Death of Christ Vicarious.
By Editor
THAT which is done for another is vicarious. Death suffered for another is vicarious death; but in the preceding cases brought from the Scriptures, the sin offerings never were slain or offered for themselves, or for their own wrongs, but always for the sins of others. Their blood was shed in the stead of that of others; their deaths were truly vicarious. And if we take away from them all ideas of substitution or vicariousness, we take away the sole reason of their being slain, and all possibility of an atonement consistent with justice. It needs no more than a mere reference to the Scriptures to show the relation those transactions bore to the gospel of Christ, and that the death of Christ was in truth substitutionary and vicarious. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Isa. 53:6. "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree." 1 Pet. 2:24. "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." Heb. 9:28. Thus he bore our sins—they were laid on him—he was made sin for us; standing in that relation to the law in our stead. And the wages of sin being death, because our sin was laid on him, "he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities." "For the transgression of my people was he stricken." "His soul" was made "an offering for sin." Isa. 53:5, 8, 10. He that doeth not all the words of the law is cursed; but Christ is made a curse for us to redeem us from the curse of the law. Deut. 27:26; Gal. 3:10-13. "Christ died for the ungodly." Rom. 5:6. "Was delivered for our offenses." Chap. 4:25. "Christ died for our sins." 1 Cor. 15:3. He died for all, for all were dead, or condemned to death, for all had sinned. 2 Cor. 5:14. He "suffered for sins, the just for the unjust." 1 Pet. 3:18. "Christ hath suffered for us." Chap. 4:1. In all these expressions the idea of substitution is prominent, as it was in the type. Again, the same truth is taught in all those scriptures which speak of Christ having purchased us. He gave "his life a ransom for many." Matt. 20:28. To ransom, says Webster, is to redeem from captivity by paying an equivalent. "Who gave himself a ransom for all." 1 Tim. 2:6. "Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price." 1 Cor. 6:19, 20; 7:23. "Denying the Lord that bought them." 2 Pet. 2:1. "Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ." 1 Pet. 1:18, 19. "Hast redeemed us to God by thy blood." Rev. 5:9. "Which he hath purchased with his own blood." Acts 20:28. Now the sole idea of redeeming, purchasing, or buying, with a price, is that of substitution by equivalent, or receiving one instead of another. George Storrs, of New York, in a small work on the Atonement, rejected the idea of Christ dying in the stead of the sinner, and his views ought to be noticed, especially as he represented a class. He said the atonement must correspond to man's nature, and to the demand of the law, for "it is such a satisfaction as justice rightfully demands." The best satisfaction to law is obedience; an atonement is satisfaction rendered for disobedience. It is indeed such a satisfaction as justice demands. But it would be difficult for any one to explain why the Atonement must correspond to man's nature, and to the claim that justice has on man, if the death of the sinner be not substitutionary. How otherwise could it meet the claim? Again he said that "by dying, though death had no claim on him, justice was vindicated." Now if "death had no claim on him," how could justice be vindicated in his death? And is justice ever vindicated in the death of one on whom it has no claim? No; it is rather a perversion of justice. But all admit that death had no claim on Christ, so far as his own actions were concerned; therefore if justice was upheld or vindicated in his death, it was because he died "in the room and stead" of those on whom death had a claim. That there was a transfer of sin all will admit; our sins were laid on him. But death has a claim on the sinner, for the wages of sin is death. And if the sin was transferred, of course the claim of death must also have been transferred. So death had a claim on him; but only as he stood in our stead. He was made sin for us; therefore he was made a curse for us. 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:14. The idea of vicariousness, or complete substitution, is as plainly taught as language can teach it; and the wonder is that the question was ever raised by Bible-readers, or that the possibility of the negative being true was ever admitted. We must further notice the objection that if a complete substitute is accepted, justice is satisfied, and the release of the accused is of justice, not of mercy. Many respectable speakers and authors seem to have become strangely confused on this subject. The objection seems, at first glance, to have force; but it is really founded on a very partial and superficial view of the gospel plan. It is mercy to the criminal for the Government to accept a substitute; and mercy to him also for the substitute to offer or consent to stand in his stead. It is nothing but mercy, pardon, free gift, to the sinner, in every part of the transaction. And it would be so if he had himself procured a substitute; much more when the Governor provides the substitute, and this even the Son of his delight, and invites the sinner to return to his allegiance and obedience, that he may receive pardon and life through his blood. It has been noticed