(e) The influence of Christ's example is neither declared in Scripture, nor found in Christian experience, to be the chief result secured by his death. Mere example is but a new preaching of the law, which repels and condemns. The cross has power to lead men to holiness, only as it first shows a satisfaction made for their sins. Accordingly, most of the passages which represent Christ as an example also contain references to his propitiatory work.
There is no virtue in simply setting an example. Christ did nothing, simply for the sake of example. Even his baptism was the symbol of his propitiatory death; see pages [761], [762]. The apostle's exhortation is not “abstain from all appearanceof evil” (1 Thess. 5:22, A. Vers.), but “abstain from every form of evil” (Rev. Vers.). Christ's death is the payment of a real debt due to God; and the convicted sinner needs first to see the debt which he owes to the divine justice paid by Christ, before he can think hopefully of reforming his life. The hymns of the church: “I lay my sins on Jesus,”and “Not all the blood of beasts,” represent the view of Christ's sufferings which Christians have derived from the Scriptures. When the sinner sees that the mortgage is cancelled, that the penalty has been borne, he can devote himself freely to the service of his Redeemer. Rev. 12:11—“they overcame him [Satan] because of the blood of the Lamb”—as Christ overcame Satan by his propitiatory sacrifice, so we overcome by appropriating to ourselves Christ's atonement and his Spirit; cf. 1 John 5:4—“this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith.” The very text upon which Socinians most rely, when it is taken in connection with the context, proves their theory to be a misrepresentation of Scripture, 1 Pet. 2:21—“Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow his steps”—is succeeded by verse 24—“who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed”—the latter words being a direct quotation from Isaiah's description of the substitutionary sufferings of the Messiah (Is. 53:5).
When a deeply convicted sinner was told that God could cleanse his heart and make him over anew, he replied with righteous impatience: “That is not what I want,—I have a debt to pay first!” A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 28, 89—“Nowhere in tabernacle or temple shall we ever find the laver placed before the altar. The altar is Calvary, and the laver is Pentecost,—one stands for the sacrificial blood, the other for the sanctifying Spirit.... So the oil which symbolised the sanctifying Spirit was always put ‘upon the blood of the trespass-offering’ (Lev. 14:17).” The extremity of Christ's suffering on the Cross was coincident with the extremest manifestation of the guilt of the race. The greatness of this he theoretically knew from the beginning of his ministry. His baptism was not intended merely to set an example. It was a recognition that sin deserved death; that he was numbered with the transgressors; that he was sent to die for the sin of the world. He was not so much a teacher, as he was the subject of all teaching. In him the great suffering of the holy God on account of sin is exhibited to the universe. The pain of a few brief hours saves a world, only because it sets forth an eternal fact in God's being and opens to us God's very heart.
Shakespeare, Henry V, 4:1—“There is some soul of goodness in things evil. Would men observingly distil it out.” It is well to preach on Christ as an example. Lyman Abbott says that Jesus' blood purchases our pardon and redeems us to God, just as a patriot's blood redeems his country from servitude and purchases its liberty. But even Ritschl, Just. and Recon., 2, goes beyond this, when he says: “Those who advocate the example theory should remember that Jesus withdraws himself from imitation when he sets himself over against his disciples as the Author of forgiveness. And they perceive that pardon must first be appropriated, before it is possible for them to imitate his piety and moral achievement.” This is a partial recognition of the truth that the removal of objective guilt by Christ's atonement must precede the removal of subjective defilement by Christ's regenerating and sanctifying Spirit. Lidgett, Spir. Princ. of Atonement, 265-280, shows that there is a fatherly demand for satisfaction, which must be met by the filial response of the child. Thomas Chalmers at the beginning of his ministry urged on his people the reformation of their lives. But he confesses: “I never heard of any such reformations being effected amongst them.”Only when he preached the alienation of men from God, and forgiveness through the blood of Christ, did he hear of their betterment.
Gordon, Christ of To-day, 129—“The consciousness of sin is largely the creation of Christ.” Men like Paul, Luther, and Edwards show this impressively. Foster, Christian [pg 733]life and Theology, 198-201—“There is of course a sense in which the Christian must imitate Christ's death, for he is to ‘take up his cross daily’ (Luke 9:23) and follow his Master; but in its highest meaning and fullest scope the death of Christ is no more an object set for our imitation than is the creation of the world.... Christ does for man in his sacrifice what man could not do for himself. We see in the Cross: 1. the magnitude of the guilt of sin; 2. our own self-condemnation; 3. the adequate remedy,—for the object of law is gained in the display of righteousness; 4. the objective ground of forgiveness.” Maclaren: “Christianity without a dying Christ is a dying Christianity.”
(f) This theory contradicts the whole tenor of the New Testament, in making the life, and not the death, of Christ the most significant and important feature of his work. The constant allusions to the death of Christ as the source of our salvation, as well as the symbolism of the ordinances, cannot be explained upon a theory which regards Christ as a mere example, and considers his sufferings as incidents, rather than essentials, of his work.
Dr. H. B. Hackett frequently called attention to the fact that the recording in the gospels of only three years of Jesus' life, and the prominence given in the record to the closing scenes of that life, are evidence that not his life, but his death, was the great work of our Lord. Christ's death, and not his life, is the central truth of Christianity. The cross is par excellence the Christian symbol. In both the ordinances—in Baptism as well as in the Lord's Supper—it is the death of Christ that is primarily set forth. Neither Christ's example, nor his teaching, reveals God as does his death. It is the death of Christ that links together all Christian doctrines. The mark of Christ's blood is upon them all, as the scarlet thread running through every cord and rope of the British navy gives sign that it is the property of the crown.
Did Jesus' death have no other relation to our salvation than Paul's death had? Paul was a martyr, but his death is not even recorded. Gould, Bib. Theol. N. T., 92—“Paul does not dwell in any way upon the life or work of our Lord, except as they are involved in his death and resurrection.” What did Jesus' words: “It is finished” (John 19:30) mean? What was finished on the Socinian theory? The Socinian salvation had not yet begun. Why did not Jesus make the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper to be memorials of his birth, rather than of his death? Why was not the veil of the temple rent at his baptism, or at the Sermon on the Mount? It was because only his death opened the way to God. In talking with Nicodemus, Jesus brushed aside the complimentary: “we know that thou art a teacher come from God” (John 3:2). Recognizing Jesus as teacher is not enough. There must be a renewal by the Spirit of God, so that one recognizes also the lifting up of the Son of man as atoning Savior (John 3:14, 15). And to Peter, Jesus said: “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me” (John 13:8). One cannot have part with Christ as Teacher, while one rejects him as Redeemer from sin. On the Socinian doctrine of the Atonement, see Crawford, Atonement, 279-296; Shedd, History of Doctrine, 2:376-386; Doctrines of the Early Socinians, in Princeton Essays, 1:194-211; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, IV, 2:156-180; Fock, Socinianismus.
2nd. The Bushnellian, or Moral Influence Theory of the Atonement.