The Atonement by Thos. Munnell

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 15, 1879

The Atonement.

By Thos. Munnell

THAT God is safe in pardoning any sinner as soon as he is cured of the love of sin by repentance, is very true. That the death of Christ is the strongest possible expression of his love to us, and the best calculated to break rebellious hearts is also true. Dr. Arnold, Principal of Rugby School, England, when trying to subdue an offending pupil, gave the boy the ruler, and held out his own hand and told him to strike it. The boy hesitated, but on being urged, he struck the Doctor's hand one blow, and broke down in penitence and tears, saying he could never endure to lay the stripes due to himself upon the kindest friend he had in the world. This, although adduced to illustrate the moral power of love for the guilty, has also in it something of the enforcement of law and the demands of justice. It is not probable that any intelligent disciple ever thinks of "the Father punishing the Son," or that the Father and Son had any separate interests in the matter. I never spoke or thought of the sufferings of Christ in that light. Even if the strictest views of law-penalty be allowed, Christ, "laid down his life of himself," and the Father "gave his only-begotten Son;" and if man violated the law, and eternal justice required some adequate expression to "condemn sin in the flesh" in which the whole "God-head" participated, I see no reason for viewing Christ as an unfortunate victim who was compelled into a mere "penal transaction." Dr. A. was not compelled to receive the blow.

The main question seems to be: Was the cross intended to produce the softer moral influences upon the souls of men only, or did it represent also the rights of law and justice? The expression, "that God might be just and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus," seems to say that justice had to be consulted somewhat when Christ was made a propitiation for sins. This implies fairly that there might be circumstances under which it would be unjust to justify the sinner, and Rcm. 3 : 25, 26, fairly implies, I think, that those circumstances would be present in the absence of the death of Christ. But justice implies law, under whose "curse" sin had brought us all. Hence, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." This seems very much as if the rights of justice were considered in the transaction, and as if the moral influences are only a part of the forces engaged in the reconciliation. If our sins were a debt to justice (and sins are called debts, Matt. 6 : 12), and he became "a curse for us," his death certainly had some relation to justice in our stead. Penalty was hanging over us. Did he undertake to remove this penalty, ignoring justice and the law whose curse we were under? Let us beware of the shallows along here. He was "made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law," "that is, under the curse of the violated law, for "cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the law to do them." God's law is the expression of God's justice to us-ward, and to be under the curse of the law must be about the same as to be under the curse of justice. It seems evident that the death of Christ had some reference to both law and justice, and that whatever that reference was, it enabled God to be "just while justifying him that believes on Jesus."

It is well to be modest and feel our way along where the best of minds have gone slowly. If the death of Christ was brought about merely by the collision between the righteousness of his life and the unrighteousness of sinners, somewhat as a martyr's death is brought on, is it plain enough what relation that act bore to our salvation different in kind from the death of a martyr? If he had avoided it and died a natural death, as all martyrs had a right to do if they could, who would say his hold upon the heart of the world would have been the same? But if his death was in no sense vicarious, if he was not "made a curse for us," is not the strength of his appeal to the heart seriously diluted? If he paid a debt for me that I did not owe, or, one he knew that I did not owe, or, to drop the entanglement of the word debt, if he on the cross assumed a legal "curse" for me, that in no sense or in no degree made him my substitute, I fail to see the primum mobile of the cross.

Did the cross manifest divine love and compassion? For whom? Not for us unless he thereby was "wounded for our transgressions" and "bruised for our iniquities." To say that the "marvelous life and death of Christ" is well calculated to "flood the soul with moral light, to create within it a new impulse and to lead it to repentance," is very beautiful, but does this explain how, or in what sense he "bore our iniquities," how "the chastisement of our peace was upon him?" Does it explain how "he bore our sins in his own body on the tree?" Was there nothing legal or penal in this transaction? Had it no reference to law, to justice, to "the curse?"

To suppose that because he "bore our sins" therefore we have nothing more to fear, whatever our life or disobedience, would be simply to borrow ammunition from the armory of Universalism—a mistake no intelligent Disciple will fall into. The old expression, "he paid our debt," for want of proper care, has caused confusion at this point, but we need not therefore ignore the very significant Scripture expressions that indicate something more than a moral influence growing out of a loving life and a martyr death.

May it not be that the moral influence of the death of Christ roots itself back in the legal animus of the cross? He was "made under the law" and came under "the curse" to "redeem them that were under the law" by being himself a curse for them. True, it is said he "redeems" them by "flooding the soul with moral light," and that certainly is a part of the means, but it not sequel to his first movement in "bearing our sins in his own body on the tree," thus laying the foundation for his moral influence? The cross is the fulcrum of all God's moral power in the gospel. "True again," it may be said, "the cross is said fulcrum, but I doubt there being anything penal in it." Then we must have an explanation of all the passages above quoted, and many more that seem plainly to refer to the demands of law and justice. Does the moral influence of the gospel grow out of merely the moral excellence of the life and death of Christ, or does it take root further back in a belief that "He bore our sins," was "bruised for our iniquities," that "by his stripes we are healed," and that without the cross God could not "be just in justifying" us? Tear up the roots of our love for Christ out of this soil and the plant will most likely die. Few converts, indeed, understand or think much about the philosophy of the atonement, but the general impression with them all is that the cross in some way made it possible for God to forgive them. When the pupil found himself laying his own iniquities upon his beloved teacher, it broke down his heart. He knew that he was under the "curse" of a broken law, and that the teacher was receiving the "stripes" due to himself, and, therefore, he melted, and out of this fact grew the moral influence of Dr. Arnold. But suppose the Doctor's stripes had had no penal in them, that is, had had no reference to the demerit of the pupil—nothing in them of the nature of substitution—I fail to see how they would have had the desired effect. Had the pupil not repented, his forgiveness would not still have been possible. And "by his stripes we are healed" only in case the knowledge of his sufferings for us breaks our hearts with sorrow and love, cures us of the love of sin, and makes it proper for God to forgive us. Is "the goodness of God that leads us to repentance" manifested by a crucifixion that was not in line with our condemnation? It is hard to find words to clearly differentiate the thought at so sharp an angle, but how could it be the goodness of God to us unless he died not for the sake of getting a moral influence over us—but "for our sins," as we commonly understand it? To assume any great influence of the kind as growing out of mere heroic martyrdom for the truth, that have been avoided without any damage to the rights of law and justice, and any loss to us, save the loss of an example of high devotion to the right, seems to me wholly unwarranted either by theology or psychology.—Thos. Munnell, in Bible Index.