just two years since He came in a way as certainly miraculous as ever He spake with a voice to Paul
bones." By faith we choose affliction with the people of God, and despise
Egypt's treasures. By faith we keep our Passover; pass through the Red Sea;
overthrow Jerichos; subdue kingdoms; work righteousness; stop the mouth
of lions; quench the violence of fire; turn to flight the armies of the aliens,
and refuse deliverance in the day of trial, that we may obtain a better
resurrection (Heb 11:35).
It is "believing" from first to last. We begin, we go on, we end in faith.
The faith that justifies is the faith that overcomes (1 John 5:4). By faith we
obtain the "good report" both with God and man. By faith we receive
forgiveness; by faith we live; by faith we work, and endure, and suffer; by
faith we win the crown,-a crown of righteousness, which shall be ours in the
day of the appearing of Him who is OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
THE GRANGE, EDINBURGH, November, 1872.
1. One who knows the "religious world" well, and passed through its hollowness, thus writes: "It is
just two years since He came in a way as certainly miraculous as ever He spake with a voice to Paul
or any other, and ran His plough through my heart, breaking up and tearing into shreds my old
'Christian' and 'professor' life, showing me death, death amidst all, and leading me, though with
terrible struggles and opposition from the old heart and its pride, into something like a knowledge of
Himself, the living personal Jesus; though, alas, how feeble, how dark, how slow, has been the
progress! Before that, I was in a condition in which I verily believe (though it may seem unkind and
morbid to say so) the great part of the professing church is at the present day, ministers as well as
people. I know the kind of intercourse I had with many who pass for as good Christians as are to be
found; and I know this, that very many who could talk hotly about doctrine, who would laugh and
make merry
Chapter One
God's Answer to Man's Question
ow may I, a sinner, draw near to Him in whom there is no sin, and
look upon His face in peace?
This is the great question which, at some time or other, every one of us
has asked. This is one of the awful problems which man in all ages has been
attempting to solve. There is no evading it: he must face it.
That man's answers to this question should have been altogether wide of
the mark, is only what might have been expected; for he does not really
understand the import of the question which he, with much earnestness
perhaps, is putting, nor discern the malignant character of that evil which he
yet feels to be a barrier between him and God.
That man's many elaborate solutions of the problem which has perplexed
the race since evil entered should have been unsatisfactory, is not
wonderful, seeing his ideas of human guilt are so superficial; his thoughts
of himself so high; his views of God so low.
But that, when God has interposed, as an interpreter, to answer the
question and to solve the problem, man should be so slow to accept the
divine solution as given in the word of God, betrays an amount of
unteachableness and self-will which is difficult to comprehend. The
preference which man has always shown for his own theories upon this
point is unaccountable, save upon the supposition that he has but a poor
discernment of the evil forces with which he professes to battle; a faint
knowledge of the spiritual havoc which has been wrought in himself; a very
vague perception of what law and righteousness are; a sorrowful ignorance
of that Divine Being with whom, as lawgiver and judge, he knows that he
has to do; and a low appreciation of eternal holiness and truth.
Man has always treated sin as a misfortune, not a crime; as disease, not
guilt; as a case for the physician, not for the judge. Herein lies the essential
faultiness of all mere human religions or theologies. They fail to
acknowledge the judicial aspect of the question, as that on which the real
answer must hinge; and to recognise the guilt or criminality of the evil-doer
as that which must first be dealt with before any real answer, or
approximation to an answer, can be given.
God is a Father; but He is no less a Judge. Shall the Judge give way to
the Father, or the Father give way to the Judge?
God loves the sinner; but He hates the sin. Shall He sink His love to the
sinner in His hatred of the sin, or His hatred of the sin in His love to the
sinner?
God has sworn that He has no pleasure in the death of a sinner (Eze
33:11); yet He has also sworn that the soul that sinneth, it shall die (Eze
18:4). Which of the two oaths shall be kept? Shall the one give way to the
other? Can both be kept inviolate? Can a contradiction, apparently so direct,
be reconciled? Which is the more unchangeable and irreversible, the vow of
pity or the oath of justice?
Law and love must be reconciled, else the great question as to a sinner's
intercourse with the Holy One must remain unanswered. The one cannot
give way to the other. Both must stand, else the pillars of the universe will
be shaken.
The reconciliation man has often tried; for he has always had a glimpse
of the difficulty. But he has failed; for his endeavors have always been in
the direction of making law succumb to love.
The reconciliation God has accomplished; and, in the accomplishment,
both law and love have triumphed. The one has not given way to the other.
Each has kept its ground; nay, each has come from the conflict honored and
glorified. Never has there been love like this love of God; so large, so lofty,
so intense, so self-sacrificing. Never has law been so pure, so broad, so
glorious, so inexorable.
There has been no compromise. Law and love have both had their full
scope. Not one jot or tittle has been surrendered by either. They have been
satisfied to the full; the one in all its severity, the other in all its tenderness.
Love has never been more truly love, and law has never been more truly
law, than in this conjunction of the two. It has been reconciliation, without
compromise. God's honour has been maintained, yet man's interests have
not been sacrificed. God has done it all; and He has done it effectually and
irreversibly.
Man could not have done it, even though he could have devised it. But
truly he could do neither. God only could have devised and done it.
