Wrightnour: “The illustration of Powhatan raising his club to slay John Smith, while Pocahontas flings herself between the uplifted club and the victim, is not a good one. God is not an angry being, bound to strike something, no matter what. If Powhatan could have taken the blow himself, out of a desire to spare the victim, it would be better. The Father and the Son are one. Bronson Alcott, in his school at Concord, when punishment was necessary, sometimes placed the rod in the hand of the offender and bade him strike his (Alcott's) hand, rather than that the law of the school should be broken without punishment following. The result was that very few rules were [pg 765]broken. So God in Christ bore the sins of the world, and endured the penalty for man's violation of his law.”
(e) It furnishes the only proper explanation of the sacrificial language of the New Testament, and of the sacrificial rites of the Old, considered as prophetic of Christ's atoning work.
Foster, Christian Life and Theology, 207-211—“The imposition of hands on the head of the victim is entirely unexplained, except in the account of the great day of Atonement, when by the same gesture and by distinct confession the sins of the people were ‘put upon the head of the goat’ (Lev. 16:21) to be borne away into the wilderness. The blood was sacred and was to be poured out before the Lord, evidently in place of the forfeited life of the sinner which should have been rendered up.” Watts, New Apologetics, 205—“ ‘The Lord will provide’ was the truth taught when Abraham found a ram provided by God which he ‘offered up as a burnt offering in the stead of his son’ (Gen. 22:13, 14). As the ram was not Abraham's ram, the sacrifice of it could not teach that all Abraham had belonged to God, and should, with entire faith in his goodness, be devoted to him; but it did teach that ‘apart from shedding of blood there is no remission’ (Heb. 9:22).” 2 Chron. 29:27—“when the burnt offering began, the song of Jehovah began also.”
(f) It alone gives proper place to the death of Christ as the central feature of his work,—set forth in the ordinances, and of chief power in Christian experience.
Martin Luther, when he had realized the truth of the Atonement, was found sobbing before a crucifix and moaning: “Für mich! für mich!”—“For me! for me!”Elisha Kane, the Arctic explorer, while searching for signs of Sir John Franklin and his party, sent out eight or ten men to explore the surrounding region. After several days three returned, almost crazed with the cold—thermometer fifty degrees below zero—and reported that the other men were dying miles away. Dr. Kane organized a company of ten, and though suffering himself with an old heart-trouble, led them to the rescue. Three times he fainted during the eighteen hours of marching and suffering; but he found the men. “We knew you would come! we knew you would come, brother!” whispered one of them, hardly able to speak. Why was he sure Dr. Kane would come? Because he knew the stuff Dr. Kane was made of, and knew that he would risk his life for any one of them. It is a parable of Christ's relation to our salvation. He is our elder brother, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, and he not only risks death, but he endures death, in order to save us.
(g) It gives us the only means of understanding the sufferings of Christ in the garden and on the cross, or of reconciling them with the divine justice.
Kreibig, Versöhnungslehre: “Man has a guilt that demands the punitive sufferings of a mediator. Christ shows a suffering that cannot be justified except by reference to some other guilt than his own. Combine these two facts, and you have the problem of the atonement solved.” J. G. Whittier: “Through all the depths of sin and loss Drops the plummet of the Cross; Never yet abyss was found Deeper than the Cross could sound.” Alcestis purchased life for Admetus her husband by dying in his stead; Marcus Curtius saved Rome by leaping into the yawning chasm; the Russian servant threw himself to the wolves to rescue his master. Berdoe, Robert Browning, 47—“To know God as the theist knows him may suffice for pure spirits, for those who have never sinned, suffered, nor felt the need of a Savior; but for fallen and sinful men the Christ of Christianity is an imperative necessity; and those who have never surrendered themselves to him have never known what it is to experience the rest he gives to the heavy-laden soul.”
(h) As no other theory does, this view satisfies the ethical demand of human nature; pacifies the convicted conscience; assures the sinner that he may find instant salvation in Christ; and so makes possible a new life of holiness, while at the same time it furnishes the highest incentives to such a life.
Shedd: “The offended party (1) permits a substitution; (2) provides a substitute; (3) substitutes himself.” George Eliot: “Justice is like the kingdom of God; it is not without us, as a fact; it is ‘within us,’ as a great yearning.” But it is both without and within, and the inward is only the reflection of the outward; the subjective demands of conscience only reflect the objective demands of holiness.
And yet, while this view of the atonement exalts the holiness of God, it surpasses every other view in its moving exhibition of God's love—a love that is not satisfied with suffering in and with the sinner, or with making that suffering a demonstration of God's regard for law; but a love that sinks itself into the sinner's guilt and bears his penalty,—comes down so low as to make itself one with him in all but his depravity—makes every sacrifice but the sacrifice of God's holiness—a sacrifice which God could not make, without ceasing to be God; see 1 John 4:10—“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”The soldier who had been thought reprobate was moved to complete reform when he was once forgiven. William Huntington, in his Autobiography, says that one of his sharpest sensations of pain, after he had been quickened by divine grace, was that he felt such pity for God. Never was man abused as God has been. Rom. 2:4—“the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance”; 12:1—“the mercies of God” lead you “to present your bodies a living sacrifice”; 2 Cor. 5:14, 15—“the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died; and he died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again.” The effect of Christ's atonement on Christian character and life may be illustrated from the proclamation of Garabaldi: “He that loves Italy, let him follow me! I promise him hardship, I promise him suffering, I promise him death. But he that loves Italy, let him follow me!”