Peter. I confess I was mistaken in some of my suspicions. I consider our friend as a good man; but am far from being satisfied with what I still understand to be his views on this important subject.
John. It gives me great pleasure to hear the honest concessions of brethren, when they feel themselves in any measure to have gone too far.
Peter. I shall be glad to hear brother James’s statement on substitution, and to know whether he considers our Lord in his undertaking as having sustained the character of a Head, or Representative; and if so, whether the persons for whom he was a substitute were the elect only, or mankind in general.
James. I must acknowledge that on this subject I feel considerably at a loss, I have no consciousness of having ever called the doctrine of substitution in question. On the contrary, my hope of salvation rests upon it; and the sum of my delight, as a minister of the gospel, consists in it. If I know any thing of my own heart, I can say of my Saviour as laying down his life for, or instead of sinners, as was said of Jerusalem by the captives—If I forget THEE, let my right hand forget: If I do not remember THEE, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!
I have always considered the denial of this doctrine as being of the essence of Socinianism. I could not have imagined that any person whose hope of acceptance with God rests not on any goodness in himself but entirely on the righteousness of Christ, imputed to him as if it were his own, would have been accounted to disown his substitution. But perhaps, my dear brother, (for such I feel him to be, notwithstanding our differences,) may include in his ideas of this subject, that Christ was so our head and representative, as that what he did and suffered, we did and suffered in him.—If no more were meant by this, resumed James, than that what he did and suffered is graciously accepted on our behalf as if it were ours, I freely, as I have said before, acquiesce in it. But I do not believe, and can hardly persuade myself that brother Peter believes, the obedience and sufferings of Christ to be so ours, as that we can properly be said to have obeyed and suffered.
Christ was and is our head, and we are his members: the union between him and us, however, is not in all respects the same as that which is between the head and the members of the natural body: for that would go to explain away all distinct consciousness and accountableness on our part.
As to the term representative, if no more be meant by it than that Christ so personated us as to die in our stead, that we, believing in him, should not die, I have nothing to object to it. But I do not believe that Christ was so our representative, as that what he did and suffered, we did and suffered; and so became meritorious, or deserving of the divine favour.—But I feel myself in a wide field, and must entreat your indulgence while I take up so much of the conversation.
Peter and John. Go on, and state your sentiments without apology.
James. I apprehend then that many important mistakes have arisen from considering the interposition of Christ under the notion of paying a debt. The blood of Christ is indeed the price of our redemption, or that for the sake of which we are delivered from the curse of the law: but this metaphorical language, as well as that of head and members, may be carried too far, and may lead us into many errors. In cases of debt and credit among men, where a surety undertakes to represent the debtor, from the moment his undertaking is accepted, the debtor is free, and may claim his liberty, not as a matter of favour, at least on the part of the creditor, but of strict justice. Or should the undertaking be unknown to him for a time, yet as soon as he knows it, he may demand his discharge, and, it may be, think himself hardly treated by being kept in bondage so long after his debt had been actually paid. But who in their sober senses will imagine this to be analagous to the redemption of sinners by Jesus Christ? Sin is a debt only in a metaphorical sense: properly speaking, it is a crime, and satisfaction for it requires to be made, not on pecuniary, but on moral principles. If Philemon had accepted of that part of Paul’s offer which respected property, and had placed so much to his account as he considered Onesimus to have “owed” him, he could not have been said to have remitted his debt; nor would Onesimus have had to thank him for remitting it. But it is supposed of Onesimus that he might not only be in debt to his master, but have “wronged” him. Perhaps he had embezzled his goods, corrupted his children, or injured his character. Now for Philemon to accept of that part of the offer, were very different from the other. In the one case he would have accepted of a pecuniary representative; in the other of a moral one; that is, of a mediator. The satisfaction in the one case would annihilate the idea of remission; but not in the other. Whatever satisfaction Paul might give to Philemon respecting the wound inflicted upon his character and honour as the head of a family, it would not supersede the necessity of pardon being sought by the offender, and freely bestowed by the offended.
The reason of this difference is easily perceived. Debts are transferable; but crimes are not. A third person may cancel the one; but he can only obliterate the effects of the other; the desert of the criminal remains. The debtor is accountable to his creditor as a private individual, who has power to accept of a surety, or if he please, to remit the whole, without any satisfaction. In the one case he would be just; in the other merciful: but no place is afforded by either of them for the combination of justice and mercy in the same proceeding. The criminal, on the other hand, is amenable to the magistrate, or to the head of a family, as a public person, and who, especially if the offence be capital, cannot remit the punishment without invading law and justice, nor in the ordinary discharge of his office, admit of a third person to stand in his place. In extraordinary cases, however, extraordinary expedients are resorted to. A satisfaction may be made to law and justice, as to the spirit of them, while the letter is dispensed with. The well-known story of Zaleucus, the Grecian law-giver, who consented to lose one of his eyes to spare one of his son’s eyes, who by transgressing the law had subjected himself to the loss of both, is an example. Here, as far as it went, justice and mercy were combined in the same act: and had the satisfaction been much fuller than it was, so full that the authority of the law, instead of being weakened, should have been abundantly magnified and honoured, still it had been perfectly consistent with free forgiveness.