The Atonement: Christ as the Second Adam

Christ acting as the second Adam, or according to a covenant with the Father, in the whole of His atoning work.

This idea must be carried with us, whether we consider the fundamental presuppositions of the atonement, as stated in some of the first sections, or discuss the special reference and extent of the atonement, as exhibited in section xli. (p. 312). The doctrine of the atonement cannot be understood without the idea of a conjunction between Christ and His people, whether or not it is called a covenant (pactum salutis), and whether or not we use the terms of the federal theology. The whole scheme of thought relating to the covenant occupied at one time an important. place in the Reformed Church, and in some portions of the Lutheran Church, though it never became general in the latter.

Of various elements which may be said to have concurred, if not to originate, at least to turn attention to this scheme of thought, the two following may be particularly named: the cavils of Socinus, and the subsequent rise of the Arminian controversy. As to the first of these concurring forces, I may mention that one of the objections against the satisfaction on which Socinus laid stress, was, that there ought to be at least some conjunction between the guilty and him that is punished; and he would not admit that there was any such conjunction or bond between Christ and us. This drove the defenders of the truth to assert the affirmative, and to define it. They main tained that Christ was united to us, not only as a partaker of our humanity by becoming one of us, our brother and friend, but also as He entered into a still closer conjunction as the Bridegroom, Head, Shepherd, Lord, King, and Surety of His people. Grotius, in his treatise, De Satisfactione, chap, iv., is particularly emphatic in asserting this close conjunction, on which the possibility of an atonement depends. Thus, in op position to Socinus, Grotius says, "It might be said here that man is not without relation to man, that there is a natural kindred and consanguinity between men, and between our flesh assumed by Christ. But another much greater conjunction between Christ and us was decreed by God, for He was ap pointed by God to be the Head of the body of which we are members. And here it must be observed, that Socinus erroneously confined to the flesh alone that conjunction which is sufficient for laying punishment upon one for another's sins, since here the mystical conjunction has no less power. This appears principally in the example of a king and a people. We cited above the history of the Israelites punished for the sin of David." A little afterwards, Grotius adds that this con junction lays the foundation for vicarious punishment: "There fore the sacred writings do not at all favour Socinus, declaring, as they do, that God did the very thing which he undeservedly accuses of injustice; but neither has he any greater defence from right reason, which it is wonderful that he so often boasts of, but nowhere shows. But that all this error may be re moved, it must be observed that it is essential to punishment that it be inflicted for sin, but that it is not likewise essential to it that it be inflicted on him who sinned; and that is manifest from the similitude of reward, favour, and revenge, — for reward is often wont to be conferred upon the children or relations of a well-deserving person, and favour on the kinsman of him who conferred the benefit, and revenge upon the friends of him that offended. Neither do they, on that account, cease to be what they are — reward, favour, and revenge. Add to this, that if it were against the nature of punishment, then this very thing would not be called unjust, but impossible. But God forbids a son to be punished by men for the father's fault; but impossible things are not forbidden. Moreover, injustice does not properly happen to a relation (such as punishment is), but to the action itself, such as the matter of punishment is. And here the true distinction must be inquired into, why it is not equally free to all to punish one for another's sin, and to bestow a favour or reward for another's merit or benefit; for an act which contains in it a reward or favour is a benevolent act, which, in its own nature, is permitted to all; but an act which has in it punishment, is a hurtful act, which is neither allowed to all, nor against all. Wherefore, that a punishment may be just, it is requisite that the penal act itself should be in the power of the punisher, which happens in a threefold way: either by the antecedent right of the punisher himself, or by the legitimate and valid consent of him about whose punishment the question is; or by the crime of the same person. When the act has become lawful by these modes, nothing prevents its being appointed for the punishment of another's sin, provided there be some conjunction between him that sinned and the party to be punished. And this conjunction is either natural, as between a father and a son; or mystical, as between king and people; or voluntary, as between the guilty person and the surety. Socinus appeals to the judgment of all nations; but as to God, the philosophers doubted not that the sins of parents were punished by Him in the children." I shall not quote further from this memorable chapter of Grotius, in which he overwhelms his opponent by the testimony of all classical antiquity. I have adduced this discussion, only to show how men came during the course of it to adopt and maintain a certain necessary conjunction between the Redeemer and the redeemed, which involved something more than a mere community of the same nature, and, in a word, the elements of a covenant.

