SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
Secret Service Theologian
REDEMPTION TRUTHS
CHAPTER 9
DOCTRINE OF THE GOSPEL
"Sanctify in
your hearts Christ as Lord: being ready always to give answer (apologia) to
every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, yet with
meekness and fear." 1 Peter 3:15 RV
"IF Christ bore the punishment of my
sins, how can I be punished for them?"
"And if He has not borne the
punishment of my sins, how can I escape?" "And in either case, how can my
belief affect the fact? Either He bore my punishment, or He did not if He did,
my salvation is assured; and if He did not, my salvation is
impossible."
When difficulties of this kind are raised by objectors or
scoffers, they are best met by silence or rebuke. But when they are used to
stumble ignorant but earnest inquirers after truth, it is but right that we
should deal with them.
In common with many kindred difficulties, they
spring from the prevailing habit of stating truth in language that has no
express warrant in Scripture. And this habit is fostered by a popular
misconception of the true character of faith.
In his "Historic Faith,"
Bishop Westcott marks the distinction between faith and both credulity and
superstition, and then goes on to enforce the still more needed warning that
conviction is not faith. When the Gospel is so stated that knowledge of
salvation becomes the obvious conclusion of a syllogism, the sinner may "find
peace" without ever being "brought to God" at all. Divine truth can never clash
with reason, but it may be entirely opposed to experience, and, seemingly, even
to fact. It was so in Abrahams case. He had nothing to rest upon but the
bare Word of God, unconfirmed by anything to which he could make appeal. The
Revisers reading of Romans 4:19 presents this with striking definiteness
and force. "He considered his own body now as good as dead, and the deadness of
Sarahs womb." But, looking to the promise of God, he did not waver.
Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. And Abraham
is "the father of all them that believe." Distrust of God was the cause of the
creatures fall; how fitting it is, then, that faith in God should be the
turning point of his repentance! It is this very element indeed that makes the
Gospel "the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth." With
nothing to look back to but sin, and nothing to look forward to but wrath, the
sinner, with facts and feelings and experience and logic all against him,
accepts Gods Word of pardon and peace. And he receives the blessing, not
because he has mastered a syllogism, but because, like Abraham, he believes
God. And he becomes a changed man, not because he has learned the shibboleths
of a right creed, but because, by the truth of God, received in the power of
the Spirit of God, he has been made "partaker of the Divine nature." He has
been "born again, by the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever." But
someone will say; "This does not answer the question - Was Christ punished for
my sins, or was He not?" No, but it explains what ought to be our attitude
toward every problem of the kind. It may be doubted, moreover, whether anyone
could intelligently explain the question. What do we mean by "punishment?" That
we suffer for the sins of others, is one of the commonest experiences of life
on earth. But this in no way lessens the burden of the guilty. Such suffering,
moreover, is but a part of Gods moral government of the world, whereas
"punishment" - if we are to use words accurately and in a judicial sense-
awaits the decrees of the great day. Does not the question confound punishment
with judgment? A sentence of death, for example, is not the punishment for
murder. It merely fixes the guilt and decrees the penalty.
First of
all, let us take note of the fact that when we say that Christ bore the
punishment of our sins, we are using language that is not found in Scripture.
But someone will say "Though it may not be expressed, it is implied, as, for
example, in Isaiah 53." Here we may learn a lesson from a recent incident in
the French Chamber. The War Office issued an order to the troops. A certain
officer communicated it to his command in his own words. The Minister of War
was attacked in Parliament for punishing him,and he gave this striking
answer "He committed an offence, and I removed him; he paraphrased an
order which it was his duty only to read."
What a lesson for the
preacher of the Gospel! Some truths there are which we can make our own; and
these we can distribute, so to speak, in our own coinage. But when we have to
do with spiritual truths of a transcendental character, it behooves us to keep
to the very words in which they are revealed.
Do we not use wholly undue
freedom, bordering too often upon flippancy, in presenting "the glorious Gospel
of the blessed God"? The true minister will never forget that he is a saviour
either of life unto life or of death unto death, ill all those to whom he
proclaims it.