He has done it by removing the whole case into His own courts of law,
that it might be settled there on a righteous basis. Man could not have gone
into court with the case, save in the certainty that he would lose it. God
comes into court, bringing man and man's whole case along with Him, that
upon righteous principles, and in a legal way, the case may be settled, at
once in favour of man and in favour of God. It is this judicial settlement of
the case that is God's one and final answer to man's long unanswered
question, "How shall man be just with God?" "Wherewith shall I come
before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God?" (Micah 6:6).
God provides the basis of the reconciliation; a basis which demonstrates
that there is no compromise between law and love, but the full expression
of both; a basis which establishes both the authority and the paternity of
Jehovah, as Lawgiver and Father; a basis which reveals in infinite
awfulness the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the spotless purity of the statute,
the unbending character of God's governmental ordinances; and which yet
secures, in and by law, the righteous overflow of His boundless love to the
lost sons of Adam.
This basis of reconciliation between law and love God has Himself not
only provided, but brought into His own courts of law; proposing to the
sinner that all the questions between Himself and the sinner should be
settled on this basis ,-so equitable, so friendly, so secure; and settled in
judicial form, by a legal process, in which verdict is given in favour of the
accused, and he is clean absolved, -"justified from all things."
The consent of parties to the acceptance of this basis is required in court.
The law consents; the Lawgiver consents; Father, Son, and Spirit consent;
and man, the chief party interested, is asked for his consent. If he consents,
the whole matter is settled. The verdict is issued in his favour; and
henceforth he can triumph, and say, "It is God that justifieth; who is he that
condemneth?"
Sin is too great an evil for man to meddle with. His attempts to remove it
do but increase it, and his endeavours to approach God in spite of it
aggravate his guilt. Only God can deal with sin, either as a disease or a
crime; as a dishonour to Himself, or as a hinderer of man's approach to
Himself. He deals with it not in some arbitrary or summary way, by a mere
exercise of will or power, but by bringing it for adjudication into His own
courts of law. As judge, seated on His tribunal, He settles the case, and
settles it in favour of the sinner, -of any sinner on the earth that will consent
to the basis which He proposes. Into this court each one may freely come,
on the footing of a sinner needing the adjustment of the great question
between him and God. That adjustment is no matter of uncertainty or
difficulty; it will at once be granted to each applicant; and the guilty man
with his case, however bad, thus legally settled, retires from court with his
burden removed and his fears dispelled, assured that he can never again be
summoned to answer for his guilt. It is righteousness that has reconciled
God to him, and him to God.
As sin is too great an evil for any but God to deal with, so is
righteousness too high for man to reach; to high for any but God to bring
down and place at our disposal. God has brought down, and brought nigh,
the righteousness. Thus the guilt which we have contracted is met by the
righteousness which God has provided; and the exclusion from the divine
fellowship, which the guilt produced, is more than reversed by the new
introduction which the righteousness places at our disposal.
May I then draw near to God, and not die? May I draw near, and live?
May I come to Him who hateth sin, and yet find that the sin which He
hateth is no barrier to my coming, no reason for my being shut out from His
presence as an unclean thing? May I renew my lost fellowship with Him
who made me, and made me for Himself? May I worship in His holy place,
with safety to myself, and without dishonour to Him?
These are the questions with which God has dealt, and dealt with so as to
ensure a blessed answer to them all; an answer which will satisfy our own
troubled consciences as well as the holy law of God. His answer is final and
it is effectual. He will give no other; nor will He deal with these questions
in any other way than He has done. He has introduced them into His courts
of law, that there they may be finally adjusted; and out of these courts into
which God has taken them who can withdraw them? Or what end would be
served by such a withdrawal on our part? Would it make the settlement
more easy, more pleasant, more sure? It would not. It would augment the
uncertainty, and make the perplexity absolutely hopeless.
Yet the tendency of modern thought and modern theology is to refuse the
judicial settlement of these questions, and to withdraw them from the courts
into which God has introduced them. An extrajudicial adjustment is
attempted; man declining to admit such a guilt as would bring him within
the grasp of law, and refusing to acknowledge sin to be of such a nature as
to require a criminal process in solemn court; yet admitting the necessity or
desirableness of the removal of the sore evil under which humanity is felt to
be labouring, and under which, if unremoved, it must ere long dissolve.
The history of six thousand years of evil has been lost on man. He refuses
to read its awful lesson regarding sin, and God's displeasure against the
sinner, which that history records. The flood of evil that has issued forth
from one single sin he has forgotten. The death, the darkness, the sorrow,
the sickness, the tears, the weariness, the madness, the confusion, the
bloodshed, the furious hatred between man and man, making earth a suburb
of hell,-all this is overlooked or misread; and man repels the thought that
sin is crime, which God hates with an infinite hate, and which He, in His
righteousness, must condemn and avenge.
