The Atonement by Albert Barnes

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 17, 1861

The Atonement.

By Albert Barnes

NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.

I PROCEED to the inquiry,—what the atonement is. Probably this is the most difficult question which ever comes before the human mind. . . .

If the remarks made in the preceding chapters are well founded, then it is manifest that there were many things which it was necessary to accomplish by an atonement, or many ends to be reached. We have seen that there are numerous difficulties in a human administration in reference to pardon; that it is not one thing only which grows out of the commission of crime which embarrasses a human government, but that there are many things to be provided for in order that pardon may be dispensed consistently with the honor of the law and the welfare of the community. We have seen that in an atonement it is necessary to secure the following objects: the honor of the law; the proper impression in regard to the evil of sin as contemplated by the law; the reformation and future good conduct of him who is pardoned; the safety of the community; and a fair representation, so far as the atonement may bear on it, of the character of the law-giver.

The inquiry now is, What is the atonement in reference to these points? *

The atonement is something which will answer the same ends as the punishment of the offender himself would. It is instead of his punishment. It is something which will make it proper for a law-giver to suspend or remit the literal execution of the penalty of the law, because the object or end of that penalty has been secured, or because something has been substituted for that which will answer the same purpose. In other words, there are certain ends proposed by the appointment of a penalty in case of a violation of the law; and if these ends are secured, then the punishment may be remitted and the offender may be pardoned. That which will secure these ends is an atonement.

The thing aimed at—the result to be reached—is the remission of the penalty, or the manifestation of mercy to the guilty. It is not an abstract thing—a mere display of an attribute of the law-giver—that is contemplated; but it is a practical work, in the pardon of the guilty, and in placing him in a condition as if he had not violated the law. The essential reason why this is done, is that God is merciful; the manifest reason is, that the same ends have been secured, so far as the design in the appointment of the penalty of the law is concerned, which would have been if the offender had been punished: in other words, mercy can now be manifested consistently with justice; for the act of pardon does not imply, by a fair construction, any disregard of the claims of justice or of the real interests of the community.

(1.) Mere mercy could be shown in any case; but, as we have seen, there are insuperable difficulties in all governments in the exercise of pardon without an atonement.

(2.) Mere justice could be shown by a rigid infliction of the penalty of the law in all cases whatsoever. It could be shown in a human government on earth; it could be shown in the divine government in hell,—for God could consign every violator of his laws, under the most exact administration of justice, to the woes which sin deserves. But then, as we have seen, this would be attended with numerous evils. It would impinge on the finer feelings of our nature. It would make a government harsh, severe, tyrannical,—an administration to be feared, not to be loved. It would violate principles which have been implanted by the Creator himself within us; for there is an arrangement in our constitution which shows that it was contemplated that mercy should enter largely into the course of things in the universe, and that the government of the universe should not be the exercise of mere stern, inexorable law.

The object of the atonement is the blending of the two. It is an arrangement by which one shall not be exercised at the expense of the other. In the ordinary course of things, and as affairs are actually administered among men, the two do not harmonize. One is sacrificed to the other. If mere justice is displayed, there is no mercy; if mere mercy, justice is sacrificed.

The atonement is an arrangement by which both may be manifested in reference to the case of the same individual, so that, while he is treated as if he had not sinned, there is no disregard of the claims of justice. Instead of exhibiting the attribute of stern justice in one case, thus disregarding all the laws of our nature which have been arranged with a view to the exercise of mercy, and of exhibiting the attribute of mercy in another, thus disregarding in like manner the laws of our nature which demand that justice should be done, the two meet together in reference to the same individual, or to any number of individuals who may be willing to accept of salvation at the hands of God.

The means by which this is proposed to be accomplished is by substitution.

[Mr. Barnes proceeds to show that the idea of such a substitution is admissible, and that it is acknowledged and acted upon in various transactions between man and man. He then continues]:

If the principle is admissible, the next question is whether a substitution in the place of the guilty can be made to answer the same ends which would be secured by the punishment of the guilty themselves. The question is now to be asked in view of the objects to be accomplished in the administration of law, or the ends contemplated in the penalty of the law. It is equivalent to asking whether as deep an impression can be produced of the value of law, and of the evils of the violation of the law, by such substituted sufferings as would be produced by the infliction of the penalty on the guilty; whether as much can be accomplished in securing the reformation and future good conduct of the offender; whether as much can be secured in deterring others from violating the law; and whether as much can be effected in securing the peace and good order of a community. In all the cases which have been referred to where the principle of substitution is admitted, it is obvious that the same ends are secured by the substitution, which would be by the regular operations of the law. The question now is whether the same result can be secured by the substituted sufferings of the innocent in the place of the punishment of a violator of the laws of God.