that justice and mercy must unite in order to both honor the Government and spare the sinner. Paul shows that they do unite in the gospel, for therein God can be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. His justice is shown by maintaining the dignity and honor of his law, even at the expense of the life of his Son, his mercy is shown by justifying us through his blood. But inasmuch as Christ was not a sinner, it would be very difficult to show wherein God was just in the death of his Son, unless he died to meet the just desert of our sin in our stead. Burges on the Atonement, a work which reflects a somewhat popular view, says:— "If a man engage to perform a certain piece of work, for a reward which is proposed, it makes no difference whether he do the work himself, or procure another to do it for him. Let the work be done according to agreement, and he is entitled to the reward. So, if Christ has done for believers the work which the law required them to do, God is now bound, on the principle of strict justice, to bestow the promised reward, eternal life. There is no grace, but stern, unbending justice here." Pp. 202, 203. Barnes takes substantially the same view, and both aver that Christ did not suffer the penalty of the law, but something substituted for the penalty. Did this illustration merely go to show the insufficiency of Christ's obedience to moral law to make an atonement, without the suffering of death, there could be no objection raised against it. But it goes far beyond this. In order for an illustration to be worth anything, there must be some analogy between its main points and the thing illustrated. In this case there is none whatever. Man is a rebel, condemned to death; the law can only be satisfied with the taking of life. Now in regard to rendering satisfaction to a broken law there cannot possibly be anything existing between sinful man and his Creator, answering to the nature of a contract, as this illustration supposes. But its defect is most plainly seen in this, that man does not, and cannot, procure a substitute. If man by his own efforts had procured the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, the Atonement would rest on an entirely different footing from what it now does. Any illustration based on such an utter impossibility, which is so contrary to evident truths, and to the whole revealed plan of the Atonement, cannot aid in a correct understanding of it. God has set forth his Son to be a propitiation,—to suffer death, the penalty of the law, for us; so that his substitutionary sacrifice is the gift of God, even as Christ himself was the gift of God. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." If we take for granted that the death of Christ meets every demand of the law, yet so long as he is the gift of God, there is mercy in the transaction. But Dr. Barnes thinks there was no mercy if it met the requirement of the law. He remarks:— "If it should be said that there was mercy in the gift of the Saviour, and that so far as that is concerned the transaction is one of mercy, though so far as the law is concerned the transaction is one of justice, it may be replied that this is not the representation of the Bible. The idea of mercy pervades it throughout. It is not only mercy in providing an atonement; it is mercy to the sinner. There is mercy in the case. There is love. There is more than a mere exaction of the penalty. There is more than a transfer. There is a lessening of suffering,' &c. Pp. 232, 233. No one doubts that in the Atonement there is mercy to the sinner; but we are not prepared to admit that the transaction (death of Christ) is not one of justice so far as the law is concerned. We think this is the representation of the Bible. The death of Christ either met the demand of law and justice, or it did not. If it did, then it was, so far, a legal transaction; then "stern, unbending justice" was honored in his death. But if it did not, then we fail to see how divine justice is vindicated in granting pardon through him; how God can be just in justifying the believer any more than he could have been in justifying an unbeliever, seeing that justice had no part in the transaction. We have been accustomed to regard this declaration of the apostle (Rom. 3:24-26) as positive proof that justice was satisfied in his death, in order that pardon might be granted to the believer without slighting the claims of the law; and it does not seem to be possible to vindicate the system on any other principle than this. And if we only admit that Christ suffered the penalty of the law, which was death, as the Scriptures abundantly show, then there is no difficulty whatever in this view. And we can only decide that "there is a lessening of suffering" by being able to measure the extent or severity of the sufferings of Christ, which no finite mind can do. Dr. Barnes' statement is made on the supposition that the sufferings of the lost will be eternal. But we have seen that the idea of "eternal punishment" does not embrace eternal suffering, but rather eternal death; "everlasting destruction," as the apostle says. It is possible, and the thought is not at all unreasonable, that the sufferings of Christ, the Son of God, as far exceeded the sufferings of a human being, as he is high in his nature above man, or as his blood is more precious and of more worth than that of man. It is safe to say that that remark of Dr. Barnes was made without due consideration.