ATONEMENT. Sin violates the ground of union which the persona] creature has, by nature, with the holy God. The net of sin is one of separation; the act begets the state of sin, the state confirms and repeats the act. The doctrine of the A. treats of the mediation necessary for restoring the union between God and man, which has been lost by sin. The A., therefore, must ever be the fundamental doctrine in every religion of sinful creatures. In the Christian religion, it manifestly occupies this central position; for the Christian doctrine of the A. is but the explanation of its great historic fact—the embodiment in one person of the divine and human natures in perfect agreement. In the person of Christ, God and man are atoned: he is their atonement.
So fundamental is the doctrine of the atonement in the Christian religion, that it does not, like many other doctrines, form a ground of distinction among the different bodies into which the Christian world has been divided. All churches may besaid to be equally orthodox on this point. The church of Rome, the Greek church, the various Protestant churches—established and dissenting—all agree, taking their standards as a criterion, in resting the sinner's hope of salvation on the mediatorial work or A. of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, there have been from the very beginning of speculative Christian theology, and still continue to be, within the bosom of the several churches, various ways of conceiving and explaining the exact nature and mode of operation of this mediatorial work. What follows is a brief sketch of the historical development of these speculations.
Christianity differs from heathenism in the clear perception which it. has of the antagonism sin has introduced between God and man. Heathenism but vaguely con ceives of this variance, and consequently has but an ill-defined notion of the atonement required, the notion seldom containing more than the idea of a reconciled union of the individual man with nature and the universal life. Even where its mythical divinities assume personality, it is but an ideal personality without any concrete reality of life, and consequently without any real significance for the conscience. In this state, the abject subjection of man to nature prevents his rising into that sphere of conscious freedom which makes sin sinful, and demands an A. with one Who is Lord both of nature and man.
In Judaism, man stands above nature, in conscious relation to a personal God, whose written law exhibits the requirements of his relationship with man—requirements which are never met, and which only make him fearfully conscious of the ever-widening breach between him and his God. Thus the law awakened the sense of guilt, and the desire for
an A.; a desire it could never satisfy. The never-ceasing demands of these ever-unful filled requirements were constantly acknowledged by its whole sacrificial cuttus, which expressed the hidden ground of Jewish hope, and prophetically pointed to its future manifestation.
But whilst the holy Scriptures, throughout the Old Testament, exhibit the making of an A. by vicarious sacrifice (Le?. xvi. 21; xvii. 11), and the idea, both of the suffering and the deliverance of many by the sins and virtues of one, was common to all antiquity, the idea of the suffering and vicarious Messiah, plainly declared in the writings of the prophets (Luke xxiv. 46; Isaiah liii.; Psalms xxii.), and not entirely hidden from the more thoughtful and devout contemporaries of Jesus (Luke ii. 34; John i. 29), was one which was foreign to the Messianic faith of the great body of the people.
In the New Testament, Christ is everywhere exhibited. as one sent from God for the sal vation of the world (John iii. 16,17); and as the condition,on the part of man, of his obtaining this salvation, we read of the requirement of repentance, faith, and reformation (Matt. iv. 17; v. 3, 11; vi. 12; Mark xvi. 16; Luke xv. 11), whilst, on the part of God, as conditioning and mediating his forgiveness of sins, we have exhibited the entire life of Christ upon earth conceived of as embracing severally its individual features (Acts v. 31; Rom. 25; viii. 34); but more especially his death as a ransom for our sins (Matt. xx. 28; xxvi. 28), as a vicarious sacrifice (1 Peter i. 19; 2 Cor. v. 21), by which we are redeemed from the bondage of sin (1 Tim. ii. 6; Gal. iii. 13; 2 Peter ii. 1), and obtain forgiveness (Rom. v. 19; 1 Cor. xv. 3; 1 John i. 7), and eternal life and peace with God (John x. 11; Col. i. 20). Christ is therefore the Mediator between God and man (1 Tim. ii. 5), having made peace through the blood of his cross (Col. i. 20); the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2; iv. 10); and our high-priest who offers himself a sacrifice to reconcile us with God (Heb. ii. 17; v. 1; ix. 28). Moreover, we are also taught that God has in Christ reconciled the world with himself (Rom. v. 10; Col. i. 22; 2 Cor. v. 19).