The Atonement, as taught by the Church of England: A Sermon

by Edward Hoare

II. What, then, was the plan by which this mighty change was effected,—by which God was thus reconciled to man?

It could not be done by the mere remission of sin, for then the law of God would have been dishonoured, the sentence passed would not have been executed, and the pardon of the sinner would have been a departure from the truth of God.

The plan, therefore, which he purposed was in the person of the eternal Son to bear the curse himself, and to make satisfaction for the broken law. In his holiness he could not remit it, so in unutterable love he bore it. What could not be done through bare remission could be done through substitution; and the Son himself was prepared and offered as a substitute. There was never such a person, nor such a scheme. In order to represent man, he became himself perfect man. In order to satisfy the law, he first in his life fulfilled its holiness, and then in his death bore its sentence. Thus the satisfaction for sin was perfect. The law passed sentence on man, and man endured it. The law claimed fulfilment, and man fulfilled it. The law required a worthy substitute for the whole race, and He, with all the attributes of the Godhead, was amply sufficient as a ransom for the world.

Thus his work is sometimes called atonement, because, by his own death, he atoned for sin, or presented an equivalent for the sinner’s guilt; sometimes expiation, because it expiated or took away the wrath due to sin; sometimes it is called satisfaction, because, in his death, he satisfied the law; sometimes oblation, because he was offered on the cross, as the lamb was offered on the altar; and sometimes propitiation, because the wrath of God was propitiated, so that he loves those whom before he regarded with righteous displeasure; but in all cases the leading idea is the same, viz., that punishment was required by God’s righteousness, and that he endured it as the representative or substitute of the sinner. The satisfaction of an unchangeable sentence was its one great object. It was God’s act of homage to the unbending holiness of his law. There was in it the perfect display of two attributes, love and justice; love which prompted him to save the ruined, and justice which required the sacrifice, in order that the purpose of love might be fulfilled. Thus the atonement is the one central point in which “mercy and truth are met together, and righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”

III. From this brief and general view of the doctrine of atonement, we may proceed at once to some of the leading truths respecting it, more especially dwelling upon those which form the distinctive teaching of the Church of England, as contrasted with that of Rome. These may be summed up under three heads:—

(1.) That there can be no other satisfaction for sin.

(2.) That the satisfaction made by our Lord was complete.

(3.) That it was final.

(1.) And, in the first place, it must be obvious that nothing else can make a satisfaction for sin. There is in the human heart a constant tendency to strive after some expiation, a tendency which is seen in Heathen as well as Christian lands, and which is nothing more than the natural effort of the unenlightened heart to shake off the burden of its guilt. But, before the cross of Christ, all such tendencies should at once disappear, and the immeasurable costliness of the Divine remedy should stamp all human schemes with nothingness. If man could do anything to make expiation for his sin, then why did the Son of God suffer? why the great mystery of the incarnation? why the agony in the garden? why the hiding of God’s countenance? and why the assurance that sin is blotted out through the Saviour’s most precious blood? We need only look for a moment to the eternal divinity of the whole plan, to the deep mystery of the incarnation, and to that marvellous fact, that in the hour of his deepest need the Son was forsaken of the Father, to be well assured of the most certain truth, that nothing that man could do could, in any form or any circumstances, avail to make satisfaction for his sin.

The Church of England, therefore, has decided in the Thirty-first Article, after describing the perfection of the work of our Lord,—“And there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone.” But in this respect we are in direct opposition to the Church of Rome, for, although its advocates admit in words the completeness of the atonement, and in theological discussion would trace all merit to it as the fountain-head, yet there are numberless decrees and practices which show too plainly that many other satisfactions have been practically admitted into their system. For example, the Council of Trent decreed, “That such is the abundance of the Divine bounty, that we are able to make satisfaction to God the Father, through Christ Jesus, not only by punishments voluntarily endured by us as chastisements for sin, or imposed at the pleasure of the priests, according to the degree of the offence, and also (and this is an amazing proof of love) by temporal pains inflicted by God himself, and by us patiently borne.” [10] Now, although in this very decree all is said to be through Christ, it must be plain to the practical and simple mind, that there are two new sources of satisfaction opened to the sinner,—the voluntary infliction of penance, and the patient endurance of involuntary pain.