If sin is such a surface thing, a trifle, as men deem it, what is the
significance of this long sad story? Do earth's ten thousand graveyards,
where human love lies buried, tell no darker tale? Do the millions upon
millions of broken hearts and heavy eyes say that sin is but a trifle? Does
the moaning of the hospital or the carnage of the battlefield, the blood-
stained sword, and the death-dealing artillery, proclaim that sin is a mere
casualty, and the human heart the seat of goodness after all? Does the
earthquake, the volcano, the hurricane, the tempest, speak nothing of sin's
desperate evil? Does mans aching head, and empty heart, and burdened
spirit, and shaded brow, and weary brain, and tottering limbs, not utter, in a
voice articulate beyond mistake, that sin is GUILT, that that guilt must be
punished,-punished by the Judge of all,-not as a mere "violation of natural
laws," but as a breach of the eternal law, which admits of no reversal, "The
soul that sinneth, it shall die"? For without law, sin is nothing. "The strength
of sin is the law" (1 Cor 15:56); and he who makes light of sin must defend
moral confusion and injustice; he who refuses to recognize sin as guilt,
must dissolve the law of the universe, or ascribe imbecility and injustice to
the Judge of all.
The world has grown old in sin, and has now more than ever begun to
trifle with it, either as a necessity which cannot be cured, or a partial
aberration from good order which will rectify itself ere long. It is this
tampering with evil, this refusal to see sin as God sees it, as the law declares
it, and as the story of our race has revealed it, that has in all ages been the
root of error, and of wide departure from the faith once delivered to the
saints. Admit the evil of sin, with all its eternal consequences, and you are
shut up to a divine way of dealing with it. Deny the evil of sin, and the
future results of that evil, and you may deny the whole revelation of God,
set aside the cross, and abrogate the law.
"By the law is the knowledge of sin." Therefore the connection between
sin and law must be maintained, both in condemnation and in pardon. God's
interposition in behalf of man must be a confirmation, not a relaxation of
the law; for law cannot change, even as God cannot change or deny
Himself.
Favor to the sinner must also be favor to the law. Favor to the sinner
which would simply establish law, or leave its sanctities untouched, would
be much; but favor to him which would deepen its foundations, and render
it more venerable, more awful than before, is unspeakably higher and surer.
Even so has it been. Law has not suffered at the hands of love, nor love
been cramped and frozen by law. Both have had full scope, fuller scope
than if man had never fallen.
I know that love is not law, and that law is not love. In law, properly, no
love inheres. It is like the balance which knows not whether it be gold or
iron that is laid upon it. Yet in that combination of the judicial and the
paternal, which God's way of salvation exhibits, law has become the source
and vehicle of love, and love law's upholder and honourer; so that even in
this sense and aspect "love is the fulfilling of the law." 1
The law that was against the sinner has come to be upon the sinner's side.
It is now ready to take his part in the great controversy between him and
God, provided he will conduct his case on the new principles which God
has introduced for the settlement of all variances between Himself and the
sinner; or rather, provided he will put that case into the hands of the divine
Advocate, who alone knows how to conduct it aright, and to bring it to a
successful issue,--who is both "propitiation" and "Advocate,"--the
"propitiation for our sins" (1 John 2:2), "the Advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1).
1. "of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the
harmony of the world; all things in heaven do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the
greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men, and creatures of what condition
soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all, with uniform consent, admiring her as the
mother of their peace and joy." --Hooker, Eccl Pol. B. 1 sec 16.
Chapter Two
God's Recognition of Substitution
he mere bringing the question into the courts of law would have
availed nothing, had there not been provision made for so ordering
their processes and judgments that the sinner might be righteously
acquitted; that God might be 'just and the justifier" (Rom 3:26), "a just God
and a Saviour" (Isa 45:21); that law might be brought to be upon the
sinner's side; his absolver, and not his condemner.
This provision has been made by means of substitution, or transference
of the penalty from him who had incurred it to One who had not.
In human courts, no such provision can be allowed, save in regard to the
payment of debt. In that case there is no difficulty as to the exchange of
person and of property. If the creditor receives his money from a third party,
he is satisfied, and the law is satisfied, though the debtor himself has not
paid one farthing. To a certain extent, this is substitution; so that the idea of
such a thing is not unknown in common life, and the principle of it not
unacknowledged by human law.
But beyond this the law of man does not go. Substitution in any wider
aspect is something about which man has never attempted to legislate.
Stripe for stripe is human law; "by His stripes we are healed" is
superhuman, the result of a legislation as gracious as it is divine.
Substitution is not for man to deal with: its principle he but imperfectly
understands; its details he cannot reach. They are far too intricate, too far-
reaching, and too mysterious for him to grasp, or, having grasped, to found
any system of legislation upon them. In this, even though willing, he must
ever be helpless.
But God has affirmed substitution as the principle on which He means to
deal with fallen man; and the arrangements of His holy tribunal, His
righteous governmental processes, are such as to bring this effectually and
continually into play. It is through substitution that His righteous
government displays its perfection in all its transactions with the sinner.
God has introduced the principle of substitution into His courts. There He
sits as judge, "just and justifying"; acting on the principle of transference or
representation; maintaining law, and yet manifesting grace: declaring that
"all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23); that "by
the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight, for by the law is
the knowledge of sin" (Rom 3:20); yet presenting a divine Surety, as "a
PROPITIATION through faith in His blood, to declare His
RIGHTEOUSNESS for the remission of sins that are past" (Rom 3:25).
