p. 1 | The Atonement by Albert Barnes

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 10, 1861

The Atonement.

By Albert Barnes

BY ALBERT BARNES.

[THE reader will find in the following remarks an admirable discussion of the great truth, that no obedience on the part of any one from any given time, will cancel transgression which existed previous to that time. It is this fact which explains the seeming anomaly that it is not by keeping the commandments that we are saved, and yet that we cannot be saved without keeping them. Either the obtuseness of some on this point is enormous, or they are engaged in the not very enviable task of willfully misrepresenting us. The object of Christ's mediation in behalf of man, is, as the apostle declares, "that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us" [Rom. viii, 4]; that is, that we might be placed in just such a position as we should have been in if we had always been perfect law-keepers. But we have transgressed; and no future obedience can atone for those transgressors; hence the intervention of Christ is necessary. But he does not by repairing our past failure release us from future obedience; for then would he become the minister of sin. The pope, and not Christ, is the one who grants indulgences.—U. S.]

FUTURE OBEDIENCE CANNOT ATONE FOR PAST SIN.

AN atonement is necessary because it is impossible for an offender by his future good conduct to repair the errors of the past, or to accumulate so much merit as to be a compensation or an offset for his former sins.

There can be no doubt that men often secretly rely on this. The case is similar to what would occur in a child who had been disobedient, and who hoped to make amends for his fault by his future good conduct; or of one who had a task assigned him and who had neglected it, and who hoped to make up for it by an additional amount of extra service; or of an officer in an army who had been cowardly or had neglected his duty, and who should endeavor to compensate for it by some extraordinary and uncommanded vigilance or deed of valor; or of a servant who had omitted to do what was required of him, and who expected by labor performed at hours when his service was not wanted to make up for his idleness or neglect. In these cases the idea would be that there would be such an accumulation of merit, or that there would be so much service performed beyond what was required, that it could be set over to the credit of the past, as if it had been performed then; that is, that as much service had been rendered on the whole as if there had been a faithful performance of duty at the time when it was required.

The question now is, not whether there may not be a case of this kind in regard to service demanded in the performance of a task, where the same amount of profit on the whole would accrue to the employer, but whether a compensation can be made in that way for crime. Can this be the ground of hope toward God?

In reference to this, the following remarks may be made:

(1.) It seems to be a clear principle that, in reference to morals, no man can do more than he is at present bound to do. We may indeed conceive that a servant who has a task assigned him for the day may have performed that task, and may still have unoccupied time in which he might render a service that was not specified in the contract, and which might, therefore, be set over to the account of a former deficiency, if such a deficiency had occurred from sickness or from any other cause. But no such case is conceivable in regard to morals. At no one time can any man be more honest, true, just, chaste, benevolent,

than he ought to be at that time. At no one time can a child be more obedient to his father, can a husband be more faithful toward his wife, can a parent be more just in his dealings toward his children or strive more to promote their real welfare, than at that very time he ought to be. At no one time can a man love God more than he ought at that very time; for the command is binding on him at that supposed time in the same sense in which it has always been,—"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." Mark xii, 30. It is impossible, therefore, that in any such service there can be a work of supererogation, or that there can be a service rendered which is not demanded at that time and which can be set over to the credit of a past deficient account; or, in other words, that there can be any time not covered by the immediate command of God which can be employed in rendering a service that shall compensate for a former waste of time or for a former neglect of duty.

And as these remarks apply to men now, so they, for the same reason, apply to the men of all times,—to the saints of former generations as well as to the saints now. If the supposed services of the saints of other ages, in extraordinary fastings, prayers, pilgrimages, toils, labors, self-sacrifices, were meritorious at all, they were meritorious only as demanded by the law of God at that very time; for the law of God must always be the rule of that which is truly virtuous. It follows, therefore, that they could not at any time perform a service which was not demanded then and which could be set over to a deficiency of former merit in their own lives, or which could be garnered up to be made available, under the disbursing power of a priesthood, to supply the deficiency of men in future ages. *

(2.) It is equally clear that any future obedience on the part of one who has violated law and who has incurred its penalty does not affect the past. The past is fixed and cannot be changed. All historical facts become unchangeable, and must remain just as they occurred forever. A crime may be forgiven or forgotten; but it cannot be changed. The individual who committed it may change,—for he may become an eminently good and useful man; but that does not in the slightest degree modify the fact in regard to the crime. That remains just as it occurred,—more enduring in the nature of things than any record of brass could make it,—than if it 'were printed in a book, or graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock.' The act of murder was committed. No future good can obliterate or modify that fact. The slanderous words have been uttered. No future acts of kindness can change or modify that fact. The act of seduction has been perpetrated. There is no power in heaven or on earth that can make that cease to be an historical fact. There it is; and there it will remain forever. No amount of future good conduct can summon the murdered man from the grave, call back the slanderous words, restore innocence to the seduced, or obliterate the act of injustice, oppression, and fraud. The sin of Judas is fixed

forever; the crimes of Tiberius, Nero, Alexander VI, Cæsar Borgia, Richard III, Philip II, and the Duke of Alva, are historical facts, never to be blotted out from the records of the universe.

