23. The Atoning Work of Christ

“Himself for Me”

The Atoning Work of Christ

 

 

IN THE WORDS “The Son of God … loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20) lies the heart of the atonement. In love, the Son of God literally gave Himself for me. This puts in personal terms the great transaction of Calvary. It is as true today as when it happened. Inexhaustible in depth and meaning it may be, but it is neither irrational nor beyond comprehension when the illumination of the Spirit is present. Luther’s motto is gloriously true—theologia crucis-theologia lucis.

 

In the three simple words, Himself for me, is enshrined the great mystery of the ages. They declare that “the forfeiting of His free life has freed our forfeited lives.” The most astute intellects of all time have delved into the inner meaning of Christ’s death on the cross, but all have failed to plumb its infinite depths. Like Paul, they have withdrawn with the cry of bafflement. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33). The sin of the first Adam posed a stupendous problem. How could God let His heart of love have its way in justifying guilty men and women, without condoning their sin and thus violating His own holiness? It was a problem to which only His own infinite wisdom could find a solution.

 

“At the cross, God took the initiative,” wrote James Denney, “and so dealt with sin in His Son, that now He can justify the repenting sinner and not compromise His holy character.”

 

The death of our Lord was unlike every other death. It was not an incident in His life, but the very purpose of it. His self-oblation was no accident in a brilliant career, it was the chosen vocation of the God-man.

 

It is obviously impossible to condense into a few paragraphs the teaching of Scripture concerning this profoundest of all mysteries, so in this chapter we shall merely endeavor to present what seem to be some of the main features of the atonement.

 

Theories of the Atonement

 

Theories of the atonement abound—forty of them at least are listed, but most are the product of man’s speculation rather than the careful exegesis of all the relevant Scriptures. Many of them appear to have been formulated in an attempt, not so much to ascertain the teaching of Scripture on the subject, as to evade the real issue involved in the doctrine—the fact that there is something in the nature of God that required propitiation, and that the death of Jesus was the death of a substitute. Few of these theories are unmixed with error, but not all are unmixed error. They often have their rise in a laudable endeavor to remove from the doctrine the hard, legal, and almost mechanical manner in which it has sometimes been presented.

 

It is our firm belief that any attempt to reduce Christ’s sufferings in Gethsemane and at Calvary to anything less than vicariousness is to interpret them superficially and ignore large tracts of Scripture teaching. Forty theories of the atonement there may be, but there is only one doctrine of the atonement. Many of those theories emphasize a partial truth, but they cannot stand alone, because they fail to present an adequate explanation of that great event, or to satisfactorily expound the Scriptures relating to it. It is true that there are many differing aspects of the atonement; for example as a moral influence, as expressing God’s moral government, as victory over sin and the devil. But despite the elements of truth in some of these theories, even taken together, they are not a satisfying explanation of that great transaction if the element of substitution is excluded.

 

One writer expressed it as his belief that every theory concerning the death of Christ that can be understood only by the highly cultured must be false. Christ’s testimony concerning His own ministry was to have the gospel preached unto the poor (Luke 4:18, cf. Isaiah 61:1). All modern gospels that omit the great central truth of substitution prevent the message from being of any use to the great mass of mankind, for there are multitudes who cannot comprehend anything that is highly metaphysical.

 

According to W. H. Griffith Thomas, in order to be satisfactory, any theory of the atonement must include and account for these three factors:

 

1. The adequate exegesis of the New Testament teaching, both Godward and manward. Every theory must start with the Godward side or it will go wrong (Romans 3:25).
2. The proper and adequate interpretation of the Old Testament sacrificial system.
3. The full meaning of Christian experience. One of the great essentials is a working theory adequate to the experience of ordinary men and women.

 

Methods of Presentation

 

In presenting a truth of such vast reach and with such tremendous implications, the Holy Spirit employs a variety of figures of speech, each of which emphasizes a fresh facet of truth. Here are some:

 

The atonement is moral in character, for it originates in and manifests the unselfish and disinterested love of God. This love as manifested in the voluntary death of His only Son, is a source of moral stimulus to man, and has broken the resistance of the hardest hearts (Hebrews 2:9; 1 John 4:9).

 

It is represented as a commercial transaction. A ransom paid to free men from the slavery of sin. In those passages which represent Christ’s death as the price paid for our deliverance from sin and death, the preposition of bargain and exchange—anti—is used (Matthew 20:28; 1 Timothy 2:6).

 

It has a legal significance, for Christ’s death was an act of obedience to the law that sinning men had violated (Galatians 4:4–5; Matthew 3:15). It was a penalty borne in order to rescue the guilty from their merited punishment (Romans 4:25).

 

It is medicinal in its effects. In Scripture sin is frequently represented as a hereditary and contagious disease (Isaiah 1:5–6), for which Christ’s atoning death provided a panacea (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24). Jesus Himself presented His work under this figure (Matthew 9:12–13).

 

It is sacrificial in nature. The atonement is described as a work of priestly mediation that reconciles man to God (Hebrews 9:11–12, 14, 22, 26). This is the consistent and prevailing conception throughout both Old and New Testaments. Hence any view of the atonement that does not provide a sufficient place for this aspect is inadequate.

 

It is popular in some theological circles to claim to have no theory of the atonement, such being unnecessary, since it is the fact of the atonement that saves, and not any theory about the fact. That sounds plausible but it is frankly impossible. As Gresham Machen once said, one cannot believe with an empty head. One must have some comprehension of what was accomplished on the cross. The epistle to the Romans sets forth not only the fact, but also the inner meaning of the atonement.