Salvation by substitution was embodied in the first promise regarding the
woman's seed and His bruised heel. Victory over our great enemy, by His
subjecting Himself to the bruising of that enemy, is then and there
proclaimed. The clothing of our first parents with that which had passed
through death, in preference to the fig-leaves which had not so done,
showed the element of substitution as that on which God had begun to act
in His treatment of fallen man. Abel's sacrifice revealed the same truth,
especially as contrasted with Cain's. For that which made Abel's acceptable,
and himself accepted, was the death of the victim as substituted for his own;
and that which rendered Cain's hateful, and himself rejected, was the
absence of that death and blood. The slain firstling was accepted by God as,
symbolically, Abel's substitute, laid on the altar, till He should come, the
"woman's seed," "made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them
that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Gal
4:4,5).
From the beginning God recognized this principle in His dealings with
man; the Just dying for the unjust; the blessed One becoming a curse that
the cursed might be blessed. In all subsequent sacrifices it was the same.
Noah's burnt-offering was like Abel's; and Abraham's resembled Noah's.
Transference of guilt from one who could not bear the penalty without
being eternally lost, to One who could bear it, and yet come forth from
under it, free and glorious,-this was the deep truth into which God educated
the patriarchs, as that which lay at the foundation of His procedure with the
sinner. The consumption of Abraham's sacrifice by the divine fire told him
that the divine displeasure which should have rested on him for ever, had
fallen upon a substitute and been exhausted, so that there remained no more
wrath, no darkness, "no condemnation" for him; nothing but deliverance
and favor and everlasting blessedness.
But it was the arrangements of the tabernacle that brought out most fully
this great principle of God's actings to the children of Adam.
In the passover-blood, the idea was chiefly that of protection from peril.
The lamb stood sentinel at the door of each family; the blood was their
"shield and buckler." There might be trembling hearts within, wondering
perhaps how a little blood could be so efficacious, and make their dwelling
so impregnable; disquieted, too, because they could not see the blood, but
were obliged to be content with knowing that God saw it (Exo 12:13); yet
no amount of fearfulness could alter the potency of that sprinkled blood,
and no weakness of faith could make that God-given shield less efficacious
against "the enemy and the avenger." The blood,-the symbol of
substitution,-was on the lintel; and that was enough. They did not see it, nor
feel it; but they knew that it was there, and that sufficed. God saw it, and
that was better than their seeing it. They were safe; and they knew that they
were so. They could feast upon the lamb in peace, and eat their bitter herbs
with thankful joy. They could sing by anticipation the Church's song, "If
God be for us, who can be against us?"
But still it was not in Egypt, but in the wilderness; not in their paschal
chamber, but in the sanctuary of their God, that they were to learn the full
and varied truth of pardon, and cleansing, and acceptance, and blessing
through a substitute.
The old burnt-offering of the patriarchs, on the footing of which these
fathers had in ages past drawn near to God, was split into many parts; and
in the details of these we see the fulness and variety of the substitution.
The various sacrifices are well connected with the altar; and even that
which was "burnt without the camp" was connected with the altar. It was no
doubt carried forth without the camp, and burnt with fire (Lev 6:30, 16:27);
but "the blood was brought into the tabernacle of the congregation, to
reconcile withal in the holy place." "The blood of the bullock was brought
in, to make atonement in the holy place." Their connection with the altar is
sufficient of itself to show the truth of substitution contained in them, for
the altar was the place of transference. But in each of them we find
something which expresses this more directly and fully.
In the burnt-offering we see the perfection of the substitute presented
in the room of our imperfection, in not loving God with our whole
heart.
In the meat-offering we have the perfection of the substitute, as that on
which, when laid upon the altar, God feeds, and on which He invites us
to feed.
In the peace-offering we find the perfection of the substitute laid on the
same altar as an atonement, reconciling us to God; removing the
distance and the enmity, and providing food for us out of that which
had passed through death; for "He is our peace."
In the sin-offering we see the perfection of the substitute, whose blood
is sprinkled on the altar, and whose body is burnt without, as securing
pardon for unconscious sins,-sins of ignorance.
In the trespass-offering there is the same perfection of the substitute, in
His atoning character, procuring forgiveness for conscious and willful
sin.
In the drink-offering we have the perfection of the substitute poured
out on the altar, as that by which God is refreshed, and by which we
are also refreshed. "His blood is drink indeed."
In the incense we have the "sweet savor" of the substitute going up to
God in our behalf, the cloud of fragrance from His life and death with
which God is well pleased, enveloping us and making us fragrant with a
fragrance not our own; absorbing all in us that is displeasing or hateful, and
replacing it with a sweetness altogether perfect and divine.
In the fire we see the holy wrath of the Judge consuming the victim slain
in the sinner's room. In the ashes we have the proof that the wrath had spent
itself, that the penalty was paid, that the work was done. "It is finished,"
was the voice of the ashes on the altar.
In all this we see such things as the following: (1) God's displeasure
against sin; (2) that displeasure exhausted in a righteous way; (3) the
substitute presented and accepted; (4) the substitute slain and consumed; (5)
the transference of the wrath from the sinner to his representative; (6) God
resting in His love over the sinner, and viewing him in the perfection of his
substitute; (7) the sinner reconciled, accepted, complete, enjoying God's
favour, and feeding at His table on that on which God had fed; on that
which had come from the altar, and had passed through the fire.