Isaiah 53 is the utterance of the covenant people in the
day of their repentance. The figurative language of the sixth verse is derived
from the sin-offering; that of the fifth is borrowed from the prison-house. And
to interpret either aright, we must have recourse to the typology of the Old
Testament and the teaching of the New.
In the sin-offering of the great
day of atonement, the sins of the people were laid upon the scapegoat, at the
door of the tabernacle of the congregation; and then the victim, bearing those
sins, was led away to the solitary land. And so in 1 Peter 2:24, 25 (which
quotes Isaiah 53.), we read, "Who, His own self bare our sins in His own body
to the tree." Bishop Ellicotts commentary suggests that the colloquial
expression, "onto" the tree - that is, up to the tree and upon it -- would
still better express the idiom of the original. But if theological reasons did
not intervene, it would not be rendered "on the tree"; and if we have faith in
the accuracy of Scripture, we shall fearlessly accept the inspired words. What
light then will the narrative of the Gospels throw on them? That the night of
the betrayal was a tremendous crisis that narrative affirms. "Save Me from this
hour," was the prayer of the agony in the Garden. And when the Lord was
surrounded by the priests and soldiers, He exclaimed "This is your hour
and the power of darkness." Till then no hand had ever been laid upon Him, save
in loving service; but now He was "delivered up." The Divine power which till
then had shielded Him, now left Him to the hate and violence of men.
It
may be urged that this was a necessary step to the cross. Such no doubt it was;
but was it only this. The shadow of the cross had darkened all His path. But
now a cloud unknown before was about to cover Him. No reverent spirit will
attempt to lift the veil which hides the unrevealed mysteries of Gethsemane and
Calvary. For "the secret things belong unto the Lord our God. But those things
which are revealed belong to us, and to our children"; and can we not learn the
meaning of the record from the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, and
the doctrinal teaching of the Epistles? Men have faced martyrdom in its most
dreadful forms without flinching; and He was the pattern Man. "He endured the
cross, despising the shame." But that which crushed Him, that from which His
whole being shrank with an intensity of horror and dread that we can never
understand, was it not the imputation of sin.
We are in the habit of
assuming that His work as the Sinbearer began when He was nailed to the cross.
But that was the act of the Roman soldiers, whereas this depended on the decree
of God. And this was the death He dreaded - not the yielding up of His spirit,
for death in that sense was the close of His sufferings, the gate through which
He passed to victory. The cup which the Father had given Him to drink was death
in its primary and deepest sense, as separation from God. Scripture speaks of
it as His "being made a curse for us." The meaning of such words is one of the
mysteries of our redemption. And yet, with extraordinary levity and daring, we
presume to enter this "holiest of all."
In infinite grace, God has used
the imagery of the prison-house to give us as it were a glimpse behind the
veil. But instead of falling on our faces in adoring worship, we sit down
forthwith to translate the bruises which came of our iniquities, and the
stripes which bring us healing, into the language of the police-court or the
counting-house.
That there are great realities behind these words we
know, for the figurative language of Scripture is never exaggerated or
fanciful. And in respect of all that it concerns us to know, we have Divine
certainty. It was not that the guiltless died, as guiltless, for the guilty,
for that would be an outrage upon justice both human and Divine; but that "He
who knew no sin was made sin for us." And sin being thus imputed to Him, He
expiated it by His death.
If the inquiry be pressed "How could sin be so
imputed to the sinless as to make a vicarious, death efficient, or even
justifiable?" no answer may be attempted. As Bishop Butler says, "All
conjectures about it must be uncertain." "Nor," he adds, "has he any reason to
complain from want of further information, unless he can show his claim to it."
