Cremer, N. T. Lex., says that “in both the N. T. texts, Mat. 16:26 and Mark 8:37, the word ἀντάλλαγμα, like λύτρον, is akin to the conception of atonement: cf. Is. 43:3, 4; 51:11; Amos 5:12. This is a confirmation of the fact that satisfaction and substitution essentially belong to the idea of atonement.” Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:515 (Syst. Doct., 3:414)—“Mat. 20:28 contains the thought of a substitution. While the whole world is not of equal worth with the soul, and could not purchase it, Christ's death and work are so valuable, that they can serve as a ransom.”
The sufferings of the righteous were recognized in Rabbinical Judaism as having a substitutionary significance for the sins of others; see Weber, Altsynagog. Palestin. Theologie, 314; Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes, 2:466 (translation, div. II, vol. 2:186). But Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:225-262, says this idea of vicarious satisfaction was an addition of Paul to the teaching of Jesus. Wendt grants that both Paul and John taught substitution, but he denies that Jesus did. He claims that ἀντί in Mat. 20:28 means simply that Jesus gave his life as a means whereby he obtains the deliverance of many. But this interpretation is a non-natural one, and violates linguistic usage. It holds that Paul and John misunderstood or misrepresented the words of our Lord. We prefer the frank acknowledgment by Pfleiderer that Jesus, as well as Paul and John, taught substitution, but that neither one of them was correct. Colestock, on Substitution as a Stage in Theological Thought, similarly holds that the idea of substitution must be abandoned. We grant that the idea of substitution needs to be supplemented by the idea of sharing, and so relieved of its external and mechanical implications, but that to abandon the conception itself is to abandon faith in the evangelists and in Jesus himself.
Dr. W. N. Clarke, in his Christian Theology, rejects the doctrine of retribution for sin, and denies the possibility of penal suffering for another. A proper view of penalty, and of Christ's vital connection with humanity, would make these rejected ideas not only credible but inevitable. Dr. Alvah Hovey reviews Dr. Clarke's Theology, Am. Jour. Theology, Jan. 1899:205—“If we do not import into the endurance of penalty some degree of sinful feeling or volition, there is no ground for denying that a holy being may bear it in place of a sinner. For nothing but wrong-doing, or approval of wrong-doing, is impossible to a holy being. Indeed, for one to bear for another the just penalty of his sin, provided that other may thereby be saved from it and made a friend of God, is perhaps the highest conceivable function of love or good-will.” Denney, Studies, 126, 127, shows that “substitution means simply that man is dependent for his acceptance with God upon something which Christ has done for him, and which he could never have done and never needs to do for himself.... The forfeiting of his free life has freed our forfeited lives. This substitution can be preached, and it binds men to Christ by making them forever dependent on him. The condemnation of our sins in Christ upon his cross is the barb on the hook,—without it your bait will be taken, but you will not catch men; you will not annihilate pride, and make Christ the Alpha and Omega in man's redemption.” On the Scripture proofs, see Crawford, Atonement, 1:1-193; Dale, Atonement, 65-256; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, iv. 2:243-342; Smeaton, Our Lord's and the Apostles' Doctrine of Atonement.
An examination of the passages referred to shows that, while the forms in which the atoning work of Christ is described are in part derived from moral, commercial, and legal relations, the prevailing language is that of sacrifice. A correct view of the atonement must therefore be grounded upon a proper interpretation of the institution of sacrifice, especially as found in the Mosaic system.
The question is sometimes asked: Why is there so little in Jesus' own words about atonement? Dr. R. W. Dale replies: Because Christ did not come to preach the gospel,—he came that there might be a gospel to preach. The Cross had to be endured, before it could be explained. Jesus came to be the sacrifice, not to speak about it. But his reticence is just what he told us we should find in his words. He proclaimed their incompleteness, and referred us to a subsequent Teacher—the Holy Spirit. The testimony of the Holy Spirit we have in the words of the apostles. We must remember that the gospels were supplementary to the epistles, not the epistles to the gospels. [pg 722]The gospels merely fill out our knowledge of Christ. It is not for the Redeemer to magnify the cost of salvation, but for the redeemed. “None of the ransomed ever knew.” The doer of a great deed has the least to say about it.