Thus God's acceptance of this principle, in His preparation of acceptable
worshippers for His sanctuary, shows the fitness and value of it, as well as
the divine intention that it should be available for the sinner in his drawing
near to God. In this way it is that God makes the sinner "perfect as
pertaining to the conscience" (Heb 9:9), gives him "no more conscience of
sins" (Heb 10:2), and "purges his conscience from dead works to serve the
living God" (Heb 9:14). For that which satisfies the holiness of God cannot
but satisfy the conscience of the sinner. God, pointing to the altar, says,
"That is enough for me"; the sinner responds, and says, "It is enough for
me."
As in the Epistle to the Hebrews we have this principle of substitution
applied to the sanctuary, so in that to the Romans we find it applied to the
courts of law. In the former we see God making the sinner perfect as a
worshipper; in the latter, righteous as a servant and a son. In the one it is
priestly completeness; in the latter it is judicial righteousness. But in both,
the principle on which God acts is the same. And as He acts on it in
receiving us, so does He invite us to act in coming to Him.
It is this truth that the gospel embodies; and it is this truth that we preach,
when, as ambassadors for Christ, we pray men in Christ's stead to be
reconciled to God. God's free love to the sinner is the first part of our
message; and God's righteous way of making that free love available for the
sinner is the second. What God is, and what Christ has done, make up one
gospel. The belief of that gospel is eternal life. "All that believe are justified
from all things" (Acts 13:39).
With a weak faith and a fearful heart many a sinner stands before the
altar. But it is not the strength of his faith, but the perfection of the sacrifice,
that saves; and no feebleness of faith, no dimness of eye, no trembling of
hand, can change the efficacy of our burnt-offering. The vigor of our faith
can add nothing to it, nor can the poverty of it take anything from it. Faith,
in all its degrees, still reads the inscription, "The blood of Jesus Christ His
Son cleanseth us from all sin"; and if at times the eye is so dim that it
cannot read these words, through blinding tears or bewildering mist, faith
rests itself on the certain knowledge of the fact that the inscription is still
there, or at least that the blood itself (of which these words remind us)
remains, in all its power and suitableness, upon the altar unchanged and
uneffaced. God says that the believing man is justified; who are we, then,
that we should say, "We believe, but we do not know whether we are
justified"? What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.
The question as to the right way of believing is that which puzzles many,
and engrosses all their anxiety, to the exclusion of the far greater questions
as to the person and work of Him who is the object of their believing. Thus
their thoughts run in a self-righteous direction, and are occupied, not with
what Christ has done, but with what they have yet to do, to get themselves
connected with His work.
What should we have said to the Israelite, who, on bringing his lamb to
the tabernacle, should puzzle himself with questions as to the right mode of
laying his hands on the head of the victim, and who should refuse to take
any comfort from the sacrifice, because he was not sure whether he had laid
them aright;-on the proper place, in the right direction, with adequate
pressure, or in the best attitude? Should we not have told him that his own
actings concerning the lamb were not the lamb, and yet that he was
speaking as if they were? Should we not have told him that the lamb was
everything, his touch nothing, as to virtue or merit or recommendation?
Should we not have told him to be of good cheer; not because he had laid
his hands on the victim in the most approved fashion, but because they had
touched that victim, however lightly and imperfectly, and thereby said, Let
this lamb stand for me, answer for me, die for me? The touching had no
virtue in itself, and therefore the excellency of the act was no question to
come up at all: it simply intimated the man's desire that this sacrifice should
be taken instead of himself, as God's appointed way of pardon; it was
simply the indication of his consent to God's way of saving him, by the
substitution of another. The point for him to settle was not, Was my touch
right or wrong, light or heavy? but, Was it the touch of the right lamb,-the
lamb appointed by God for the taking away of sin?
The quality or quantity of faith is not the main question for the sinner.
That which he needs to know is that Jesus died and was buried, and rose
again, according to the Scriptures. This knowledge is life everlasting.
Chapter Three
The Completeness of the Substitution
n person and in work, in life and in death, Christ is the sinner's
Substitute. His vicariousness is co-extensive with the sins and wants of
those whom He represents, and covers all the different periods as well as
the varied circumstances of their lives.
He entered our world as the Substitute. "There was no room for Him in
the inn" (Luke 2:7),-the inn of Bethlehem, the city of David, His own city.
"Though rich, for our sakes He had become poor" (2 Cor 8:9). In poverty
and banishment His life began. He was not to be allowed either to be born
or died, save as an outcast man. "Without the gate" (Heb 13:12) was His
position, as He entered and as He left our earth. Man would not give even a
roof to shelter or a cradle to receive the helpless babe. It was as the
Substitute that He was the outcast from the first moment of His birth. His
vicarious life began in the manger. For what can this poverty mean, this
rejection by man, this outcast condition, but that His sin-bearing had begun?
The name, too, that met Him as He came into our world intimated the
same truth: "Thou shalt call His name JESUS, for He shall save His people
from their sins" (Matt 1:21). His name proclaimed His mission and His
work to be salvation; "Jehovah the Savior" (Jesus) is that by which the
infant is called. As the Savior, He comes forth from the womb; as the
Savior, He lies in the manger; and if He is the Savior, He is the Substitute.
The name Jesus was not given to Him merely in reference to the cross, but
to His whole life below. Therefore did Mary say, "My soul doth magnify the
Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior (Luke 1:46,47).
Therefore also did the angel say to the shepherds, "Unto you is born this
day, in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:11).
