CHAPTER XXXVIII.

REDEMPTION.

What Two Views of Redemption of the Soul from Consequences of Sin?

(1) THE intercessional, and (2) the evolutional.

The former particularly emphasizes as essential thereto, repentance, intercession, "justification by faith" in and reliance upon a certain "plan of salvation," etc. This plan or scheme of salvation is commonly considered to comprise a thesis of five points or dogmas: (1) a “fall of man,”—a corruption of his nature whereby every person has incurred the penalty of eternal anguish; (2) a vicarious atonement by Christ, who through his sufferings and death satisfied the divine law, and opened a way of escape from the penalty and anguish to all who by faith accept the benefit of his sacrifice; (3) the deity of Christ, which alone could have made his atonement satisfactory in lieu of the whole human race; (4) the publication of this danger, and of the plan of redemption, in an inspired revelation authenticated by miracles; and (5) the eternal blessedness of all who accept and believe in this "plan of salvation," and the everlasting torment of those who reject and disbelieve it.

The "covenant of redemption " and "justification by faith" have sometimes been stated to import that, "before the creation of the human race, God stipulated with Christ that the sins of the redeemed should be imputed to the innocent Christ, who should be condemned and put to death, that whoever should heartily consent to the covenant of reconciliation offered through Christ should, by the imputation of his obedience unto them, be justified and holden righteous before God."

Five bleeding wounds.

"Forgive!" they cry,

"Nor let the ransomed sinner die!"
The Father hears him pray - his dear anointed one:
He cannot turn away the presence of his Son.

The Spirit answers to the blood,

And tells me I am born of God.

Charles Wesley.

The human sense of weakness

Elvina M. Hall.

Omar Khayyam.

of dependence on some

higher power for rescue from woes will be recalled, not wholly without analogy, in the passage in The Light of Asia where Gautama is represented as becoming the Buddha:

-

Edwin Arnold.

Poetic portraiture as in case of Milton and some others has even represented the "Covenant" as having been executed between two persons and attested by a third person in a sort of Trinity-council.

Calvin's view* is: (1) God was an enemy to man until Christ died; (2) Christ satisfied the justice of God, and paid our debt; (3) he was a substitute who suffered God's wrath and all the punishment due to sinners; and (4) he thus reconciled God to man, and made it possible for God to forgive our sins, which he could not have done otherwise, even though man repented.

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In support of Calvin's view, Paul's words are appealed to,— "enemies," 99 66 reconciled," "ransom. redemption," etc. Το which the "free-will" advocates reply that Paul declared God to be not an enemy, but the opposite: God, "by his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sin, hath quickened us together with Christ, and saved us by free grace"; † that the words "ransom," "sacrifice," etc., were

*Institutes, Book ii., chap. xvi., §§ 2 and 10. † Eph. ii., 5.

Paul's most natural nomenclature in his answer to the amazed questionings of Jews, Greeks, and Romans,—"How can there be a religion without ritual, temple, or victim?" — namely, "Christ is our sacrifice, our passover, our lamb slain from the foundation of the world."

(1)

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The Assembly's "Confession" says: "Our first parents sinned," etc. "They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed and the same death in sin conveyed to all their posterity." In support of this view, three statements of Paul have been cited: (1) Rom. v., 12, 18; (2) I. Cor. xv., 22; (3) Eph. ii., 3. These have been otherwise explained to mean: "The influence of one man's sin hath extended itself over all men. Why should not the influence of one man's goodness extend itself over all men?" (2) "Since moral death entered the world by the disobedience of a single man and has spread itself over the race, why should not moral life enter the world by another single man, and also spread over the whole race?” (3) "Death passed upon all men because "- Adam? no— themselves "all have sinned." A law is not broken: a man transgresses the law, and the law breaks him. "By nature children of wrath 99 means by race or by natural position, etc. By their position in the midst of a carnal race, the life of that race flowed into them, so that they were also estranged from God, and under a sense of divine wrath.†

(2) The evolutional view of the redemption of the soul will be considered in the next two chapters.

*Chap. vi.