If anyone can solve the mystery of the imputation of sin to Christ, he will be
able perchance to solve the further mystery of Gods imputing
righteousness to the sinner. And when he has achieved this, his faith will
stand in the wisdom of men and not in the power of God. God retreats upon His
own sovereignty and the believing sinner is satisfied with the Divine "It is
written." Reason bows before the God of reason, and the reasoner becomes a
disciple and a worshipper.
he Revised Version reading of the
fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians warrants our laying strong emphasis on
what I am contending for. The inspired Apostle thinks it necessary to remind
the Corinthians of the Gospel he had preached to them, the Gospel by which they
had been saved. "I make known unto you," he says, "in what words I preached it
unto you. And he adds that he had delivered to them what he had himself
received of the Lord - the same solemn formula that he uses of the Lords
Supper. (1 Corinthians 11:23.) And here are "the words": "That Christ died for
our sins, according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried; and that He rose
again the third day, according to the Scriptures."
The public facts of
the death of Christ would in themselves be no Gospel for a sinner. Indeed, they
might well give rise to "a fearful looking, for of judgment." What makes the
record of that death a "Gospel" is that He died for our sins, according to the
scriptures. And here we, pass into a sphere where human testimony is not only
inadequate but impossible; the sinner is shut up to accept, or to reject, the
Word of God. And this it is, I again repeat, which makes the Gospel "the power
of God unto salvation."
The Gospel is not a veiled or conditional
promise, but a public proclamation to be "preached to every creature." For "God
was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself"; and now grace is reigning.
Christ "gave Himself a ransom for all." "He has put away sin by the sacrifice
of Himself"; put away sin in such sense that God can now proclaim forgiveness
to all, without distinction or reserve. And all that believe are 51 justified.
For, in virtue of the cross, God can now be "just, and the Justifier of him
that believeth in Jesus."
And if we are asked to translate this
marvellous revelation of Divine grace into the language of criminology or
commerce, and to say whether Christ has paid the sinners debt, or borne
his punishment, the answer that becomes us is a refusal "to paraphrase the
order."
As I have already noticed, moreover, the Gospel to the unsaved
is never stated in the New Testament in the language of the sin-offering. On
believing, the sinner is brought within the Covenant. Then, and not till then,
he becomes so identified with Christ in that death on Calvary that it is
reckoned as his own. Hence the added words,"That we, being dead to sins, should
live unto righteousness; by Whose stripes ye were healed." (1 Peter
2:24.)
When the preachers theme is "righteousness, temperance, and
judgment" - when he seeks to probe the conscience and stir the heart; when he
appeals to mens better nature, and warns them of the consequences of
their sins - he is master of his subject, and can choose his words. But when,
as the ambassador of Christ, he comes to proclaim the message of the Gospel,
let him speak with solemn reserve, and let him (unlike "the many") refrain from
"corrupting the Word of God." (2 Corinthians 2:17 (R. V.).)
A closing
word respecting this caution about the language of the sin offering. I
deprecate the thought that we should be limited or hindered in using Holy
Scripture. Only let us beware of huckstering it in phraseology of our own. As I
crossed Hyde Park on my way to Whitehall one morning, some years ago, I was
startled by a pistol shot near by. As I turned I saw a man roll off one of the
seats upon the ground. The poor wretch had shot himself. I ran across the grass
to where he lay, and plied him with questions. He was past speech, but I saw by
his look that he was conscious and understood my words. His life was ebbing,
and if a message was to reach him it must be brief and quickly spoken. And as,
in that solemn moment, I lifted my heart for guidance, the words that came to
my lips were these, and I repeated them to the dying man:
"Surely He hath
borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem Him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He
was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and
with His stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have
turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of
us all."
Were it not for the grace which condones the ignorance and
error which mark our presentation of Divine truth, the ministry of the Gospel
would be practically in abeyance. But let no man trade upon grace, and refuse
to bring his thoughts and words to the test of Scripture. And above all, let
everyone who claims to be a minister of the Gospel shun what savours of
flippancy or levity in a sphere so solemn. Many a man who at heart is reverent
and true falls into habits of speech about, our Divine Lord, and the Gospel of
His grace, which belie and dishonour his ministry. Let us seek to be imitators
of him who, looking back: upon a matchless life of service, in which he had
received revelations beyond any entrusted to other men, wrote the words,
"Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I
should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." (Ephesians
3:8.)
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