Scarcely is He born when His blood is shed. Circumcision deals with
Him as one guilty, and needing the sign of cleansing. 2 He knew no sin, yet
He is circumcised. He was not born in sin, nor shapen in iniquity, but was
"the holy thing" (Luke 1:35); yet He is circumcised as other children of
Abraham, for "He took on Him the seed of Abraham" (Heb 2:16). Why was
He circumcised if not as the Substitute? The rite proclaimed His vicarious
birth, as truly as did the cross His vicarious death. "He who knew no sin
was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in
Him" (2 Cor 5:21). This was the beginning of that obedience in virtue of
which righteousness comes to us; as it is written, "As by one man's
disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous" (Rom 5:19). For He Himself testified concerning
His baptism, "Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness" (Matt 3:15);
and what was true of His baptism was no less true of His circumcision. The
pain and the blood and the bruising of His tender body, connected with that
symbol of shame, are inexplicable save on the supposition that even in
infancy He was the vicarious one, not indeed bearing sin in the full sense
and manner in which He bore it on the cross (for without death, sin-bearing
could not have been consummated), but still bearing it in measure,
according to the condition of His years. Even then He was "the Lamb of
God."
His banishment into Egypt is referred to once and again by the old
divines as part of that life of humiliation by which He was bearing our sins.
As the banished one, He bore our banishment that we might return to God.
He passed through earth as an outcast, because He was standing in the
outcast's place; -"hurried up and down," says an old writer, "and driven out
of His own land as a vagabond" (Flavel). In each part of His sin-bearing life
there is something to meet our case. By the first Adam we were made exiles
from God and paradise; by the last Adam we are brought back from our
wanderings, restored to the divine favor, and replaced in the paradise of
God.
His baptism is the same in import with His circumcision. He needed not
the symbol of death and cleansing; for He was wholly pure, not liable to
death on His own account. Why, then, should this sign of washing the
unclean be applied to Him, if He was not then standing in the room of the
unclean? What had water to do with the spotless One? What had "the figure
of the putting away of the filth of the flesh, and of the answer of a good
conscience toward God" (1 Pet 3:21), to do with Him who had no filth of
the flesh to put away, and on whose conscience not the very shadow of
dispeace had ever rested? But He was the Substitute; and into all the parts
and circumstances of our life He enters, fulfilling all righteousness in the
name of those whom He had come to save. The water was poured upon
Him as standing in our room, and fulfilling our obligations. 3
In the Psalms we find Him giving utterance to His feelings while bearing
sins that were not His own, but which were felt by Him as if they were His
own. Again and again He confesses sin.
But what had the Holy One to do with confession, or with strong crying
and tears? What connection had He with the horrible pit and the miry clay,
with the overwhelming floods and waves, with the deep waters, and the
dust and darkness, and the lowest pit? Why shrank He from the assembly of
the wicked that enclosed Him, from the "bulls that compassed Him, the
strong bulls of Bashan that beset Him round," from the power of the dogs,
from the sword, from the lion's mouth, from the horns of the unicorns?
Why, during those days of His flesh, was He subjected to all this? and why
were the powers of earth and hell let loose against Him? Because He was
the Substitute, who had taken our place and assumed our responsibilities,
and undertaken to do battle with our enemies. In these Psalms we find the
seed of the woman at war with the seed of the serpent, and undergoing the
varied anguish of the bruised heel.
He speaks not merely of the anguish of the cross when the full flood of
wrath descended on Him, but of His lifetime's daily griefs: "I am afflicted
and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer Thy terrors, Jam
distracted" (Psa 88:15). "My soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth
nigh unto the grave," He said in the Psalms; just as afterwards He cried out,
"My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." "Mine eye mourneth by
reason of affliction... Thy fierce wrath goeth over me, Thy terrors have cut
me off... Lover and friend hast Thou put far from me, and mine
acquaintance into darkness." Thus was He "despised and rejected of men"
(i.e. the despised and rejected of men), "a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief' (Isa 53:3). And of the meaning of all this we can have no doubt,
when we remember that He was always the sinless One bearing our sins,
carrying them up to the cross as well as bearing them upon the cross (1 Pet
2:24, anênegken ); also that it is written of Him, "Surely He hath borne our
griefs and carried our sorrows" (Isa 53:4); and yet again, that it is written
expressly with reference to His daily life, "He healed all that were sick, that
it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,
HIMSELF TOOK OUR INFIRMITIES, AND BARE OUR SICKNESSES"
(Matt 8:17). 4 Vicariousness, or substitution, attached itself to each part of
His life as truly as to His death. 5 Our burden He assumed when He entered
the manger, and laid it aside only at the cross. The utterance, "It is finished,'
pointed back to a whole life's sin-bearing work.
The confessions of our sins which we find in the Psalms (where, as "in a
bottle," God has deposited the tears of the Son of man, Psa 56:8) are the
distinctest proofs of His work as the Substitute. Let one example suffice: "O
LORD, rebuke me not in Thy wrath, neither chasten me in Thy hot
displeasure; for Thine arrows stick fast in me, and Thy hand presseth me
sore. There is no soundness in my flesh because of Thine anger, neither is
there any rest in my bones because of my sin. For mine iniquities are gone
over mine head; as an heavy burden, they are too heavy for me" (Psa 38:1-
4).