But another cause concurred with the former. When the Arminian debates arose, and the five points were debated, many were led, during the course of this discussion, more and more to the conclusion that there was a given party in whose behalf all the provisions of redemption were contrived and carried into effect. Thus, Amesius, Coronis, p. 112, expresses himself: "Addam etiam insuper, si nullo modo versabatur ecclesia in mente divina, quum unctus et sanctificatus fuit Christus ad officium suum, turn caput constitutus fuit sine corpore, ac rex sine subditis ullis in praesentia notis, vel omniscio ipsi Deo: quod quam indignum sit thesauris illis divinae sapientiae qui in hoc mysterio absconditi fuerunt, non opus est ut ego dicam. Hoc unum perpendat cordatus Lector satisfactionem illam Christi pro nobis nocentibus susceptam valere non potuisse, nisi aliqua antecedente inter nos et Christum, conjunctione; tali scilicet qua designatus est a Deo ut caput esset corporis, cujus nos sumus membra; ut Vir cl. Hugo Grotius, relictis remonstrantibus, quos alibi defendit ingenue concedit. — Defensionis fidei Catholicae, pagina 66."

Hence the doctrine of the covenant was the concentrated essence of Calvinism, and appeared especially in a formed and jointed system, after the Synod of Dort. Cloppenburg maintained it just after that Synod. Thus these two elements above named led many of the greatest divines of the Reformed Church to bring out, and" to lay stress upon, a pactum salutis, or foedus, as necessary to a full understanding of the atonement. This doctrine has fallen out of the prominence it at one time occupied in theology. But whatever view may be held as to that scheme of thought, there is no room for two opinions as to the scriptural character of the doctrine, that there must be a certain conjunction between Christ and the redeemed.

It is due to the federal theology to state, that it was only meant to ground and to establish the undoubtedly scriptural doctrine of the two Adams (Rom. v. 12-20; 1 Cor. xv. 47). These are by no means to be regarded as two different lines of thought, or as two mutually exclusive modes of representing truth. They proceed on the same principle, and they come to precisely the same result, — the one from the view-point of humanity, the other from the counsels of the Trinity. No one can doubt, who examines the federal theology, that the design of those who brought that scheme of thought into general reception in the Reformed Church for two centuries, was principally to ground, and to put on a sure basis, the idea of the two Adams; that is, to show that there were, in reality, only two men in history, and only two great facts on which the fortunes of the race hinged. The leading federalists were Cloppenburg, Dick son the Scottish divine (who developed it so early as 1625 — see Life of Robert Blair, in the Wodrow publications — several years before the work of Cocceius, De Foedere, appeared in 1648), Cocceius, Burmann, Witsius, Strong, Owen, etc. etc. It became a magnificent scheme of theological thought in the hands of these men, and of others who took it up with ardour. That foreign thoughts afterwards came to be introduced into it, and that it became complicated by many additional elements, brought in to give it completeness, but which only lent it an air of human ingenuity and artificial construction, cannot be denied. But as to the point already referred to, there is no doubt that they intended to establish, by this mode of representation, that Christ and His people were to be regarded as one person in the eye of law; and that, properly speaking, there were only two heads of families, and only two great facts in history — the fall and the atonement.

Against this whole scheme of thought, a reaction set in a century ago. Nor can this be wondered at, when we remember that it was overdone at that time, and that a reaction was only the effort of the human mind to regain its equilibrium — as is always the case when anything is carried too far. It was over done, and now it is neglected.

