true regarding the doctrine of the Atonement: If a man really holds to right views concerning the Atonement made by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary, he will sooner or later get right on every other question; but if he holds a wrong view regarding the Atonement made by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, he is pretty sure to go wrong on everything else sooner or later. There is a great need in this day of teaching on this subject that is definite, clear, accurate, exact, complete; because not only in Unitarian and Christian Science circles, but also in circles that are nominally orthodox, in professedly Christian colleges, seminaries, pulpits, Sunday School classes, and religious papers, magazines, pamphlets, books, there is much teaching to-day that is vague, inaccurate, misleading, unscriptural, and oftentimes utterly false and devilish, teaching that is essentially Unitarian or Eddyistic. Men and women use the old words with a new meaning; so as to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect. Even the Christian Scientist will tell you he believes in the Atonement, and that Mrs. Eddy taught the Atonement. But when you begin to ask direct and pointed questions regarding his belief and teaching you will find that by Atonement he meant, and that Mrs. Eddy meant, something utterly different from what you mean and what the Bible teaches. Paul tells us that the Devil camouflages as an angel of light (II Cor. 11:14), but never has he done it more successfully and
dangerously than in the teaching regarding the Atonement which he has inspired in Mrs. Eddy and in Unitarian teachers, and also in the teachers in many supposedly orthodox pulpits, in many Congregational pulpits, in some Methodist pulpits, in many Baptist pulpits, and even in some Presbyterian pulpits. Some years ago in teaching a Bible class in Minneapolis, attended by people from all the churches, I remarked incidentally that Christian Science denied the doctrine of the Atonement through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. A very intelligent lady, a lady perfect in her manners, came to me at the close of the class and said: "Mr. Torrey, you ought not to have said what you said to-day about Christian Science; for you do not understand its teachings. They do teach the Atonement." I replied: "I said that Christian Science denies the Doctrine of the Atonement through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Do you believe that Jesus Christ bore your sins in His own body on the cross?" She answered: "I think Christian Science is a beautiful system of teaching." I said: "That is not what I asked you. Do you believe that Jesus Christ bore your sins in His own body on the cross?" She replied: "Christian Science has done me a great deal of good." "That is not what I asked you. Do you believe that Jesus Christ bore your sins in His own body on the cross?" "I think that Jesus Christ's life was the most beautiful life ever lived here on earth." "That is not what I asked you.
Do you believe Jesus Christ bore your sins in His own body on the cross?" "The Christian Scientists are lovely people." "That is not what I asked you. Do you believe that Jesus Christ bore your sins in His own body on the cross?" "I believe in following the Lord Jesus Christ." "Do you believe that Jesus Christ bore your sins in His own body on the cross?" "Oh," she said, "that is a doctrinal question." "Now," I said, "you are yourself an illustration of the truth of the very thing I said. You do not believe in the Atonement through the shed blood of Jesus Christ." The Christian Scientist uses the word "atonement," but he means something entirely different from what the Bible teaches regarding the atoning death of Jesus Christ. So does the Unitarian. So do many of the ministers supposedly of orthodox denominations. The pastor of a Congregational church in this city said recently: "I have my own kind of religion; it answers for me, but I hope I have sense enough to see that it would not answer for everybody. I imagine the Salvation Army captain preaching my kind of religious doctrine, without a devil, without a hell, without an atonement of blood and recompense, without an infallible Bible—and I see his audience melting away like snow in the rain. Is his doctrine truer than mine, or is mine truer than his? Why, neither; his is true for him and mine for me—that is all—each after his own kind." Now this may sound tolerant and lovely, but it is utter
nonsense. Any doctrine which is not true for everybody is not for anybody true, and any doctrine which is true is true for everybody. If a doctrine that leaves out "an atonement of blood" is not true for the Salvation Army—and it certainly is not—it is not true for anybody else. Truth is not relative; it is absolute. What is true is true, and what is false is false. So we come face to face with the question, What does the Bible teach on this great fundamental doctrine?
I. THE NECESSITY AND IMPORTANCE OF HIS DEATH
The first thing that the Bible plainly teaches on this question is the absolute necessity and fundamental importance of the death of Jesus Christ, the absolute necessity and fundamental importance of the shedding of His blood. The tendency of our day in Unitarian circles, and in orthodox circles that have been leavened by the corrupting leaven of Unitarianism, is to minimise the importance of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. The tendency is to make His life and character, His teaching and leadership, the main thing. Christian Science even goes so far as to deny the fact of His death. To them His supposed death is "an illusion," it is "only mortal thought," but the Bible puts the emphasis upon His atoning death.
1. The death of Jesus Christ is mentioned directly more than 175 times in the New Testament.
Besides this there are very many prophetic and typical references to the death of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. When Mr. Alexander and I were holding our meetings in the Royal Albert Hall in London, some one took away one of our hymn books and went through it and cut out every reference to the blood, and then sent it back to me through the mail, saying, "I have gone through your hymn book and cut out every reference to the blood. These references to the blood are foolish. Now sing your hymns with the blood left out and there will be some sense in them." If any of you should take your Bible and go through it in that way and cut out of the New Testament and the Old Testament every passage that referred to the death of Christ, or to His atoning blood, you would have only a sadly torn and tattered Bible left, a Bible without a heart and a Gospel without saving power. If I were a member of a church where the pastor said that he preached a system of "religious doctrine, without a devil, without a hell, without an atonement of blood and recompense, without an infallible Bible," to use his own language, he would see his audience "melting away like snow in the rain" as far as I was concerned. I would either take my hat and get out of that church, or else the pastor would take his hat and get out of the pulpit; for I should know that he was not preaching God's pure, saving gospel, but the Devil's poisonous substitute for the gospel.
2. Not only are the references to the death of
Christ so numerous in Old Testament and New Testament, but we are taught distinctly in Hebrews 2:14 that Jesus Christ became a man for the specific purpose of dying, that He became a partaker of flesh and blood in order that He might die. In this passage we read, "For as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the Devil" (Heb. 2:14). The meaning of these words is as plain as day. They tell us that the incarnation was for the purpose of the death. They tell us that Jesus Christ's death was not a mere accident or incident of His human life (as many would have us believe), but that it was the supreme purpose of it. He became man in order that He might die as man and for man. This is the doctrine of the Bible, and it is true for anybody and for everybody.