These confessions must be either those of the sinner or the sin-bearer.
They suit the former; and they show what views of sin we should entertain,
and what our confessions should be. But they suit the latter no less; and as
they occur in those Psalms which are quoted in the New Testament as
specially referring to Christ, we must take them as the confessions of the
sin-bearer, and meant to tell us what He thought of sin when it was laid
upon Him simply as a substitute for others. The view thus given us of the
completeness of the substitution is as striking as it is satisfying. We see here
our Noah building His wondrous ark for the salvation of His household. We
see its beginning, middle, and end. We see its different parts, external and
internal; each plank as it is laid, each nail as it is driven in. Its form is
perfect; its structure in all details is complete; its strength and stability are
altogether divine. Yet with what labour and amid what mockings is this ark
constructed! Amid what strong crying and tears, what blood and agony, is it
completed! Thus, however, we are assured of its perfection and security.
Through the deep waters of this evil world it floats in peace. No storm can
overset it, no billow break it, nor so much as loosen one of its planks. They
who have fled to it as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the
tempest, are everlastingly safe.
When the Lord said, "Now is my soul troubled" (John 12:27); and when,
again, He said, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death" (Matt
26:38), He spoke as the sin-bearer. For what construction can we possibly
put upon that trouble and sorrow, but that they were for us? 6 Men, false to
the great truth of a sin-bearing Christ, may say that in the utterance of this
anguish He was merely giving us an example of patient endurance and self-
sacrifice; but they who own the doctrine of Christ "suffering for sin, the just
for the unjust," will listen to these bitter cries as to the very voice of the
Substitute, and learn from them the completeness of that work of
satisfaction, for the accomplishment of which He took our flesh, and lived
our life, and died our death upon the tree.
But the completeness of the substitution comes out more fully at the
cross. There the whole burden pressed upon Him, and the wrath of God
took hold of Him, and the sword of Jehovah smote Him; He poured out His
soul unto death, and He was cut off out of the land of the living.
Then the work was done. "It is finished." The blood of the burnt-offering
was shed. The propitiation was made; the transgression finished; and the
everlasting righteousness brought in.
All that follows is the fruit or result of the work finished on the cross.
The grave is the awful pledge or testimony to His death as a true and real
death; but it forms no part of the substitution or expiation. 7 Ere our surety
reached the tomb, atonement had been completed. The resurrection is the
blessed announcement of the Father that the work had been accepted and
the surety set free; but it was no part either of the atonement or the
righteousness. The ascension and the appearing in the presence of God for
us with His own blood, are the carrying out of the atonement made upon
Calvary; but they are no part of the expiation by means of which sin is
forgiven and we are justified. All was finished, once and for ever, when the
surety said, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit."
There are some who would separate propitiation from the cross, who
maintain that the three days' entombment was part of the sin-bearing. But
the cry from the cross, "It is finished," silences all such theories. The altar is
the only place of expiation; and it is death that is the wages of sin. Burial
was but the visible proof of the reality of the death. The surety's death once
given instead of ours, the work is done. The fire consumed the sacrifice;
and the ashes which remain are not the prolongation of that sacrifice, but
the palpable proof that the fire has exhausted itself, that wrath is spent, and
that nothing can now be added to or taken from the perfection of that
sacrifice, through which pardon and righteousness are henceforth to flow to
the condemned and the ungodly.
"Justified by His blood" is the apostolic declaration; and as a result of
this, "saved from wrath through Him" (Rom 5:9). Here we rest; sitting
down beneath the shadow of the cross to receive the benefit of that
justifying, saving, protecting sacrifice.
It is at and by the cross that God justifies the ungodly. "By His stripes we
are healed" (Isa 53:5); and the symbol of the brazen serpent visibly declares
this truth. It was the serpent when uplifted that healed the deadly bite, not
the serpent after it was taken down and deposited in the tabernacle. As from
that serpent,-the figure of Him who was "made a curse for us,"-so from the
cross health and life flow in. Not resurrection, but crucifixion, is the
finishing of transgression and the making of an end of sin.
"Reconciled to God by the death of His Son" (Rom 5:10) is another of
the many testimonies to the value and efficacy of the cross. Reconciliation
is not connected with resurrection. The "peace was made by the blood of
His cross" (Col 1:20). The fruits and results of the peace-offering may be
many and various, but they are not the basis of reconciliation. That basis is
the sacrificial blood-shedding. What can be more explicit than these three
passages, which announce justification by the blood, reconciliation by the
death, and peace by "the blood of the cross"?
In the cross we see the Priest and priesthood; in the resurrection, the King
and royal power. To the Priest belong the absolution and the cleansing and
the justifying; to the King, the impartation of blessing to the absolved, the
cleansed and the justified.
To the cross, therefore, do we look and cleave; knowing that out of its
death cometh life to us, and out of its condemnation pardon and
righteousness. With Christ were we crucified; and in this crucifixion we
have "redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to
the riches of His grace."