But it is by no means to be repudiated, or put among the mere antiquities of Christian effort. This, or something like it, whether we adopt the federal nomenclature or not, must occur to every one who will follow out the revealed thoughts uttered by Christ Himself to their legitimate consequences. The only objection of any plausibility is, that the notion of a covenant presupposes a twofold will in God. To meet this objection, springing from an exclusive regard to the unity of the Godhead, it may be remarked, that the supposition of a council or covenant, having man's redemption for its object, has no more difficulty than the doctrine of a Trinity. Each person wills, knows, loves, and exercises acts to one another and to us; and as they are personally distinct in the numerical- unity of the divine essence, so, according to the order of subsistence, they each will, though not apart and isolated. Accordingly, Dr. Owen remarks against Biddle, in his Vindiciae: "Because of the distinct acting of the will of the Father, and of the will of the Son, with regard to each other, it is more than a decree, and hath the proper nature of a covenant or compact."

Whatever view may be taken, however, of that scheme of thought, the one important matter on which no doubt can be entertained by any scriptural divine, is, that as Adam was a public person, the representative of all his family, according to the constitution given to the human race, as contradistinguished from that of other orders of being, so Christ, the Restorer, stands in the same position to His family or seed. The world could be redeemed on no other principle than that on which it was at first constituted. Augustin's formula, ilk unus homo nos omnes fuimus, as applied to the first man, is perhaps the very best that has ever been given; and the same formula may be applied with equal warrant to the second man, the Lord from heaven. As applied to the atonement, this principle of a covenant, or of a conjunction between Christ and His seed, is simple and easily apprehended. The conditions being fulfilled by the second man, His people enter into the reward.

Thus Christ was commissioned to do a work for a people who were to reap the reward. The Father laid on Him the conditions given to Adam, with the additional one derived from guilt, and claimed satisfaction from the Son undertaking to act for a seed given to Him. Man could be redeemed only on the principle or constitution on which God placed him at first, and not on one altogether different; and the one aim of the federal theology was meant to base and to ground this biblical truth.

George Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Atonement as Taught by Christ Himself, Appendix on Sec. X.

He Was Numbered With The Transgressors

I may here notice another saying of Christ...containing ... a deep significance, which can only be apprehended when we read it in connection with Christ's suretyship or representative character. He said, before leaving the upper room, where He celebrated the last supper: 'This that is written of Me must yet be accomplished in Me, And He was numbered among transgressors' (Luke xxil 37). Now, are we to regard this remark of Christ, which embodies a quotation from Isaiah's prophecy, as containing nothing more than a description of the opinion entertained by men respecting Him? Does it mean that He was treated as if He had been a transgressor, or in a way which might have led a hasty observer or an undiscerning spectator to conclude that He was, or might be, a transgressor? No; by no means. Our Lord plainly takes the words in all their fulness of significance. He uses them not as denoting a mere as if, but as descriptive of the real sentence due to transgressors, and of the doom or punishment consequent on that righteous sentence carried out against transgressors. That is the meaning of the words; and the rationale is supplied by the fact, that the expression occurs in a chapter which, beyond doubt, predicts the vicarious sufferings of Christ, and repeats again and again the great thought, 'that He bore the sins of many' (Isa. liii.). No candid interpreter, interpreting simply by language, can have any other impression than this, that the righteous servant there named delivers many by a vicarious atonement. And Jesus, by quoting this statement as awaiting its accomplishment in Himself, manifestly applies that whole chapter of Isaiah to His own sufferings and death. We can interpret our Lord's words only in the sense that He was to be judicially numbered among transgressors, that is, numbered agreeably to the execution of a judicial sentence with transgressors. When Mark applies the same quotation to the position assigned to Christ between the two thieves at His crucifixion (Mark xv. 28), he brings out its meaning in all its compass of allusion. But He by no means excludes the preparatory stages of its accomplishment, or that which preceded the fact adduced as its fulfilment. The words, 'He was numbered with transgressors,' were accomplished not only when He shared a common lot with the malefactors, but also in all that preceded the erection of the three crosses on Golgotha, and, in fact, from the moment of His delivery into the hands of men. It was thus a judicial numbering of Christ with transgressors.

