Edward White on The Juridical Nature of God and the Atonement of Christ;
“Life in Christ” Chapter 19 Section 2
“Why should it be so easy to understand what the Fathers teach, and so difficult to understand the Evangelists and Apostles?”
Eastern Orthodox Apologists need to take Maximus the Confessor’s Ambigua to heart.
“The Apostolic statements respecting the efficacy of Christ’s death as an Atonement for Sin.
‘In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
‘Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’—1 John iv. 9, 10.
Such are the statements of S. John on the Atonement of Christ, with which agree S. Peter and S. Paul in all their epistles.
Nearly every reader understands that this English word, Atonement, signifies at-one-ment, or reconciliation ; and is used to denote the reconciliation of the world to Himself by God, through the death of His Son.
As commonly employed it signifies reconciliation effected by the sacrifice of Christ, whose death is regarded not so much as an ordinary martyrdom brought about by human wickedness, but as an act of God determined beforehand, who through wicked hands ‘gave his Son’ to die, to save us from death eternal.
To expiate signifies to make satisfaction or reparation for guilt by some suffering or loss. In this case it means to put 266 Is Chrisfs Death Expiatory? away sin and its punishment, by the piety or self-sacrifice of Christ The idea is, that under the government of God it was impossible to forgive men by an arbitrary act of remission founded simply on their repentance, or on God’s compassion. It was necessary that some demonstration, or ‘declaration should be made (Romans iii. 26) of a nature to uphold the government of God in pardoning sin, while at the same time maintaining the gracious character of that pardon ;—and that necessity, we are taught, led the Eternal God to deliver up His Son to die ‘the just for the unjust’ (1 Peter iii. 18). His death is therefore termed a ‘propitiation,’ a ‘sin-offering,’ a ‘sacrifice,’ through which God can be ‘just and the justifier of Him that believeth in Jesus.’ This is the ancient and the prevailing notion of the Atonement.1 Is this revealed as a Fact in the Scriptures?
Many a reader will reply,—Undoubtedly it is! There is nothing plainer in all written language than that the Apostles teach that the death of Christ was an expiatory sacrifice,— was not simply the presentation to God of an obedient human life,—nor had to do only with making men holy in the future, but had relation to the ‘ forgiveness of sins which are past.” Many would say,—We can never hope to understand the meaning of any writing if we err in thinking that the Bible— and the whole Bible—some part by type and symbol, some part by prophecy, some part by explicit doctrinal statement,— teaches that there is the closest connection of means and end between our Saviour’s death and the forgiveness of sins. This teaching lies upon the surface, and penetrates the depths of Scripture. It is indeed the leading doctrine of revelation that Christ hath ‘washed us from our sins in His own blood, and made us kings and priests unto God.’ If we are mistaken in this reading of the Bible, many would say, we cannot hope to understand rightly any part of divine revelation.
We agree with those who would from popular instinct thus determine; and fully believe that those who speak otherwise are not dealing with Scripture language by the same rule which they would apply to any other book. Yet it is known to all that it is earnestly denied by not a few able writers that such things are taught in the Bible. There are influential schools of thought, professedly Christian, and even Protestant, which zealously denounce the notion of an expiation of past sin by Christ’s sacrifice; affirming that there is no direct connection between His death and the forgiveness of sinners. They teach that Christ’s death was simply a measure in God’s providence employed to bring out the sinfulness of man; and so, by affording the noblest example of divine self-sacrifice, to influence men by example to abandon an evil life. As for pardon, — God being a Father, it is said, forgives sin freely, and without further consideration, as soon as the sinner, who is His son, repents. He requires no price, ransom, or satisfaction, whereby impunity may be purchased. Christ is our Saviour in this sense alone, that He leads us to repentance and a new life, and therefore delivers us by such change of character from the punishment due for past offences. The blood-sacrifice of Christ was His life-sacrifice ; and He gave Himself for our sins both bv life and death, in this sense, that He might ‘deliver us from this present evil world,’ by teaching us to do the will of God our Father. The man who repents becomes thereby righteous, and God gives Him eternal life accordingly ; reckoning righteousness to the man who becomes righteous in the root-principle of his being.
With this one-sided teaching accommodation is, I believe, impossible, so long as the apostolic writings are held as authority.
268 Christ dud for ‘sins that arc past?
The answer to be given to these statements rests altogether on interpretation. There is for us no hope of comprehending Christ’s religion except as explained by the New Testament writers. If Christ and His apostles did not understand, or could not clearly express, the divine message, no one else can hope to understand it. We hold, then, that such an idea of atonement as has been just described, not only fails to fill up the meaning of the apostles’ language, but offers to it the utmost violence. The apostles teach, as plainly as words can teach anything, that the death of Christ was an Atonement by expiation, or sin-offering, for ‘srxs That Are Past’ (Romans iii.), not simply a provision for preventing future transgression. They teach that God’s ‘Fatherhood’ was not of the nature of the demoralised fatherhood of the modern world; where the leading notion, on the part of bad children, seems to be that it is the part of a good parent to bear patiently any excess of rebellion or extravagance, to forgive it universally, and even to find means for these excesses, such a line of action being considered specially ‘paternal.’ But? the Scriptures teach that the Fatherhood of God rather resembles the primitive idea of fatherhood set forth in the law of Moses, and throughout antiquity, which included the judicial character ;— so that the father of a family, however loving to good children, was empowered and expected to act as a magistrate; and even to bring forth a ‘rebellious son’ to the gates of the city, and there, if he were ‘a glutton and a drunkard’ (Deut. xxi. 18), deliver him up to the executioner of vengeance; or even to decree the death by fire of a daughter-in-law who had committed fornication, as occurred in the history of Judah the son of Israel (Gen. xxxviii. 24).