Three times over in one chapter (Lev 1:9,13,17) we read these words, "It
is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire of a sweet savour unto the
LORD"; and the apostle, referring to these words, says, "Christ hath loved
us, and hath given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a
sweet-smelling savour" (Eph 5:2). This sweet savour came from the brazen
altar, or altar of burnt-offering. It was the sweet odour of that sacrifice that
ascended to God, and that encompassed the worshipper, so that he was
covered all over with this sacrificial fragrance, presenting him perfect
before God, and making his own conscience feel that he was accepted as
such, and treated as such. Thus, by that burnt-offering there is proclaimed to
us justification in a crucified Christ
The manifold blessings flowing from resurrection and ascension are not
to be over-looked; but nowhere does Scripture teach justification by these.
The one passage sometimes quoted to prove this, declares the opposite
(Rom 4:25); for the words truly translated run thus: "He was delivered
because we had sinned, and raised again because of our justification." It
was because the justifying work was finished that resurrection was possible.
Had it not been so, He must have remained under the power of the grave.
But the cross had completed the justification of His church. He was raised
from the dead. Death could no longer have dominion over Him. The work
was finished, the debt paid, and the surety went free: He rose, not in order
to justify us, but because we were justified. In raising Him from the dead,
God the Father cleared Him from the imputed guilt which had nailed Him
to the cross and borne Him down to the tomb. "He was justified in the
Spirit" (1 Tim 3:16). His resurrection was not His justification, but the
declaration that He was "justified"; so that resurrection, in which we are one
with Him, does not justify us, but proclaims that we are justified,-justified
by His blood and death. 8
In so far, then, as substitution is concerned, we have to do with the cross
alone. It was, indeed, the place of death; but on that very account it was also
to us a place of life and the pledge of resurrection.
The words of the apostle (Rom 6:6,7) are very explicit on this point:
"Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with Him, that the body
of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Here
we have three things connected directly with the cross: (1) The death of the
old man; (2) the destruction of the body of sin; (3) deliverance from the
life-bondage of sin. Then he adds, "For he who dieth is freed from sin." The
word "freed" is literally "justified," (dedikaiôtai, has been judicially
released, legally set free, having paid the full penalty) teaching us that death
is the exhaustion of the penalty and the justification of the sinner; so that
justification in a crucified Christ is the teaching of the Spirit here.
The words of another apostle are no less clear (1 Pet 4:1): "Christ
suffered for us in the flesh;...he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased
from sin." Here Christ on the cross is set before us, suffering the just for the
unjust; and having thus suffered, He has exhausted the penalty which He
was bearing; and having exhausted it, His connection with sin has ceased:
he is now in the state described elsewhere, "without sin" (Heb 9:28). The
word "ceased" means more properly "has rest."(9) The life of our surety
was one of sorrow and unrest, for our penalty lay upon Him; but when this
penalty was paid by His death, He "rested." The labor and the burden were
gone; and as one who knew what entering into rest was (Heb 4:10), He
could say to us, "I will give you rest." He carried His life-long burden to the
cross, and there laid it down, "resting from His labors." Or rather, it was
there that the law severed the connection between Him and the burden;
loosing it from His shoulders, that it might be buried in His grave. From
that same cross springs the sinner's rest, the sinner's disburdening, the
sinner's absolution and justification.
Not for a moment are we to lose sight of the blessings flowing from the
resurrection, or to overlook and undervalue the new position into which we
are brought by it. The "power of the resurrection" (Phil 3:10) must be fully
recognized and acted on for its own results. We are crucified with Christ.
With Him we died, were buried, and rose again. "Risen with Him through
the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead" (Col
2:12). "He hath quickened us together with Christ... and hath raised us up
together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph
2:5,6). Such are the terms in which the apostle describes the benefits of
Christ's resurrection, and in which he reveals to us the oneness with Him
who died and rose. But nowhere does he separate our justification from the
cross; nowhere does he speak of Christ meeting our legal responsibilities by
His resurrection; nowhere does he ascribe to His resurrection that
preciousness in whose excellency we stand complete. Acceptance, and
completeness in our standing before God, are attributed to the cross and
blood and death of the Divine Substitute.
Poor as my faith in this Substitute may be, it places me at once in the
position of one to whom "God imputeth righteousness without works." God
is willing to receive me on the footing of His perfection; and if I am willing
to be thus received, in the perfection of another with whom God is well
pleased, the whole transaction is completed. I AM JUSTIFIED BY HIS
BLOOD. "As He is, so am I (even) in this world,"-even now, with all my
imperfections and evils.
To be entitled to use another's name, when my own name is worthless; to
be allowed to wear another's raiment, because my own is torn and filthy; to
appear before God in another's person,-the person of the Beloved Son ,-this
is the summit of all blessing. The sin-bearer and I have exchanged names,
robes, and persons! I am now represented by Him, my own personality
having disappeared; He now appears in the presence of God for me (Heb
9:24). All that makes Him precious and dear to the Father has been
transferred to me. His excellency and glory are seen as if they were mine;
and I receive the love, and the fellowship, and the glory, as if I had earned
them all. So entirely one am I with the sin-bearer, that God treats me not
merely as if I had not done the evil that I have done; but as if I had done all
the good which I have not done, but which my Substitute has done. In one
sense I am still the poor sinner, once under wrath; in another I am altogether
righteous, and shall be so for ever, because of the Perfect One, in whose
perfection I appear before God. Nor is this a false pretense or a hollow
fiction, which carries no results or blessings with it. It is an exchange which
has been provided by the Judge, and sanctioned by law; an exchange of
which any sinner upon earth may avail himself and be blest.