(1.) If a sinner is punished in the world of woe, he will suffer there by enduring the penalty of the law; that is, as has been explained, his sufferings will be designed to show the sense entertained by God of the value of the law and the evil of violating it. Those sufferings must also, so far as that may operate at all in producing such an effect, be intended to deter others from disobedience by the certainty that punishment will follow disobedience, and by the intensity and duration of the punishment. These would be the effects in an individual case; they would be the results in any number of cases, in the aggregate of woe endured by the lost. And the effect would stop there. Those sufferings would not be designed to reform the offender himself or any of his suffering companions; for, apart from the consideration already urged that this is not, in any case, the proper end or result of punishment, it is clear that that could not be its design in a form of punishment that was to be eternal. The end to be reached, then, by substituted sufferings would be a representation of the sense entertained of the value of law and the evil of violating the law equal to that which would be produced if the

punishment were inflicted on the guilty themselves.

(2.) If a sinner bears the penalty of the law himself, the impression produced on the universe at large by his individual sufferings will be, at any one time, or even in the continuousness of his sufferings, a slight impression. If lost, he becomes, in fact, lost in more senses than one,—lost not only to happiness and hope, but lost in the sense that his name is forgotten and that his individual sufferings are unknown to the universe at large. An impression may be indeed made by the aggregate of woe endured by all the lost; but the name of the individual sufferer will be unknown, and, sunk in the vast host, his particular sorrows will have no such conspicuity as to make any impression on the universe at large. . . .

(3.) But what has now been stated would not occur in reference to the substitute in the atonement. If it be a part of the doctrine of the atonement, and essential to that doctrine, that the Redeemer was divine, that he was “God manifest in the flesh,” that there was in a proper sense an incarnation of the Deity, then it is clear that such an incarnation, and the sufferings of such an one on a cross, were events adapted to make an impression on the universe at large deeper by far than would be done by the sufferings of the guilty themselves, though those sufferings should involve sorrow—the sorrow of remorse—which the innocent one could not experience, and though they should be prolonged to a far more extended duration. If it should be supposed that the heir-apparent to a crown could take the place of any number of rebellious subjects and endure in their place the suffering appointed for rebels and traitors, though it might be true that his individual sorrows might not equal the amount of the aggregate sorrows of all who would otherwise have died, and though it should be admitted that there would be an element in their sufferings which would not enter into his,—the element of remorse,—it would nevertheless be true that a deeper impression would be made by his public execution than would be by the sufferings of the offenders themselves. That impression would be produced not only by the unusual character of the transaction, but by the manifest fact that the crime was regarded as of a nature so serious as to require such an expiation, and by the purpose manifested by the sovereign to maintain inflexibly the authority of the law. All eyes would be turned toward the illustrious sufferer; all hearts would be filled with compassion; all business would be suspended in the contemplation of the amazing scene; all men would feel that there was an unspeakable majesty in the law and an unspeakable importance in maintaining its authority; all would be made sensible that that must be a vast evil which made it necessary that such sufferings should be endured by one of so exalted a rank. And if on such an occasion the sovereign himself should adopt some unusual and impressive measures to bear testimony to the dignity and moral worth of the sufferer, and to show the estimate which he put on the benevolence which the voluntary sufferer manifested in being willing to endure these sorrows in behalf of others, all would feel that such a manifestation would be appropriate, as all must feel that it was appropriate that the Eternal Father should command the sun to withdraw his beams, and the earth to tremble, and the rocks to rend—to spread a universal pall over the world—when his Son expired on the cross.