† As to the necessity of an incarnation for the completion of the creative purpose, see Dorner's History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, passim; also Ullmann's Reformatoren von der Reformation, ii., pp. 339-401.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

TRANSITION.

What Transitional Condition is implied in the "Free-will” Explanation of Paul's Words, "All be made alive," etc.?

THAT Paul set forth two transitions: first, from the "carnal" man, under dominion of the animal propensities, to the psychical (or “natural”) man, under dominion of the law; secondly, from this merely moral man to the spiritual man, from the law to the gospel, from effort to impulse, from duty to love. A sense of bondage, of want, is the subjective condition of redemption; the gospel of Christ the objective condition. So. long as a soul is struggling up through transition and refusing evil, it is not guilty for what it does; "not I, but sin."

This new life, this trust, this hope, was the leaven mingled in the meal till all should be leavened. Thus, while the Calvinistic view considers men in only two classes, it has been found more convenient for free-will expression to demark three. Dr. J. F. Clarke, in his eighth discourse on the "Ideas of Paul," text, I. Cor. xv., 22, As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive," concludes:

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Christ introduces a tendency to good by making God, duty, and immortality realities to the soul. Philosophy gives them to us as probabilities for the thought; Christianity introduces them into our life. Philosophy and theology theorize; religion realizes. One rests on speculation, the other on experience. By inward intuition, inward experience, call it what you will,- Christ came in contact with truth, saw it, felt it, knew it. Christianity and science rest on the same basis,-experience. Christianity is a perpetually new demonstration of the reality of God, duty, and immortality, in each generation, in each soul. Accordingly, to the religious man, God is as real as the world; laws of duty as absolute as the laws of nature; immortality, or eternal life, or spiritual existence, flowing from God, now and always, as real as bodily life, or temporal existence, flowing from the outward through the senses.

To sum up what we have said: The carnal man dislikes and shuns God; the moral man fears and obeys him; the spiritual man loves

the

and lives for him. The carnal man is his enemy; the moral man his servant; the spiritual man his friend. The carnal man is led by animal desires; the moral man by conscience; the spiritual man by love. The carnal man is moving downward toward death; spiritual man upward, toward life and peace; the moral man, even when standing still, is looking in the right direction. In the carnal man there is no conflict: he is at harmony with himself, for his higher nature sleeps, and his soul obeys his lower nature. In the spiritual man, again, there is no conflict, but a higher and truer harmony of all his powers; for body serves the soul, and soul the spirit. But in the moral man there is a constant struggle and conflict; for the flesh and spirit are both active, and the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are opposite one to another, so that ye cannot do the things ye would.

Thus we see the truth of Paul's saying, "We are saved by hope," and how it is connected with his whole system of thought. It is a hope full of immortal life. Hope gives courage, and helps us forward. The great gift of hope came to the world through Christ. He taught mankind to see an infinite Love surrounding all being, guiding all events, inspiring all hearts, and leading all things on toward an infinite and perfect good. With this hope in our souls, we can face evil and conquer it. Evil is real, it is in us, it is around us; but it is not supreme. Good is higher and stronger. Sin may abound, but grace more.- Boston Saturday Evening Gazette, March 26, 1881.

The old in religion dies out, the old error, the old dispensation, the old superstition; but not the old religion. For this there is no decline, no decay; for it is the life of God in the soul.- Orville Dewey.

These words 66 we are saved by hope - recall those of Dr. Hedge, in his chapter on “ Dualism and Optimism":

Optimism is the true solution of the problem of evil, a doctrine with which that of Theism must stand or fall. If this world is not the best possible world, then the God of Theism is not that world's creator; the best possible, not as a present finality, but as means and method of the perfect good. This is the only optimism which reason can legitimate. The time will never come when evil shall wholly cease from the earth, when all wrong shall be expunged, suffering unknown, and

Fear and sin and grief expire,
Cast out by perfect love.

Neither in this world nor in any future world is such a state possible. Evil there must always be. Old evils may be abolished, but new evils will spring. The health of humanity requires the existence of evil as incentive to effort and topic of action. Progress is better than all perfection. Finding is good, but seeking is better, if finding is to end with rest in the found. The kingdom of heaven must be always coming; but hope would expire were it fully come.