THE
ATONEMENT
CHAPTER XVIII.
Romans and Galatians.
THERE are four of the epistles of Paul which introduce us
by successive steps to the height of Christian position. They are those to the
Romans, Galatians, Colossians, and Ephesians. As our position before God is in
the value of Christs work for Him, we shall necessarily find in these
epistles the exposition fully of the doctrine of atonement. In fact, a
concordance is enough to show that only in Corinthians and Hebrews beside, of
Pauls fourteen epistles, is the blood of Christ spoken of, and only in
Philippians additionally is the cross. Hebrews, indeed, speaks more of the
blood of Christ than any other book of the New Testament. Its doctrine we shall
hope to consider at another time, however.
Of the four epistles I have
mentioned, Romans and Galatians are most nearly connected together, and
Colossians and Ephesians. The negative side of deliverance by the death of
Christ is the topic of the former; the positive side of what we are brought
into as identified with Him in life, that of the latter; although Colossians
unites the "dead" and "buried with Christ" of Romans to the "quickened" and
"raised up with Christ" of Ephesians.
Romans and Galatians differ
mainly in this, that while Romans through the ministry of Christs work
establishes the soul in peace, and delivers it from the power of sin, Galatians
takes up the moral principles of Judaism and Christianity as a warning to those
made free by grace, not to entangle themselves again with the yoke of bondage.
In pursuance of this end, Galatians takes one important step beyond Romans,
although clearly involved in the doctrine of the latter. Romans says we are
dead with Christ to sin and the law; Galatians adds that we are crucified to
the world, and a new creation.
The doctrinal part of Romans is found
in the first eleven chapters: the part with which we have to do here is the
first eight, and these divide into two portions at the end of chap. v. ii. Up
to this, we have the doctrine of the blood of Christ as justifying us from our
sins. Beyond it, we have the doctrine of the death of Christ as meeting the
question of our nature.
Yet the blood is the token of death, and as
this alone, has meaning. The difference is mainly in this, that the blood is
looked at here as what is offered to God; the death, as what applies to us. It
is, in fact, the death of our Substitute which is offered to God in the blood
of propitiation. We look Godward to see the effect for us as to peace; we look
at the sacrifice to realize the power and fullness of what has satisfied Him.
The two are bound together in the most indissoluble way. To him for whom the
blood of Christ avails, the death of Christ at the same time applies; while the
order of apprehension is undoubtedly that in which the epistle treats of these.
The first question with the soul is, "Is all settled forever Godward?" The next
is, "If this be so, how is the evil in me looked at by God?" Much else connects
itself with this, but our theme here is the atonement, and to this I confine
myself at this time.
In accordance with what has just been stated, we
find in chap. iii. 23 Christ first of all spoken of as a "propitiatory," or
"mercy-seat,"* "through faith in His blood." Access to God is the point, with
ability to stand before Him. "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of
God" - the glory that abode upon the mercy-seat, but from which all in Israel
were shut out. This language of the old types is as simple as it is profound in
its significance for us. The ark with its mercy-seat was the throne of Him who
dwelt between the cherubim, of whom it was said, "Justice and judgment are the
foundation of Thy throne," but at the same time "mercy and truth go before Thy
face." (Ps. lxxxix. 14.) How then could the reconciliation of these toward man
be accomplished? Only by the precious blood typified by that toward which the
faces of the cherubim looked, the value of which the rent vail has witnessed,
and through which the "righteousness of God" is now "toward all," the sanctuary
of His presence is become the place of refuge for the sinner. By the sentence
of His righteousness we are justified according to His grace, a sentence
publicly given in the resurrection of Jesus our Lord from the dead, "who was
delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification."
*egasterion, the regular word for "mercy-seat" in the Septuagint; not
egasmos,propitiation," as 1 Jno. ii. 2.
"Much more, then, being
now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if
when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much
more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." This is of course His
life as risen for us, as He says Himself, "Because I live, ye shall live also."
This leads on to the second part of Romans, where our death with Him
and our life in Him are dwelt upon. And as the first part has given us the
blood of the sin-offering, - blood which alone could enter the sanctuary, - so
the second gives us the burning of the victim upon the ground, the passing away
in judgment of all that we were as sinners before God. "God sending His own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Thus
we have a new place and standing in Christ wholly, the old relationship to sin
and law being done away.