(3.) In any case, even where there may seem to be a restitution or a compensation for the sins of the past, it is of a very partial and imperfect nature. A young man who is idle and dissipated may, indeed, by subsequent industry and virtue, do much to gain an elevated and honorable position in life, and may seem to make up for the follies of his early years. But it is seeming only. There are two things which he cannot do. (a.) He cannot, by any subsequent good conduct, change the fact that he was idle and dissipated. (b.) He cannot gain the position which he might have secured if he had not been idle and dissipated. There was nothing in that course of life which was in any way preparatory to subsequent elevation; and, whatever diligence he may manifest in future life, or whatever virtue he may possess, the time spent in idleness and dissipation was at least so much time absolutely lost in the sum-total of his existence. It contributed nothing to what he ultimately became; it took away much that might have contributed to place him on a higher elevation than he ultimately secured. He 'fell off in the early part of the race; and no subsequent exertions can supply that deficiency, or put him as far on the 'course' as if he had not fallen back in the beginning. Perchance in a long life he can barely reach the point at which he might have begun actual life if his early years had been spent in the ways of industry and virtue.

V. An atonement is necessary because all other sacrifices made for sin fail in the object which they are designed to secure.

One thing has been indeed established by the almost universal prevalence of bloody offerings for sin,—the deep conviction felt by mankind of the necessity of an atonement. On no other point has the faith of mankind been more decidedly expressed than on this. It is impossible to explain the existence of bloody sacrifices in the world, except on the supposition that they express the conviction of mankind; that a sacrifice for sin is necessary. Those offerings were undoubtedly made with the belief that they were necessary to appease the anger of God, and with the hope that they might avail for that purpose. The Jews entertained no other idea of securing the favor of God than by such sacrifices; and every victim that smoked on their altars was an illustration of the sentiment which was at the foundation of their religion,—that "without the shedding of blood is no remission." Heb. ix, 22. All the sacrifices of the pagan world gave utterance to the same deep conviction of the human mind and were founded on the same belief. Whatever their origin may have been,—whether they are the result of a traditional faith having its foundation in an early revelation, or whether they sprang up in the deep conviction of the human mind itself that such sacrifices are necessary,—in either case they express the all-pervading belief of man that an atonement is necessary to expiate sin.

The only inquiry that needs to be prosecuted on the point now before us is, whether there is any evidence that such bloody offerings will be accepted as an atonement, or can be a proper reliance for the hope of pardon.

This inquiry need not be pursued at great length; for there are none in Christian lands who rely on such sacrifices, and they will not be renewed in those lands. Bloody offerings in Christian lands have come to an end. The effect of the coming of Christ has been, somehow, to put an end to sacrifices wherever his religion prevails. It put an end to Jewish sacrifices,—for it was a fulfillment of the whole design of the typical representation,—and the Jew offers now no bloody sacrifice; nor will he ever do it again. He has no temple, no altar, no priest; nor will he ever rebuild the temple or the altar, or clothe any one of his own nation with sacerdotal vestments again. Infidels also abjure the whole doctrine of sacrifice. They build no temples; they erect no altars; they consecrate no priests; they lead up no victim whose life is to be offered as an atonement for sin; and it is not necessary to show to them that no reliance can be placed on bloody offerings as an atonement for sin. Yet, in order to a complete examination of the subject, it is proper to show that no reliance can be placed by man on any such offerings for human guilt.