The Scriptures, in accord with Nature and Providence, alike teach in every page the eternal authority of righteousness, of righteous ‘severity’ as well as righteous ‘goodness’ (Romans ix.). Revelation knows nothing of a God, forgiving sin without sacrifice or suffering,—nothing of arbitrary pardon, or of the abrogation of law, because the execution of penalty will be painful to the offender, or to the governor. In the physical world we see on all sides inexorable execution of law without regard to the feelings of the violator. In Revelation we find, notwithstanding the presence of mercy for all who comply with certain conditions, the same steadfast assertion of universal order and Divine Righteousness. ‘Thine eye shall not spare,’ is the key-note of the law.
It is necessary, therefore, to explode resolutely the sentimental and wholly romantic notion of the Divine Character, derived from bad human models, on which those proceed who now offer violence to the scripture teaching on the Atonement of Christ. Nature knows nothing of a God who makes little of broken law, directly the breaker of it discovers that he is in trouble, or even professes to be sorry for his offence. It is, as all may see, an awful thing to oppose the physical forces of nature; yet the results of transgression abide, and often operate for generations. Similarly the scripture knows nothing of this false God of modern times—all-benignant, all-forgiving—who takes no account of past sin, immediately that the transgressor desires to escape the penalty. ‘Our God is a consuming fire.’ The most prominent lesson both in Nature and in Scripture is the immense difficulty of doing away with the consequences of law-breaking; for even when sin is forgiven, its secondary consequences remain for ever. Thus it is that the law of Moses… teaches that pardon can be obtained only through sacrifice, and this not eucharistic, but expiatory. The High Priest ‘lays his hand ‘ upon the victim,’confesses over him all the iniquities of Israel,”putting them upon the head of the goat,—and then the blood is carried into the holy of holies to be sprinkled before the Divine Judge, ‘to make an atonement thereby.’ This idea is impressed on the Israelites by every complication of the ritual,— the ‘exceeding sinfulness of sin,’—and pardon only through a sin-offering. This, however, it is said, is but symbol. Yes, but a divinely appointed symbol, whose signification is made clear by the words of our Lord Himself when about to die.
What explanation does the Son of God give to His disciples of the object of His own death? It must be admitted that no words ever spoken by those holy lips ought to receive more reverent attention than His when He was about to ‘offer up Himself.’ If His death were nought else than a representative burnt-offering of obedience to God on man’s behalf, an example of self-sacrifice, for the purpose of stimulating us to live and die self-sacrificingly, He will surely tell us now. If His death were a sin-offering, an expiation of ‘ sins that are past,’ He will surely tell us that also. Hear, then, His words. He ‘took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the New Covenant, which is shed on behalf of many, for the remission of sins‘ (Matt. xxvi. 28).
We will not multiply words over this dying utterance of the Son of God; much less offer perverse criticism with a view of explaining away its force. The ‘remission’ of sins, is the word used, in its verbal form, by the same Divine Speaker in the prayer which He taught His disciples. ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us;‘ and there as here, it manifestly signifies not reformation of character, but the blotting out or remission or forgiveness of offences that are past. Here, then, at the Last Supper, our Lord declares that He died in order that sin might be forgiven unto men. His death was an atonement, an expiation, a propitiation, a sin-offering. ‘When he shall make his life (or soul) an offering for sin (asham), he shall see his seed’ (Isaiah liii. 10).
Thus also taught the apostles after Christ’s resurrection. S. Paul, in writing an exposition of the way of salvation to the church of Rome—the church of the chief city on earth,—after describing the guilt of both Jews and Gentiles, and setting forth the impossibility of obtaining justification by law, — declares that righteousness is the free gift of God to sinners through Christ, whom God hath set forth, a propitiatory sacrifice, through faith in His blood. The sense of this word may be learned in the Greek version of Numbers v. 8: ‘Let the trespass be recompensed to the Lord, even to the priest, beside the ram of the atonement or propitiation, whereby an atonement or expiation shall be made for him’
S. Paul further declares that this ‘ propitiation,’ or sacrificial expiation, so set forth, is for the purpose of ‘ declaring His righteousness with respect to the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God :— to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness (i.e., His righteousness in remitting past sins), that He might be just, and the justifier of him that bolieveth in Jesus.1
We need not add to these two declarations — one of the Lord Himself, the other of His chief apostle — writing his chief explanatory sentence, in his chief epistle, addressed to the chief church of Christendom. Neither of these statements admits of being justly set aside on critical grounds. And they are supported by the whole body of apostolic teaching ; as in the statements of the epistle to the Hebrews, that ‘He hath put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself ; ‘— that ‘by His own blood He hath obtained eternal redemption for us ; ‘— that ‘ the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, shall purge our conscience from dead works to serve the Living God ; ‘— that ‘ Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many ; ‘— that ‘this man has offered one sacrifice for sins for ever,’ having ‘ by one offering perfected for ever them that are sanctified,’ — having (Col. ii. 14) ‘by Himself purged our sins,’ —’ blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us,’ and now ‘ having to make intercession for us.’
The fact of atonement for sins made by the death of the Son of God is then plainly and repeatedly asserted in the New Testament Scriptures.”
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Life in Christ, Chapter 19 Section 3
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Anglo Judaizer 