Harnack: “There is an inner law which compels the sinner to look upon God as a wrathful Judge.... Yet no other feeling is possible.” We regard this confession as a demonstration of the psychological correctness of Paul's doctrine of a vicarious atonement. Human nature has been so constituted by God that it reflects the demand of his holiness. That conscience needs to be appeased is proof that God needs to be appeased. When Whiton declares that propitiation is offered only to our conscience, which is the wrath of that which is of God within us, and that Christ bore our sins, not in substitution for us, but in fellowship with us, to rouse our consciences to hatred of them, he forgets that God is not only immanent in the conscience but also transcendent, and that the verdicts of conscience are only indications of the higher verdicts of God: 1 John 3:20—“if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” Lyman Abbott, Theology of an Evolutionist, 57—“A people half emancipated from the paganism that imagines that God must be placated by sacrifice before he can forgive sins gave to the sacrificial system that Israel had borrowed from paganism the same divine authority which they gave to those revolutionary elements in the system which were destined eventually to sweep it entirely out of existence.” So Bowne, Atonement, 74—“The essential moral fact is that, if God is to forgive unrighteous men, some way must be found of making them righteous. The difficulty is not forensic, but moral.” Both Abbott and Bowne regard righteousness as a mere form of benevolence, and the atonement as only a means to a utilitarian end, namely, the restoration and happiness of the creature. A more correct view of God's righteousness as the fundamental attribute of his being, as inwrought into the constitution of the universe, and as infallibly connecting suffering with sin, would have led these writers to see a divine wisdom and inspiration in the institution of sacrifice, and a divine necessity that God should suffer if man is to go free.
B. The Institution of Sacrifice, more especially as found in the Mosaic system.
(a) We may dismiss as untenable, on the one hand, the theory that sacrifice is essentially the presentation of a gift (Hofmann, Baring-Gould) or a feast (Spencer) to the Deity; and on the other hand the theory that sacrifice is a symbol of renewed fellowship (Keil), or of the grateful offering to God of the whole life and being of the worshiper (Bähr). Neither of these theories can explain the fact that the sacrifice is a bloody offering, involving the suffering and death of the victim, and brought, not by the simply grateful, but by the conscience-stricken soul.
For the views of sacrifice here mentioned, see Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, II, 1:214-294; Baring-Gould, Origin and Devel. of Relig. Belief, 368-390; Spencer, De Legibus Hebræorum; Keil, Bib. Archäologie, sec. 43, 47; Bähr, Symbolik des Mosaischen Cultus, 2:196, 269; also synopsis of Bähr's view, in Bib. Sac., Oct. 1870:593; Jan. 1871:171. Per contra, see Crawford, Atonement, 228-240; Lange, Introd. to Com. on Exodus, 38—“The heathen change God's symbols into myths (rationalism), as the Jews change God's sacrifices into meritorious service (ritualism).” Westcott, Hebrews, 281-294, seems to hold with Spencer that sacrifice is essentially a feast made as an offering to God. So Philo: “God receives the faithful offerer to his own table, giving him back part of the sacrifice.” Compare with this the ghosts in Homer's Odyssey, who receive strength from drinking the blood of the sacrifices. Bähr's view is only half of the truth. Reunion presupposes Expiation. Lyttleton, in Lux Mundi, 281—“The sinner must first expiate his sin by suffering,—then only can he give to God the life thus purified by an expiatory death.” Jahn, Bib. Archæology, sec. 373, 378—“It is of the very idea of the sacrifice that the victim shall be presented directly to God, and in the presentation shall be destroyed.” Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 253, speaks of the delicate feeling of the Biblical critic who, with his mouth full of beef or mutton, professes to be shocked at the cruelty to animals involved in the temple sacrifices. Lord Bacon: “Hieroglyphics came before letters, and parables before arguments.” “The old dispensation was God's great parable to man. The Theocracy was graven all over with divine hieroglyphics. Does there exist the Rosetta stone by which we can read these hieroglyphics? [pg 723]The shadows, that have been shortening up into definiteness of outline, pass away and vanish utterly under the full meridian splendor of the Sun of Righteousness.” On Eph. 1:7—“the blood of Christ,” as an expiatory sacrifice which secures our justification, see Salmond, in Expositor's Greek Testament.