(1.) There is no promise or assurance that such bloody offerings will be effectual in expiating sin. Unless they are founded among the heathen on tradition,—as has been supposed,—they seem to have been of the nature of an experiment, to see whether they might not avail to put away guilt, or whether they might not possibly in some unknown way secure the favor of God. But it is certain that among the heathen they were originated by no promise that remission of sin would be the consequence of such offerings. Among the Jews, where there was a divine command for offering them, the purpose for which they were to be offered is clearly defined. They had no intrinsic efficacy, but were intended to adumbrate a more perfect sacrifice in the future; and all their efficacy was derived from their reference to the one great atonement. At no time, either among the heathen or the Jews, had they power to give peace to a troubled conscience; for the statement of the apostle accords with all that there was in their nature: "Which [that is, the first tabernacle] was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience." Heb. ix, 9. At no time did they so satisfy the mind as to make it unnecessary that they should be repeated; for the statement of the apostle is true in this respect also: "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? Because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year." Heb. x, 1-3. As the design of sacrifices among the Jews was typical,—as they had no efficacy in themselves, but derived all their efficacy from that great atonement which they adumbrated,—when the real sacrifice was offered and the great atonement was made for human guilt on the cross, they ceased as a matter of course, and ceased forever. It is demonstrably true, as a matter of historical verity, that they ceased to be offered very soon after the Redeemer died. At the moment when he died they lost all their significance, and within a brief period the altar was overthrown, never to be rebuilt, the temple where they were offered was razed to the ground, never to be raised again, and the entire system passed away. No human power could restore the offering of those sacrifices. Not all the imperial power of Julian, called forth by his determined purpose to overturn Christianity and to defeat the prediction of the Saviour that the temple should not be rebuilt, was sufficient to rear that temple again and to restore the abolished worship; and to this day Jewish sacrifices have never been offered again, and they never will be. The scattered tribes of the nation are utterly confounded; and nothing is more certain than that the offering of those sacrifices will never be resumed. They never had any intrinsic efficacy in putting away sin: they would have even no significance now.

Without significance now to the Jew, and without a promise of acceptance as offered by the heathen, they are in fact, and with propriety, rejected by the infidel portion of mankind. The rejecters of the great atonement renounce all idea of sacrifice. They have no temples, no altars, no sacred orders of men; they present no bloody sacrifices; they have even no form of worship. In the entire world there is no infidel altar erected; for it is a remarkable fact that wherever the gospel comes, even they who refuse to embrace it, renounce the idea of sacrifice altogether, and that the atonement made by the Redeemer puts an end to sacrifice everywhere;—among the Jews, as fulfilling the design of all their typical rites and forms; among the heathen, as showing them the vanity of their own oblations by revealing a better; among Christians, by disclosing a sacrifice that meets all the wants of their nature, and causing them to feel that there is no need of any other; and among infidels, who in the mighty effort to reject the greater—the real atonement—sweep away from their minds the whole doctrine of sacrifice, for when the sacrifice that has efficacy is rejected there is no reason for retaining that which could have no efficacy except from its relation to this.

(2.) In the nature of the case there seems to be no reason to suppose that the sacrifice of an innocent animal would expiate guilt, or would, in the divine mind, constitute a reason why a sinner should be forgiven. Nothing of this kind occurs in the transactions between man and man. If one has wronged another, he may hope that an equivalent for the wrong done—an ox for an ox, or a sheep for a sheep—would satisfy him who had been wronged; but why should he suppose, if he has slandered him or done an act of personal violence, that it would appease him to sacrifice in his presence an innocent animal? to burn him, or to pour out its blood at his feet? There is nothing in the nature of the case which would suggest that; nor has it ever been resorted to in the dealings between man and man. So, when a man has violated the law of the land, it has never occurred to the mind of the offender that he could make an atonement for the offense by the shedding of the blood of an innocent animal; nor has it ever occurred to the courts of justice that an expiation could be made in that way. In like manner, so far as the nature of the case is concerned, there would seem to be no reason to suppose, unless there was an express statement to that effect, that the shedding of the blood of an innocent animal would be an expiation for guilt before God. It is easy, indeed, to perceive a propriety in thank-offerings to the Deity. There is an obvious fitness in devoting a portion of a harvest to the honor or support of religion, as a grateful acknowledgment for the goodness of Him who 'crowns the year with his goodness.' There was much that commended itself to the natural sense of obligation in man, in hanging in the temples of the gods, as was done in ancient times, shields and spears and helmets, as an acknowledgment of their interposition in securing a victory. These are natural expressions of gratitude. They occur in the transactions between man and man; and it is not unnatural to transfer this feeling to the intercourse of man with a Divine being. But what is there in the nature of the case to suggest the idea of a bloody offering? What reason is there to suppose that, under any circumstances and for any purpose, it would be acceptable to God? What reason especially is there to suppose that it would expiate crime? As an expression of thankfulness a bloodless offering might be supposed to be acceptable; but on what ground could it be supposed that an offering of blood would turn away wrath?