 

Substitutionary or Vicarious Atonement

 

This view of the atonement may be summarized in the words of F. F. Bruce: “At the cross, all the sin of the ages was placed on the heart of the sinless Son of God, as He became the racial representative of all humanity.” It is our belief that this is the only theory that meets all the conditions suggested above, and that it is the true Bible doctrine.

 

Although not a Bible word, substitution is certainly a Bible idea. By substitution we do not mean the saving of a life by mere assistance, as in the throwing of a rope to a drowning man; or by the mere risking of one life to save another; it is the saving of one life by the loss of another. As substitute, Christ took on Himself the sinner’s guilt and bore its penalty in the sinner’s place.

 

Substitution is a law of nature as well as of grace. Before there can be harvest, the grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die (John 12:24). The lion lives only because a weaker animal has died. This law has been instinctively felt from the earliest days of human history and can be seen in operation the world over.

 

It is the teaching of Scripture that there are two principles in God, the proper relation between which must be born in mind in our theology. They are the principles of love and justice. The former desires to save sinners. But since God is the eternal, infinite, and ethically perfect being, He cannot and will not violate the latter. Some way must be found for mercy and justice to meet—and this they did in the transaction of the cross.

 

When approached without preconceived theories, the Scriptures relating to this subject appear clear and unequivocal. Christ taught His disciples that He came to give His life “a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). He told them He would give His flesh and blood for the life of the world (John 6:51–55). He said that as the Good Shepherd He would give His life for the sheep (John 10:11), and the great Shepherd of the sheep did actually take the place of the sheep. He said that His blood would be shed for the many (Matthew 26:28). This is also the consistent teaching of the epistles. Of many examples, these three are presented:

 

He who knew no sin was made sin for us [2 Corinthians 5:21].

 

He who was under no curse was made a curse for us [Galatians 3:13].

 

He who had done no sin, bore our sin in His own body on the tree [1 Peter 2:22, 24].

 

 

Objections to the Substitutionary Idea

 

Among the objections advanced to the foregoing view of the atonement are these:

 

It is unnecessary, since God might well forgive sinners upon repentance and without any additional requirement.

 

We reply that in asserting that the objector is really assuming for himself the knowledge of deity. Who can say what God can or cannot do? And is repentance in fact all that is necessary to forgiveness? Does it remove the consequences of sin? In ordinary life, does repentance ward off just punishment or remove past guilt? Though repentance is necessary to forgiveness, it is not all that is necessary. Do not the expiatory sacrifices offered by men the world over bear mute testimony to the universal consciousness that sin demands the punishment of the offender or the death of a substitute? And in the act of forgiveness, is it not the one against whom the offense has been committed who suffers?

 

It is impossible, for guilt cannot be transferred from one person to another, nor can punishment and penalty be transferred from a guilty person to an innocent person. An innocent person may suffer, but his suffering will not be punishment or penalty.

 

It may be true that punishment for personal blameworthiness cannot be transferred from the wrongdoer to the well-doer. But the world is so constituted that it bears the idea of substitution engraved on its very heart. Wives suffer to deliver husbands from sufferings richly deserved. Are we wrong in teaching what Christ Himself taught, that He suffered in order to deliver us from sufferings we richly deserved?

 

It is immoral for the innocent to suffer for the guilty.

 

Our answer is that if this is the case, then sympathy is immoral, and love too, for this is what they do. It is not immoral for the innocent to suffer for the guilty when the innocent one by His own free-will assumes the burden (Hebrews 10:7) and retains the power to relinquish it at will (John 10:18). Since Christ did this voluntarily, no injustice is done to anyone. Nor is it immoral when He has power to bear the penalty to the uttermost, and having exhausted it to be free Himself and bring deliverance to others. And we may add, not when the redemption scheme provided an ample and unparalleled reward (Hebrews 12:2; Philippians 2:8–11). Christ was not permanently a loser.

 

Again, is it possible that an immoral doctrine should be the supreme cause of morality among men? History witnesses that the great moral advances of the human race have been brought about by the preaching of substitutional atonement.

 

It is a matter of question whether those who deny the element of substitution in the death of Christ reflect deeply on the logical consequences of their denial. There are only two possible alternatives presented in Scripture. Either Christ bore the burden and penalty of our sin, or we bear it. There is no via media. To deny that Christ bore our sins in His body on the cross means that the idea of Christianity as a redemptive religion must be abandoned.

 

It remains to be said that the vicarious view of the atonement is not an optional alternative, one of several interesting theories that can be adopted or rejected at will. The whole tenor of Scripture is that this view lies at the very heart of the atonement.

 

The words of J. S. Stewart find the fullest support in Scripture. “Not only had Christ by dying disclosed the sinner’s guilt, not only had He revealed the Father’s love: He had actually taken the sinner’s place. And this meant, since ‘God was in Christ,’ that God had taken that place. When destruction and death were rushing up to claim the sinner as their prey, Christ had stepped in and accepted the full weight of their inevitable doom in His body and soul.”

 

“The Cross is

 

            not a compromise but a substitution,

            not a cancellation but a satisfaction,

            not a wiping off but a wiping out

 

 

in blood, and agony and death. Thus mercy does not cheat justice.”

 

 

This hath He done, and shall we not adore Him?

This shall He do, and can we still despair?

Come, let us quickly fling ourselves before Him,

Cast at His feet the burthen of our care.

 

F. W. H. MEYERS                        

 

 

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