THE
ATONEMENT
CHAPTER XIX.
Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Corinthians.
THE epistle to the Colossians has for its key-note the
ninth and tenth verses of the second chapter - "In Him dwelleth all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him." It is the fullness
of Christ for the Christian. The first chapter gives us the first part of this,
which it anticipates: "For all the fullness was pleased to dwell in Him." The
second and third chapters show our completeness in Him: His death for us
delivering us from our natural portion; His resurrection bringing us into our
portion now with God.
In the first chapter, the work of atonement is
represented as for the reconciliation of heaven and earth, as well as having
accomplished the reconciliation of all believers: "And having made peace
through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, by
Him, I say, whether they be things on earth or things in heaven. And you, that
were some time alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath
He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and
unblamable and unreprovable in His sight."
This doctrine of
reconciliation is important as showing how far the need and value of the cross
extend. In Romans already there is the statement that "when we were enemies, we
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son;" but here it extends much more
widely, and has to do, not merely with persons even, but with things - all
things, both in heaven and in earth. There are no persons in heaven to be
brought back by the work of Christ, "for verily He taketh not hold of angels,
but of the seed of Abraham He taketh hold "(Heb. ii. i6, Gr.). It is not,
therefore, of persons that the apostle is speaking here, but of the framework
of things put out of joint, as it were, through sin, as far as sin has reached,
and which the work of Christ was needed to set right.
In this
application of reconciliation two things are plain: first, that it is not
merely a moral effect on man that is intended by it, (although this moral
effect there is, and it is a great truth too;) and secondly, that it was in the
nature of God Himself that the deepest need of atonement lay. Going on to
Ephesians, we find the apostle speaking of "the redemption of the purchased
possession" (i. 14); and in Hebrews ix. 12, saying, "It was necessary,
therefore, that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with
these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these."
Here, the heavenly things, then, are spoken of as purchased, purified,
reconciled, redeemed. In whose eyes were they, then, impure? Clearly, in His to
whom alone all true sacrifice was ever offered. It was the nature of God which
required atonement, His holiness that needed satisfaction in it. In a deeper
sense than probably Eliphaz knew could it be said, "The heavens are not clean
in His sight" (Job xv. 15). The work of Christ enables Him to lay hold upon all
that with which sin has been connected, and restore to more than all its
pristine beauty and excellency. How unspeakable is the value of that work which
not only does this, but actually glorifies Him in filling the heavenly places
with those redeemed from the fall, and made the very "righteousness of God in
Christ."
As for Christians, they are already reconciled through the
work of Christ: "You . . hath He reconciled." It is done, although not yet are
all the fruits reaped of this. Already are we before God in Christ, "accepted
in the Beloved," waiting for the adoption, the redemption of the body, to put
us in our place every way, in the very image of the heavenly. Reconciliation on
our part necessarily includes the change from enmity, the natural state, to
love, as here and in Romans both: "When we were enemies, we were reconciled to
God by the death of His Son;" "You, that were sometime alienated and enemies in
your minds by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled." The moral effect is
what is needed as to us. The power of the display of the love which has so
wonderfully met our whole necessity brings our hearts back to God. Love wins
love: "we love Him because He first loved us." Hence, for this effect, the
freeness and fullness of the gospel are essential. "Tell Me, therefore,
which of them will love him most? I suppose that he to whom he
forgave most. Thou hast rightly judged. " Question of the
love that calls forth my love is fatal to this effect. I must be delivered from
the necessity of seeking my own things, in order to live, not unto myself, but
unto Him who died for me and rose again. This, the apostle tells us, was the
secret of his life, such as we know it was: "The life which I live in the flesh
I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me."
Reconciliation was needed thus on our part, and in order that it might
be, the death of Christ must meet the demand of divine righteousness; but on
this very account it is never said in Scripture, as it is so often in human
creeds, that God is reconciled by the work of Christ. He had not changed, but
we. God had never enmity to the work of His hands, however fallen away from
Him. He had not, then, to be reconciled; and so, even where the reconciliation
is of things, not persons, it is still these that are said to be reconciled, as
we have seen. As to man, reconciliation is pressed upon him on the ground of
Christs work: "We pray, in Christs stead, be ye reconciled to God;
for He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him."