I have said that the individual sufferer sinking down into the common and undistinguished abyss of woes might be forgotten, and that his name and his sufferings might never be known to the universe at large. Not so, however, with Him who took his place and died in his stead,—the Son of God. His cross became for the time the center of observation in the universe. He had descended from heaven and had taken upon himself the form of a man. He had subjected himself voluntarily to poverty, shame, and contempt; he had been bound, and scourged, and publicly rejected; he had submitted to a mock trial and to an unjust condemnation; he had borne his own cross to the place of crucifixion, and had voluntarily given himself up to be put to death in a form that involved the keenest torture that men could inflict. Rejected of men, and apparently forsaken of God, he had taken upon himself the “burden of the world’s atonement.” If that scene actually occurred, then angels and distant worlds must have felt an interest in it which they could not feel in the sufferings of the guilty themselves. If he died to show by these sufferings the value of the law and the evil of disobedience, then no sufferings of the guilty themselves could make so deep an impression on angelic minds and on distant worlds as the substituted and voluntary sorrows of the Son of God. *

The atonement SECURES reconciliation between God and man.

This is, indeed, the proper meaning of the word atonement at-one-ment, or the being at one—as used in our language; and this idea is perhaps always suggested when the term is used, even when it is employed in the most strict theological sense, or when it is employed strictly to denote the means by which reconciliation is effected. . . .

There is an alienation between God and man; and this is the foundation of all the evil that has come upon the race. It is everywhere in the Bible charged on man that he is estranged from his Maker; and it is everywhere affirmed that God cannot be at peace with men unless something shall be done that shall remove the cause of alienation.

1. On the part of man, nothing is more apparent than the fact of his alienation from God. The history of the world proves it. God is not loved. His law is not obeyed. His arrangements are not submitted to. His government is regarded as harsh, severe, unequal, unjust. There is in the human soul a foundation of estrangement from God lying back of the divine dealings toward the race,—an opposition to his character and claims antecedent to any thing that he does to call forth the feelings of the soul; and this becomes manifest when the divine law is laid across the path of men and the claims of that law come in collision with the feelings and purposes of the soul. This opposition to God is one of the earliest conscious feelings of our nature, and it is fostered and sustained by all the pride of the human heart, by all its impatience of control, by all its cherished plans as they are developed in life, by all the passions which are engendered in carrying out our chosen schemes, and by the fact that in those schemes we become committed before the world. Nothing is more manifest than the fact that such an alienation exists on the part of man toward his Maker; nothing is more difficult than to overcome this and to make man willing to be at peace with God.

2. Equally manifest is it that there is on the part of God an alienation or estrangement from man. This is clear from the divine dealings toward the race. Man is not treated as if there was peace between him and his Maker. The divine dealings toward the race are not such as they would be on the supposition that God is pleased with human conduct. Man is not dealt with as we must suppose unfallen angels are, or as he himself would have been if he had not fallen. We can find, indeed, in the divine dealings abundant proofs of the goodness of God; we can see evidence that he is willing to be at peace with the race and that he is ready to forgive sin; we can easily demonstrate that there are and have been prospective arrangements for his becoming reconciled to man; but we look in vain for the evidence that that peace already exists. There is even in the bosom of the guilty themselves—in their sense of guilt, in the feeling of remorse, in the apprehension of the wrath of God, in the pre-intimations in the soul of a coming judgment—much which may be regarded as designed to be a proof of the fact of such an alienation on the part of God, as it certainly is of an alienation on the part of man; and we may see abundant evidence of such an alienation on the part of God in his dealings. All the calamities which come upon individuals or nations as the effect of sin; all the arrangements in the human constitution for the infliction of suffering as the result of a certain course of conduct; all the forms of disease that invade the human frame and sweep off the living to their graves, are so many proofs that God regards the race as guilty and that there is an estrangement between himself and man. Such things are not tokens of friendship and favor. They are not direct proofs of love. They would not occur in a just and benevolent administration unless there was a foundation in the conduct and character of man for the divine displeasure.

The atonement removes the obstacles to reconciliation alike on the part of God and on the part of man.

1. On the part of God. The obstacles to reconciliation on his part did not arise from any unwillingness to be at peace with man; from any want of a benevolent regard to his welfare; from any enmity in his own feelings toward the race as such; from the causes which often produce and perpetuate alienations among men; but solely from the fact that he is the Law-giver of the universe, and that his law has been violated; from the fact that the law has a just penalty, threatening death to the violator; from the fact that the perfections of God required that his declared views of the evil of sin should be consistently carried out before the universe; from the fact that if the transgressor was released from the penalty of the law there would seem to be a total disregard of the law and its threatenings; from the fact that, if the sinner was admitted to the favor conferred on those who had not sinned, it would seem as if God was regardless of character and treated the good and bad alike; and from the fact that such treatment would seem to set aside all the restraints of the law, and abolish all the boundaries between right and wrong, and destroy all the securities set up to secure the interests of justice.