These considerations seem so plain that we are shut up to the conclusion that the idea of bloody sacrifices must have had its origin in a Divine appointment, and that it was not one of the suggestions which spring up in the mind of man himself. But, if of Divine appointment, its acceptableness and its efficacy must be limited to the idea contemplated by that appointment; and as that, so far as we have any knowledge, was originally to typify or adumbrate the great atonement, such

a sacrifice cannot be relied on now as an expiation for sin.

It is clear, therefore, that no reliance can be placed on bloody sacrifices as an expiation for sin. Those sacrifices, under the Jewish code, had a purpose,—a purpose easily susceptible of explanation as designed to keep up the idea that an atonement would be made in the world, and as pointing to that. As existing in the heathen world, such sacrifices may be regarded as having a bearing on the present subject in two respects:—both distinct from the idea that they were in themselves an expiation for sin, and both tending to confirm the argument which has been stated in this chapter.

(a.) One is, that they may be regarded as a proof that an atonement by blood was early contemplated in the divine arrangements, and as designed to transmit the knowledge of the original purpose to distant times and lands.

(b.) The other is, that they may be regarded as expressing the deep conviction of the human mind itself that an atonement by blood is necessary in order to expiate human guilt. For, even if it is admitted that they owed their origin to a Divine appointment, on no other supposition than this can it be presumed that an arrangement so inexplicable in itself as that of shedding the blood of an innocent animal for human guilt, would have so commended itself to mankind as to cause it to be perpetuated from age to age and diffused from land to land. Thus understood, the fact that such sacrifices were kept up does express the deep conviction of the mind of man that nothing but such a sacrifice could expiate transgression,—that 'without shedding of blood is no remission.'

These facts also confirm the remark before made,—that on no one subject has the belief of mankind been more universally expressed than on this, that the shedding of blood is necessary to expiate sin. Abel, the second-born of man, leads his sacrifice to the altar, 'the firstling of his flock,' and pours out its blood. Why does he do it, unless as expressing his conviction that 'without shedding of blood is no remission?' Abraham, the 'father of the faithful,' approaches the altar which he had himself reared, and raises the knife, as he believes at the command of God, to pierce the heart of his own son. Why does he do this, except as expressing the deep conviction of his heart that 'without shedding of blood is no remission?' The ancient Jew offered the morning and the evening sacrifice as proof of his deep conviction that 'without shedding of blood is no remission.' Thus, too, it was in the Greek, the Roman, and the Babylonian temples. There thousands of victims bled, all to appease the anger and propitiate the favor of the gods, and all proclaiming the deep conviction of the worshipers that 'without shedding of blood is no remission.' So with the worshipers on the banks of the Ganges and the Senegal; so with the Mexicans and the Peruvians; so with the Caffrians and the islanders of the South Sea,—all offering bloody sacrifices, and all thus proclaiming their deep conviction that 'without shedding of blood is no remission.' Thus also the Brahmin, who lacerates his flesh or walks on nails that fill his shoes with blood, proclaims his deep conviction that 'without shedding of blood is no remission.' So the Christian, also, everywhere and in every age, proclaims the same opinion. He incorporates it in his creed; he diffuses it through his hymns of praise; he makes it the burden of his prayers and his thanksgiving; he lays it at the foundation of all his hopes of heaven that such a sacrifice of blood was necessary, and that such a sacrifice has been made; thus he proclaims to the world his belief that 'without shedding of blood is no remission.' Men conscious of guilt rush to bloody altars. They come leading up the lamb, the goat, and the bullock for sacrifice. They come with prisoners of war, with pure virgins selected for sacrifice, with their own children, and offer them all to the gods to appease their wrath and to propitiate their favor,—under the influence of the deep conviction of the human mind that 'without shedding of blood is no remission.'

The infidel is alone. The sceptic doubts, when the nations believe. The deist sets himself against the general sentiment of mankind, and holds to a scheme of salvation which is at war with all that man has expressed of the wants of the race. The Christian accords with the universal sentiment as expressed in sacrifices and blood-offerings. He believes that that sentiment is right; that it is true that 'without shedding of blood is no remission.' He adds this only, as the peculiar article of his faith, that such a sacrifice has been made on the cross. He looks away from Jewish altars and from idol temples to Calvary. There bleeds the Lamb—the Lamb of God. There flows from his veins blood so pure, so rich, so free, that no other sacrifice is needed; and as, by the eye of faith, he sees the life of that victim ebb away, his spirit, before troubled by the remembrance of guilt, becomes calm; God, before dreaded, becomes a reconciled Friend; the grave, so fearful to him before, loses its terror; and, though a sinner, he now looks calmly on to the eternal world; for through that blood there is 'remission.'