(1) The ARREST of Christ in the garden as if He were a criminal was the first step to the accomplishment of the prediction ('He was numbered among the transgressors'). He was there treated as a seditious man and as a malefactor in the room of us sinners, who had forfeited our freedom. We are evil-doers in so far as our relation to the city of God is concerned, that is, men who had renounced their dependence and allegiance, and who acted in all things as disobedient subjects. That arrest by the hand of justice was a real transaction at the hand of God, — was, in fact, the arrest of the guilty criminal in the person of the representative. And if the veil had been drawn aside, it would have been seen that all this was in the room of the sinner who should have been so apprehended. This is a real, not a symbolical transaction. And if the representative is seized, they whom He represented must go free. There is such a meaning in our Lord's words: 'Let these go free' (John xviii. 8). Our Lord deeply felt, indeed, the rude arrest in His tender human feelings when He said: 'Are ye come out as against a thief, with swords and with staves to take Me?' (Mark xiv. 48.) But He well knew, that though personally sinless, He was there in the room of sinners, and that the officers, acting as the ministers of God, seized Him as the sinner should have been seized. But, at the same time, to show how little human power could have prevailed against Him, unless He had given His consent, it was deemed fitting to let out some display or outbeaming of His majesty; and the utterance of the simple words, 'I am He,' prostrated the officers and band to the ground (John xviii. 6). Though innocent of the charge of sedition and blasphemy on which He was ostensibly arrested, His people were not; and hence He must needs be seized and bound in His capacity as the sinner's representative. When we see the Son of God bound in chains, what does the transaction exhibit but the captivity consequent upon our sin, which He had made His own, or the chain binding the sinner to the judgment of the great day? His arrest is His people's liberty; His bonds are their release.

(2) Not to mention all the intermediate points in the successive steps of Christ's sufferings, we shall notice, next in order, His TRIAL AND SENTENCE BEFORE THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURT, on the charge of blasphemy. In this whole transaction, when sentence of death was pronounced by the high priest, we have but the visible part of the great assize. He must, as the substitute of sinners, be found innocent, and yet made guilty, — be proved personally spotless, and yet be treated by the sentence given as one who was to be regarded as officially worthy of condemnation. And this anomalous trial brings together at all points these two things. The sentence by which He was condemned only indicated or announced the sentence passed by God upon the sin-bearer. The accusation on which He was tried in the Sanhedrim, AS brought against us, is not false. Moses accuses us, that the revelation given in the name of God has been disregarded and despised, and that the divine perfections have only been blasphemed by us. The accusation is so true and so undeniable, that there is no need of witnesses. The representative of sinners in His official capacity is silent, and puts in no plea in arrest of judgment. But His personal innocence must be apparent. And it was only His own true declaration of what He was as a divine person which brought down on Him, in lack of other evidence, the sentence that He was worthy of death. He thus appears personally innocent, but representatively guilty; and unless we carry with us these two ideas as the key to the whole trial, the narrative will be inexplicable, and the fact in the moral government of God an impenetrable mystery. That earthly court, dealing with the charge of blasphemy, or dishonour to the name and works and word of God, sentenced the sinner's surety, and pronounced upon our sin, much in the same way as the shadow on the sun-dial registers the movements taking place in another sphere. He was personally innocent; but as He stood there for us, He was truly chargeable with all the accusation which was then adduced. His silence at that tribunal opens our mouth to cry, 'Abba, Father.'

(3) The MOCKERY, the shame, and the indignity to which He was subjected, constituted the next part of His vicarious suffering. They were undeserved by that meek and patient sufferer, but well merited by us, in whose name He appeared, and whose person He bore. The wicked 'shall rise to shame and everlasting contempt' (Dan. xii. 2). And from that merited scorn due to sinners from all holy beings the sinless substitute was not exempt. He hid not His face from shame and from spitting.