In the idea of the atonement it is supposed that these difficulties have been removed, and that God is in all respects now as free to bestow his favor on those for whom it was made as he is on those who have never violated his law. It is clear that this must be so if it be true that as much has been done by the substituted sufferings of the Redeemer to shew regard for the law as would have been by the sufferings of the guilty themselves if they had borne the penalty. If all has been accomplished by those substituted sufferings which would have been accomplished had the penalty of the law been inflicted on the offenders, nothing can be plainer than that the guilty, so far as this point is concerned, may be released, or that pardon may properly be granted to them. . . .

In the atonement it is supposed that Christ has done as much to maintain the honor of the law as would have been done had it been personally obeyed by all who will be saved by him; that he has done as much to maintain that honor as would have been done had its penalty been literally borne by all for whom he died; that he has done as much to deter others from violating that law as would have been done by the infliction of the penalty on the offenders themselves; that he has done as much to show the sense entertained by God of the evil of sin as would have been done had the fearful consequences of sin come upon the guilty themselves. If all this were done, then it is clear that there would be no obstacle on the part of God to reconciliation with those who had violated the law.

2. The atonement removes the obstacles to reconciliation on the part of man. Those obstacles do not arise from any reference in his conduct to the interests of the universe; but they arise solely from the love of sin and the unwillingness of man to be reconciled to his Maker. The object to be accomplished, so far as man is concerned, is to bring him to a willingness to be at peace with God and to accept of pardon and salvation on the terms proposed. The question is whether there can be introduced into the work of the atonement such an influence as will overcome the unwillingness of the sinner to be at peace with God.

We have seen that in human administrations of law one great difficulty in the way of pardon is that there is no security for the reformation and future good conduct of him who is pardoned, but that, if an influence could be connected with the instrument of pardon which would secure him, the difficulty would be removed. This is contemplated in the atonement. It is an essential idea in its nature that it will secure this effect,—that in the gift of a Saviour, in his character, in the manifestations of his love, and his sufferings in behalf of others, there is that which will secure repentance and reformation on the part of the sinner. By the greatness of the sufferings of him who made it, the atonement is adapted to convince the sinner of the evil of those sins for which he died; by the manifestation of love, it is adapted to make an appeal to the gratitude of man; by the fact that those sufferings were endured in our behalf, it is fitted most deeply to appeal to the hearts of the guilty. . . . In accordance with this view, it is a fact that the reformation of the world has been accomplished, as far as it has been accomplished at all, not by judgment and wrath, but by the gospel of Christ. The great instrument in bringing men to repentance and securing their reformation has been the story of the Redeemer's sufferings. Floods, flames, wars, earthquakes, the plague, the pestilence, have done little to reform the guilty. The human heart grows hard under the infliction of judgment; and though punishment may restrain the guilty and awaken them to reflection, it does not convince and convert. Crimes are multiplied even in the ragings of the pestilence, and men abandon themselves to licentiousness and to corruption when the plague is sweeping away its thousands of victims. It has been, in fact, the manifestation of mercy that has been made the means of melting the hearts of men and of turning them to God.

Reconciliation is in fact produced between God and man by the atonement. God becomes the friend of the pardoned sinner. He admits him to his favor and treats him as a friend. The sinner becomes the friend of God. He changes his view of the character of God; he submits to his arrangements; he no longer opposes his plans; he is pleased with his government and his laws. He loves him as he loves no other being. He lives to promote his glory. He loves what God approves, defends what he has stated to be true, advocates the plans which he has formed, vindicates the doctrine which he has revealed, trusts in trial to the promises which he has made, flies to him in times of trouble and sorrow, leans upon his arm in death, finds in the mortal agony his highest consolation in the belief that God is his friend, and expects to find felicity in the future world only in God. There is no friendship so strong, so sincere, so tender, so enduring, as that between God and the reconciled sinner; and no work ever undertaken is so complete as that by which the reconciliation of God and man has been sought. It survives all changes through which man passes here; it is confirmed in death, and will exist forever.