Comment.
(Containing an Application of the Principles laid down in pp. 135, 136.)
Forgiveness of sin, the abolition of guilt, through the redemptive power of Christ's love, and of his perfect obedience during his voluntary assumption of humanity, is expressed, on account of the resemblance of the consequences in both cases, by the payment of a debt for another, which debt the payer had not himself incurred. Now the impropriation of this metaphor—(that is, the taking it literally) by transferring the sameness from the consequents to the antecedents, or inferring the identity of the causes from a resemblance in the effects—this is the point on which I am at issue: and the view or scheme of redemption grounded on this confusion I believe to be altogether un-Scriptural.
Indeed, I know not in what other instance I could better exemplify the species of sophistry noticed in p. 147, as the Aristotelean μεταβασις εις αλλο γενος, or clandestine passing over into a diverse kind. The purpose of a metaphor is to illustrate a something less known by a partial identification of it with some other thing better understood, or at least more familiar. Now the article of Redemption may be considered in a two-fold relation—in relation to the antecedent, that is, the Redeemer's act as the efficient cause and condition of redemption; and in relation to the consequent, that is, the effects in and for the Redeemed. Now it is the latter relation, in which the subject is treated of, set forth, expanded, and enforced by St. Paul. The mysterious act, the operative cause is transcendent. Factum est: and beyond the information contained in the enunciation of the Fact, it can be characterized only by the consequences. It is the consequences of the Act of Redemption, which the zealous Apostle would bring home to the minds and affections both of Jews and Gentiles. Now the Apostle's opponents and gainsayers were principally of the former class. They were Jews: not only Jews unconverted, but such as had partially received the Gospel, and who, sheltering their national prejudices under the pretended authority of Christ's original apostles and the Church in Jerusalem, set themselves up against Paul as followers of Cephas. Add too, that Paul himself was a Hebrew of the Hebrews; intimately versed in the Jews' religion above many, his equals, in his own nation, and above measure zealous of the traditions of his fathers. It might, therefore, have been anticipated, that his reasoning would receive its outward forms and language, that it would take its predominant colours, from his own past, and his opponents' present, habits of thinking; and that his figures, images, analogies, and references would be taken preferably from objects, opinions, events, and ritual observances ever uppermost in the imaginations of his own countrymen. And such we find them;—yet so judiciously selected, that the prominent forms, the figures of most frequent recurrence, are drawn from points of belief and practice, forms, laws, rites and customs, that then prevailed through the whole Roman world, and were common to Jew and Gentile.
Now it would be difficult if not impossible to select points better suited to this purpose, as being equally familiar to all, and yet having a special interest for the Jewish converts, than those are from which the learned Apostle has drawn the four principal metaphors, by which he illustrates the blessed consequences of Christ's redemption of mankind. These are: 1. Sin-offerings, sacrificial expiation. 2. Reconciliation, atonement, καταλλαγη.[133] 3. Ransom from slavery, Redemption, the buying back again, or being bought back. 4. Satisfaction of a creditor's claims by a payment of the debt. To one or other of these four heads all the numerous forms and exponents of Christ's mediation in St. Paul's writings may be referred. And the very number and variety of the words or periphrases used by him to express one and the same thing furnish the strongest presumptive proof, that all alike were used metaphorically. [In the following notation, let the small letters represent the effects or consequences, and the capitals the efficient causes or antecedents. Whether by causes we mean acts or agents, is indifferent. Now let X signify a transcendent, that is, a cause beyond our comprehension and not within the sphere of sensible experience; and on the other hand, let A, B, C, and D represent each some one known and familiar cause, in reference to some single and characteristic effect: namely, A in reference to k, B to l, C to m, and D to n. Then I say X + k l m n is in different places expressed by A + k; B + l; C + m; D + n.—And these I should call metaphorical exponents of X.]
Now John, the beloved Disciple, who leaned on the Lord's bosom, the Evangelist κατα πνευμα, that is, according to the Spirit, the inner and substantial truth of the Christian creed—John, recording the Redeemer's own words, enunciates the fact itself, to the full extent in which it is enunciable for the human mind, simply and without any metaphor, by identifying it in kind with a fact of hourly occurrence—expressing it, I say, by a familiar fact the same in kind with that intended, though of a far lower dignity;—by a fact of every man's experience, known to all, yet not better understood than the fact described by it. In the Redeemed it is a re-generation, a birth, a spiritual seed impregnated and evolved, the germinal principle of a higher and enduring life, of a spiritual life—that is, a life the actuality of which is not dependent on the material body, or limited by the circumstances and processes indispensable to its organization and subsistence. Briefly, it is the differential of immortality, of which the assimilative power of faith and love is the integrant, and the life in Christ the integration.
But even this would be an imperfect statement, if we omitted the awful truth, that besides that dissolution of our earthly tabernacle which we call death, there is another death, not the mere negation of life, but its positive opposite. And as there is a mystery of life and an assimilation to the principle of life, even to him who is the Life; so is there a mystery of death and an assimilation to the principle of evil; a fructifying of the corrupt seed, of which death is the germination. Thus the regeneration to spiritual life is at the same time a redemption from the spiritual death.
Respecting the redemptive act itself, and the Divine Agent, we know from revelation that he was made a quickening (ζωοποιουν, life-making) spirit: and that in order to this it was necessary, that God should be manifested in the flesh, that the Eternal Word, through whom and by whom the world (κοσμος, the order, beauty, and sustaining law of visible natures) was and is, should be made flesh, assume our humanity personally, fulfil all righteousness, and so suffer and so die for us as in dying to conquer death for as many as should receive him. More than this, the mode, the possibility, we are not competent to know. It is, as hath been already observed concerning the primal act of apostacy, a mystery by the necessity of the subject—a mystery, which at all events it will be time enough for us to seek and expect to understand, when we understand the mystery of our natural life, and its conjunction with mind and will and personal identity. Even the truths that are given to us to know, we can know only through faith in the spirit. They are spiritual things which must be spiritually discerned. Such, however, being the means and the effects of our Redemption, well might the fervent Apostle associate it with whatever was eminently dear and precious to erring and afflicted mortals, and (where no expression could be commensurate, no single title be other than imperfect) seek from similitude of effect to describe the superlative boon by successively transferring to it, as by a superior claim, the name of each several act and ordinance, habitually connected in the minds of all his hearers with feelings of joy, confidence, and gratitude.
Do you rejoice when the atonement made by the priest has removed the civil stain from your name, restored you to your privileges as a son of Abraham, and replaced you in the respect of your brethren?—Here is an atonement which takes away a deeper and worse stain, an eating canker-spot in the very heart of your personal being. This, to as many as receive it, gives the privilege to become sons of God (John i. 12); this will admit you to the society of angels, and insure to you the rights of brotherhood with spirits made perfect.—(Heb. xii. 22.) Here is a sacrifice, a sin-offering for the whole world: and a High Priest, who is indeed a Mediator, who not in type or shadow but in very truth and in his own right stands in the place of Man to God, and of God to Man; and who receives as a Judge what he offered as an Advocate.
Would you be grateful to one who had ransomed you from slavery under a bitter foe, or who brought you out of captivity? Here is redemption from a far direr slavery, the slavery of sin unto death; and he, who gave himself for the ransom, has taken captivity captive.