(4) Omitting the desertion of His disciples and the denial of Peter, we advance to the next public act in connection with Christ's sufferings, — the trial and condemnation at the bar OF THE ROMAN GOVERNOR, ON A CHARGE OF REBELLION OR SEDITION. This is very much of the same kind with the trial before the high priest upon a charge of blasphemy, and is to be considered in a similar light. The course of our Lord's sufferings may with advantage be traced, as we have already done, on the sinner's history, and read off from it. The surety encountered, at each successive step, what should have taken place in the history of man's relation to God. For the very same relations, and not merely analogous ones, were occupied by the surety when He was tried and sentenced and condemned. It is note worthy that at Pilate's bar Jesus was silent (Matt. xxvii. 14). The explanation is to be found in the fact, that though personally sinless, He really, and not nominally, occupied the sinner's place. Hence the silence. He puts in no plea in arrest of judgment or in self- vindication. He was there not in His personal capacity, but in His official capacity, as the representative of sinners and the voluntary sin-bearer. He has nothing to adduce in extenuation or in exculpation, since every mouth must be stopped, and the whole world become guilty before God. He accepts the charge of guilt; and as the doom is the sinner's, not His, He submits to it as merited. When Pilate wished to deliver Him, if Jesus would only be aiding in His own defence, the Lord continued silent before His accusers, amid all the accusations adduced against Him. He was then making a real appearance at the bar of God, of which that earthly court of justice was but the foreground. He was personally innocent, and officially guilty. Hence His silence.

We must notice this anomalous trial specially in connection with the fact that He was sentenced as guilty while pronounced innocent. The examination of the judge was meant to serve the important purpose of manifesting the innocence of Jesus. And the startling fact, that a judge pronounces Him innocent, but condemns Him as guilty, must be historically brought about in the adorable providence of God, in order to exhibit the personal and the official in the Lord Jesus; or, in other words, to discover the sinless one and the sin-bearer. No man could more emphatically testify to Christ's innocence than Pilate. He had examined the accusations; he had heard all that the witnesses could adduce against Him, and was perfectly informed of everything in the case; and five times he declared that he found no fault in Him. This was done, too, in public, before His accusers, and in the presence of the vast multitude. And, not content with that public announcement, he, when he yielded at last to the clamour for the crucifixion, confirmed his judicial testimony to His innocence by the significant symbolical action of washing his hands, and declaring that he was innocent of the blood of that just man. It was fitting that all this should be done by a judge, and from the judicial bench, that Christ's innocence might be made apparent; and next, that the inference might be drawn that the doom of the guilty was transferred to Him as standing in a vicarious position. Thus He was personally innocent, though He was by no means to be accounted so in that official and vicarious capacity, in which alone He stood at Pilate's bar. There is no way of elucidating that anomalous trial, which went through the due forms of law, unless we hold that He was truly innocent, but officially guilty.

(5) The last step of Christ's sufferings, the crucifixion, immediately followed the sentence of Pilate. The intermediate details, such as the mockery, scorn, and indignity inflicted on Him in many forms, we shall omit; though these, too, were vicarious, as appears from the words, 'by His stripes we are healed.' We shall omit, too, the Lord's words to the daughters of Jerusalem when they wept for Him tears of sympathy, as He toiled along the public way under the burden of the cross, — tears which, He shows them, were out of place as shed for Him. We shall limit ourselves to the crucifixion itself and to the closing acts of His life.

The crucifixion, a Roman mode of punishment, was not only peculiarly painful and ignominious in the sight of man, but was meant to indicate the amazing fact, that Christ, by being suspended on the tree, was made a curse. The words of Moses quoted by Paul are express to this effect (Gal. iii. 13). The Lord Jesus was thus, personally considered, the beloved Son and the sinless man, but, officially considered, the curse-bearer in the room of sinners. The Son of God, truly bearing sin with a view to condemn it in the flesh, was exhibited as made a curse by the very fact of enduring this punishment. We have thus to draw the same distinction, as we already mentioned, between Christ considered personally and Christ considered officially. If there ever was a spot where sin could be laid without entailing the inevitable doom of a righteous condemnation, it was here when it was borne on the sinless humanity of the incarnate Son; and we see that even there sin was condemned in the flesh and righteously visited. The surety was tried, sentenced, condemned, and made a curse for us, that we might not come into condemnation.