The second part of Colossians gives,
as I have said, the effect of the work of Christ for us, bringing in His
resurrection and life beyond death as giving us our new place in the efficacy
of it with God. We have "dead with Christ," "buried with Christ," almost
exactly as in the second part of Romans, our death being called here "the
circumcision of Christ," or Christian circumcision. While the "alive in Christ"
of Romans is here carried back to its commencement in our being "quickened
together with Christ." Our life in Him is thus seen, from its first moment, to
be the result of atonement. The blotting out of legal ordinances, which were
contrary to us, and the spoiling of principalities and powers, are connected
also with His work. Risen with Him, we are in spirit to be outside the scene we
are passing through, - to "seek those things which are above, where Christ
sitteth at the right hand of God."
Ephesians, as is. well known,
carries us one step beyond this. We are not only risen, but ascended, "made to
sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Here, "with" can no longer be
said, as is evident. We are not actually, but as yet only represented, there:
it is "the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to
the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him
from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places."
This is individual, of course. And though, as in Colossians, "we have
redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches
of His grace" yet the meeting our responsibility in grace is not the special
subject of Ephesians, but the new creation which we are made in Christ, and
this in its heavenly character the epistle sets before us. It is not within our
scope just now to enter upon this. In connection with it, the effect of the
cross is spoken of as breaking down the middle wall of partition between both
Jew and Gentile, both man and God. This middle wall of partition is the law,
which the apostle calls, therefore, by a strong figure, the "enmity" and its
abolition, our peace and reconciliation: "Having abolished in His flesh the
enmity, the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in Himself
of twain one new man, making peace; and that He might reconcile both unto God
in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." There is nothing
here but what is simple enough, and needs no comment. Nor does Ephesians
present us with any further development of the doctrine of atonement.
The texts we have had before us naturally connect themselves with one
already quoted in connection with them, but to which we must give now more
particular attention. It is 2 Corinthians v. 21. The whole passage runs thus:
"And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ,
and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto
them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are
ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech by us, we pray in
Christs stead, be ye reconciled to God. For He hath made Him to be sin
for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in
Him."
Notice, there is no statement here of the world having been
reconciled. It is of the attitude which God took in Christ come into the world,
of which the apostle is speaking. What Christ did when here, he says, we are
doing as His representatives, "in His stead" now He is no longer here. But that
attitude is of beseeching men to be reconciled, not telling them they are. In
this way God was not imputing their trespasses to them, inviting them to draw
nigh to Him, not forbidding access.
Now this same liberty of access is
proclaimed, but the ground of it is an already accomplished work: "He hath made
Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin." The main feature of atonement is here
very clearly given; and the force is made plainer by the contrast of words and
thought. In the same sense was Christ made sin for us as that in which we are
made righteousness; and as the sin was the sin of man, so the righteousness is
the righteousness of God. Moreover, as it was not in Himself that He was made
sin, for He knew none, so not in ourselves are we made divine righteousness,
but in Him. The antithesis in all this no one can doubt to be designed; and it
makes evident the meaning of the whole. Christ who knew no sin was identified
with it upon the cross; we as the fruit of His work, in our place in Him, are
identified with the righteousness of God. In Him dying upon the tree is seen
the sin of man; but the righteousness of God is seen, wonderful to say, in
sinners being accepted in the Beloved.
But you may say, "Is not the
righteousness of God seen also in the cross?" Surely it is; and so the third of
Romans states: "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in
His blood, to declare His righteousness;" but in what respect? "That He might
be righteous, justifying " - pronouncing righteous - "him which believeth in
Jesus." That we might be in Him, it was necessary that He should be made sin
for us; the righteousness of God no less could satisfy. That we are in Him
declares therefore the cross Gods method of salvation - affirms that
righteousness, now our shelter and defense, "the righteousness of God over all
them that believe." With this, then, we are identified forever: forever we
shall display it, as we shall "the exceeding riches of His grace."
Go To Chapter Twenty
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