Propitiation and substitution characterize
thus these two parts of Romans respectively. The connection shows us clearly
what we have before looked at, that it is by substitution that propitiation is
effected. The propitiation is indeed marked as for all, though of course
effectual only for those who believe. The door is open for all into the shelter
provided, but he who enters finds in the substitution of Another in his place
the only possible shelter. Upon all this it does not need now to dwell, as this
has been done elsewhere, and we may now pass on to look briefly at the epistle
to the Galatians.
Galatians, as to the doctrine of atonement, adds but
little to Romans. The apostle, opposing the introduction of the law among
Christians, insists strongly upon his own authority as one raised up of God, in
His grace, out of the midst of Judaism, the incarnation of Jewish zeal against
the Church, called to be an apostle of the revelation of Christ which he had
independently received. He was an apostle, neither from men nor through man,
and had got nothing even from other apostles who were such before him, and who
had been constrained to recognize the grace that had been given to him. Peter,
moreover, at Antioch, had been openly rebuked by him for giving way to the
legal spirit which he was now opposing; and here he repeats the doctrine of
Romans which he had then maintained, that not only we are "justified by faith
in Christ and not by the works of the law," but also that "I through the law am
dead to the law, that I might live unto God; I am crucified with Christ."
Afterward, he goes on to show more particularly the purpose of the law,
and, as illustrating this, the manner in which God had given it, with its
character as shown by all this. The promise to Abraham had been made four
hundred and thirty years before the law, in which God had declared that the
blessing for all nations should be through his Seed, Christ, and on the
principle of faith. But law is not faith; its principle is that of works,
righteousness through these, but therefore for man only curse for every one who
was upon that principle; and that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the
Gentiles God had to remove this curse of the law out of the way, Christ taking
it when hanging upon the tree, for the law had said; "Cursed is every one that
hangeth upon a tree."
Two things need a brief notice here. First, that
(as should be obvious, but to some is not,) the hanging upon the tree is not
itself the curse, but only marks the one upon whom the curse falls. The curse
itself is no external thing, but a deep reality in the soul of him that bears
it. This was the wrath upon sin which Christ bare for us, the forsaking of God,
which, had it not been borne, assuredly no blessing could have been for any.
Secondly, therefore, it was not for Jews alone, or those under law,
that the curse of the law was borne. The words of the apostle are surely plain
here: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse
for us, . . . that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles through
Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."
Clearly he says that blessing could not have been for Gentiles had Christ not
borne the curse of the law, and this is as simple as possible, as soon as we
see what essentially the curse is.
It is not the question whether
Gentiles were under the law. It is quite true that God never put them there;
and the apostle, in the passage before us, distinguishes those redeemed from
its curse from the Gentiles of whom he speaks. But the law was only the trial
of man as man, and Israels condemnation by it was, "that every mouth
might be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God." (Rom. jji. 19.)
It is to miss fatally the point of the law not to see in it this universal
reference. "As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man."
The condemnation of the Jew is the condemnation of all: the laws curse,
only the emphasizing of the doom of all. And had not this been met and set
aside, the blessed message of grace could have no more reached the Gentile than
the Jew himself.
This is the very purpose of the law, for which it was
"added" to the promise before given, not as a condition for it to be saddled
with, but to bring out the need of the grace which the promise implies. "It was
added for the sake of transgression" (v. 19, Gr.); not to hinder but to produce
it, ("for where no law is there is no transgression,") to turn sin into the
positive breach of law, and thus to bring out its character, and bring men
under condemnation for it. But it was added also for a certain time, - "till
the Seed should come to whom the promise was made."
But if God were
thus testing man, it was by "elements of the world" (chap. iv. 3), necessarily
bondage only to the believer, and the cross is that by which we are "crucified
to the world" (chap. vi. 14). For "in Christ Jesus, neither is circumcision any
thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation" (v. is). And Christ "died for
our sins, that He might deliver us out of this present evil world, according to
the will of God and our Father." (chap. i. 4).
It is evident that
Galatians takes up and completes the doctrine of Romans by adding that of
deliverance out of the world to that from sin and law, as well as our place in
new creation, involved already in the truth of the first Adam being the figure
of Him that was to come, in whom we are.
Go To
Chapter Nineteen
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