During those awful hours on the cross when made a curse for us, the Lord Jesus sustained that desertion, which was just the endurance of the death of the soul, when sin separates between God and the soul, and when God hides His face from us. To this it is not necessary to refer further, after what was said in the previous section. The actions of the Lord Jesus when He hung on the cross, were in the highest degree momentous and significant. These expiatory sufferings, 'an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour' (Eph. v. 2), were so efficacious, that they were made the ground of two signal displays of grace, even while He was on the cross. The one of these was the salvation of the dying malefactor, who was made an eminent trophy of His redemption work, and was enabled to recognise Him as a sufficient Saviour, even in that deep abasement and humiliation. The other was the prayer for forgiveness to His crucifiers, whether we regard the scope of the prayer as comprehending the individuals then before Him, or as extending to the preservation of the Jewish nation.

After these hours of inconceivable sorrow and desertion on the cross, under a darkness which just resembled the blackness awaiting the lost, the Lord felt that His work was accomplished; and He gave utterance to that saying which has brought light, rest, and liberty to so many minds: 'It is finished' (John xix. 30). He meant that the expiatory sufferings had reached their climax, and were sufficient, that the guilt of mankind was fully atoned for, and that there was nothing left undone. He felt that God and man were reunited and reconciled; and now He had but to resign His spirit into His Father's hands. As priest and victim, He had only now one act to perform, — to lay down His life by the priestly act of commending His spirit to God. Nature was not exhausted, nor did life ooze away; for He still had power over His own life, and no man took it from Him (John x. 18). After having done all and endured all, He deemed it fitting, without more delay, to resign His life or spirit into His Father's hand as an acceptable sacrifice. It was the High Priest offering up His soul to God that said, 'Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.' And He uttered it with a loud voice, to show that strength still remained in Him, and that, by His own authority, He released the spirit from the lacerated and wounded body.

The curse was, 'Thou shalt die;' and now it was exhausted, and sin annihilated. Now heaven and earth were reunited; God and man were at one again.

George Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Atonement as Taught by Christ Himself

The Doctrine of the Trinity is the Very Essence of Christianity

“The doctrine of the Trinity is not so much a point among many as the very essence and compendium of Christianity itself. It not only presents a lofty and sublime subject of contemplation to the intellect, but furnishes repose and peace to the heart and conscience. To explain this mystery is not our province. All true theologians, who have trained and disciplined minds in the right school, whether in expounding positive truths or in combating erroneous views, have uniformly accepted it as their highest function simply TO CONSERVE THE MYSTERY and leave it where they found it, in its inscrutable sublimity, or, as the poet expresses it, “dark though excessive bright.” Leibnitz happily said, If we could bring it within the terms of any humanly constructed definition, it would be a mystery no longer. The zeal and erudition of the Fathers, accordingly, were mainly employed to retain and preserve the mystery.

 

“And when we look at the doctrine from the practical point of view, a belief of this great truth is absolutely essential to the Christian man and the Christian Church. Without it, Christianity would at once collapse. As this doctrine is believed on the one hand, or challenged on the other, Christian life is found to be affected at its roots and over all its extent. Every doctrine is run up to it; every privilege and duty hang on it. It cannot escape observation that scarcely a heresy ever appeared which did not, when carried out to its logical results, come into collision with the doctrine of the Trinity at some point. Through the whole history of opinion, the ever-recurring fact presented to us is that, however a man may begin his career of error, the general issue is that the doctrine of the Trinity, proving to an unexpected check or insurmountable obstacle in the carrying out of his opinions, has to be modified or pushed aside; and he come to be against the Trinity because he has found that it was against him.

