconsistent with the divine nature. And nothing can be more absurd than the teaching that God was at enmity with the sinner, unless it be the affirmation of those who believe it, that the atonement is "a provision of divine grace or love" ”

“ There is in the moral world, as in the physical, the absolute and perfect relation of cause and effect. For this reason, the atonement becomes an impossibility. Others may suffer by your crime, but their suffering cannot discharge you; it simply increases your guilt and adds to your burden. ”

“ Hence it was necessary that the eternal Son should become man, and make, by his voluntary death on the cross, the necessary atonement for human sins. Pushed out to the severest logical consequences, it would follow, that, as an infinite satisfaction has atoned for sin, all sinners are pardoned. But the Church shrank from such a conclusion, although logical, and included in the benefits of the atonement only the believing portion of mankind. ”

“ But how could any vicarious sacrifice atonement, or pacification of supposed wrath in the Deity, by one not at all concerned in the offences of the disobedient, produce any change of state in the guilty and impenitent? And without a change of state, how can an unregenerate person be qualified for the enjoyment of heavenly happiness? ”

“ Then it is also a gift of God unto man. And thus we may go through all the ordinances, that God ordained from before the foundation of the world unto the present time, and all of them can be called the gifts of God unto man on conditions, and some of them without conditions. The atonement came without any condition on the part of man. It was without repentance, without faith on the part of man. The atonement was something given through the pure love of God to fallen man, without any acts of good works on the part of man. ”

“ To believe in one is to deny the other. Fear is really nothing and love is everything. Whenever light enters darkness, the darkness is abolished. What you believe is true for you. In this sense the separation has occurred, and to deny it is merely to use denial inappropriately. However, to concentrate on error is only a further error. The initial corrective procedure is to recognize temporarily that there is a problem, but only as an indication that immediate correction is needed. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay. ”

“ Agreeably to this conclusion we find it expressly declared, in the several cases of piacular oblations for transgression of the divine commands, that the sin for which atonement was made by those oblations should be forgiven.
7. As the notion that the sacrifices of the law were not vicarious, but mere mulcts and fines, is overturned by the general appointment of the blood to be an atonement for the souls, the forfeited lives, of men, so also is it contradicted by particular instances. ”

“ From the facts in the case and the testimony presented in the Scriptures it becomes evident that through the great atonement, the expiatory sacrifice of the Son of God, it is made possible that man can be redeemed, restored, resurrected and exalted to the elevated position designed for him in the creation as a Son of God: that eternal justice and law required the penalty to be paid by man himself, or by the atonement of the Son of God: that Jesus offered Himself as the great expiatory sacrifice ”

“ Justice and substitution One sacrifice, however great, is insufficient to pay the debt of sin. The atonement requires constant self-immolation on the sinner's part. ”

“ The idea of atonement, it is said, or of one man being made to suffer as a substitute for another, and thus appeasing the Deity, was well-nigh universal in early times, and is so still among savage nations. Such a sacrifice, however, is a great injustice to the victim; it ascribes an unworthy character to God, as a Judge, Who can be satisfied with the punishment of an innocent man in place of the guilty one; and it has a bad influence on the sinner, allowing him to sin on with impunity, provided he can find another substitute when needed. ”

“ The atonement has come to all men and upon all men. Its coëxtensiveness with the effects of Adam's sin is seen in that all creatures, such as infants and insane persons, incapable of refusing it, are saved without their consent, just as they were involved in the sin of Adam without their consent. The reason why others are not saved is because when the atonement comes to them and upon them, instead of consenting to be included in it, they reject it. ”

“ Though we must not repent that we have repented, yet we must repent that we have not repented better. It likewise intimated the imperfection of the legal sacrifices, and their insufficiency to take away sin, that on the very day the sin-offering of atonement was offered, yet there must be another sin-offering. ”

“ The doctrine of Atonement has introduced among Trinitarians a mode of speaking respecting God, which grates most painfully against the reverential affections due to him. His nature is dismembered into a number of attributes, foreign to each other, and preferring rival claims; the Divine tranquillity appears as the equilibrium of opposing pressures,—the Divine administration as a resultant from the collision of hostile forces. ”

“ It must not be intermitted any year, nor ever let fall till that constitution should be dissolved, and the type should be superseded by the antitype. As long as we are continually sinning, we must be continually repenting, and receiving the atonement. The law of afflicting our souls for sin is a statute for ever, which will continue in force till we arrive where all tears, even those of repentance, will be wiped from our eyes. ”

“ It is true that the punishment is described as temporary, but the fact that there is any punishment at all is a virtual denial of the completeness of the atonement, for there can be no punishment if there is no remaining charge of sin ”