 

“The attacks on the Trinity, menacing though they might be at the time, have commonly been the occasion of real benefit to the Church. The Church might have been less on the alert than was found to be imperatively necessary when asked, for instance, by the Sabellian to allow within her pale a mere modal distinction in the Trinity, as asked by the Arian to give a certain amount of liberty to such as questioned the or denied the supreme Deity of the second or third person of the Trinity. By varied discipline and experience, she has been schooled to apprehend the doctrine of the tri-personal God, or of the threefold personality in unity, as the most fundamental, vital, and practical of doctrines; that it forms the ultimate ground of every truth; that it is absolutely intertwined with the essential provisions of the gospel; and that the plan of salvation cannot be left standing entire, if this great doctrine, the keystone of the arch, is either loosened or displaced.

 

“The Church, accordingly, has always posted herself here as in the Thermopylae, where her last stand is to be made. She knew that, without this doctrine, the Creed would have no coherence, nor her members solid peace. The enlightened Christian neither expects nor wishes to find that which will not baffle his contemplation by its vastness, nor dazzle him by its splendor. Nay, the appeal to the ADORING WONDER of the finite mind becomes more powerful when its limited capacity fails to comprehend the theme in all its magnitude. The Christian Church, feeling that she has to believe what God has condescended to declare, and alive to the fact that there is no loyalty greater than the loyalty of the intellect, calls for the submission of the finite reason. Hence everyone feels the force of these beautiful words of Gregory Nazianzen in reference to the Trinity. In his sermon on Baptism he says: ‘I cannot think of the ONE but I am immediately surrounded with the slendour of the THREE; nor can I clearly discover the Three, but I am suddenly carried back to the One.’

 

“The objection to the Trinity on the ground of the unfathomable mystery, has been repeated in every successive age. And it may not be out of place to say that if there had been no mystery, an opposite objection might not improbably have emanated from the very same parties. Had there been no inscrutable doctrines beyond the sounding line of man’s reason, no profound mysteries in the revealed account of God’s Being, purposes, and works, - if such a thing were conceivable in a revelation communicated from God to man, - the objectors might have decried and depreciated it from a wholly different point of view as a stale, flat, and unprofitable message, which had nothing in it worthy of the claims which it made on men’s minds, because it had nothing beyond the discovery of the human understanding.”

The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, George Smeaton (pp 4-7)

Notable Quotes 3

There are phrases and title used in regard to Himself which argue that He was conscious of a quite uniquw relation to the world, or, more strictly, to a flock or people whom He acknowledges as His. Of these expressions we shall adduce a few. The terms commonly used in the doctrinal discussions of the atonement, and are drawn from Bible phraseology, such as SURETY, MEDIATOR, HIGH PRIEST, ADVOCATE - all representing Him as our substitute, who appears in the presence of God for us, and conducts our cause, - are not indeed found in the Lord's own words descriptive of Himself. But, beyond question, the thing is there; and He acts as fully conscious that, except through Himself, as Mediator, God could have no intercourse with man, nor man with God. He understands and consults the bests interests of His people in every respect: He took flesh, and knows the infirmities of human nature by personal experience, that He may sympathize with their condition, and compassionately conduct their concerns: He was lawfully called and appointed to that function. And not only so: the sacrificial languagee, which we find Him so frequently usinf, impies a Priest, though He does not expressly appropriate the term.

These title, both numerous and various, imply that He had a relation to manking which is unique; that He stood between God and man; that He was not an individual unit of the race, as all negative theology represents Him; but acting in a representative capacity for it. He assumes a position that no one but Himself could dare to occupy. Thus when He calls Himself THE WAY, in saying, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" (John xiv.6), He is the exclusive Way; not only paving the way for others, but constituting, in His own person and the work the only way by which any could have access to God. That this is the meaning is evident from the subjoined words, "No man cometh unto the Father but by Me." Could Christ affirm this of Himself, if He were nothing more than a teacher, an example, or a merely human founder of a new religion? Certainly not.

George Smeaton, Christ's Doctrine of the Atonement, pg 51& 52