liable, may be transferred from us, and laid on another, and the statement in the text obviously goes on the supposition that our sins," in this sense, were laid on our Lord Jesus Christ. Now what do we mean when we say that our sins in this sense were laid on Christ? We mean, that by a Divine appointment, Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son, the God-man, was, with his own most free consent, subjected to the liabilities to punishment which man's sins had incurred; and to the punishment, that is, to the evils manifestative of the Divine displeasure at the sin of man, which necessarily rose out of these liabilities. This is the truth which is taught us when it is said, that when "we all like lost sheep had gone astray, and had turned every one to his own way," God made to meet on his righteous servant "the iniquities," the ill deserts, the liabilities to punishment, "of us all." And the consequence was, "exaction was made." He not we became answerable; and "it pleased the Lord to bruise him,” and “he was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities." The same truth is stated, when it is said, "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law;" and when it is said "God made him who knew no sin, to be sin for us;" sin there meaning, a guilty person not in the sense of a culpable person, but a person, by a Divine appointment, liable to evils manifesting the Divine displeasure against sin, just as righteousness in the antithetical clause means a righteous person, a person standing clear of all claims for punishment at the hand of the Divine law, and enjoying the acceptance of the Supreme Lawgiver. It is still the same idea, when it is said, "Christ became a curse," that is, accursed, doomed to endure evils which the law denounces against transgressors, "for us," in our room, who were "a curse," accursed, doomed to punishment. Laying our sins on our Lord, is the same thing as what is ordinarily expressed by imputing our sins to him.' Isa. liii. 4-7. 2 Cor. v. 21. Gal. iii. 13. It is an acute remark of CAMERO:-" Si quis dicat Christum pro nobis factum esse peccatum et maledictum' idem certo dicitur formaliter, sed significaudi modus et considerandi Now, if we distinctly apprehend what is meant by laying our sins on Jesus Christ, we can have no difficulty in understanding what is meant by his bearing or carrying these sins. It means that as he, by Divine appointment, stood in our room, he incurred our liabilities, he was exposed to, and actually endured evils which we had deserved, and which were the expression of the Divine displeasure against our evil deserts; and that all the multiplied and multifarious evils that he was exposed to, were the consequence of his, by Divine appointment, occupying this place, and being charged with these liabilities. This fearful load of responsibility and of suffering our Lord "bare to the cross." The cross was the term of his humbled life and of his vicarious endurance. The words. before us, are substantially equivalent to, "he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."1 He continued obedient, till he had exhausted all the demands of the law on him, as the victim of human transgression, in offering up to God his completed sacrifice. He "carried our sins" during the whole of his humbled state; and still laden with them, he submitted to be nailed to the cross, in its shame, and agonies, and unknown conflicts, consummating the great work of expiation; and in his dead body hanging on it, intimating, according to the statute of the Mosaic law, "cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree," that he had been liable to the vengeance of public justice, and that he had now fully paid the debt with which he had been charged, "restored that which he had not taken away." He carried our "liabilities to the tree:" they were there crucified with him: they expired with him: they were buried with him. He rose again, but they did not they are buried for ever in his grave. "It is finished," said the Saviour; and the Supreme Ruler nailed the bond, which diversus est; nam cum Christus dicitur factus esse pro nobis peccatum notatur relatio etxes pœnæ ad culpam, cum vero dicitur maledictum notatur pœna simpliciter."-Opera, p. 518. 1 Phil. ii. 3. Μεχρι θανατου, θανατου δε σταυρου. had been fully paid, to the cross. "The handwriting which had been against us was blotted out for ever." He thus finished the work which the Father gave him to do. He completely did his will, in "the offering of his body once for all." He "finished transgression, made an end of sin, and put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." So much for the import of the expression, Christ has borne our sins to the cross. Let us now, in a sentence or two, unfold the import of the somewhat peculiar phraseology: "He, his own self, bare our sins in his own body to the tree." There is here, I apprehend, a tacit contrast between our Lord and the Levitical priesthood. Aaron and his sons are said to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the Lord: but this they did, not by presenting themselves victims, but by presenting, as the representatives of the people, the sacrifices on which the sins of the congregation had been laid: they did not lay themselves, but these sacrifices, on the altar. But Jesus "Christ being come, a High Priest of good things to come, not by the blood of bulls or of goats, but by his own blood, obtained eternal redemption for us: He purged our sins by himself." He carried them in his own person to the altar of justice; and by his own sufferings and death, made expiation for them. "He offered himself, without spot, to God." It was this which gave efficacy to his sacrifice. It was because it was "He himself," the Only-Begotten of God, "in his own body;" in a human nature, infinitely dignified by connexion with the Divine, prepared for him for this very purpose, to suffer, and die in our room, that he was able to carry our sins, even to the cross; and by bearing them there, to bear them away completely and for ever. The meaning of the whole passage may be summed up in these words: Jesus Christ, being the Son of God, has, by his vicarious sufferings and death, fully expiated the sins of men. 3 John xix. 30. Col. ii. 14. Dan. ix. 24. Heb. x. 9, 10; ix. 26. Let us now turn our mind a little, to the account here given us, of the DESIGN of our Lord's expiatory sufferings. "Christ bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, might live unto righteousness." It has been usual to consider these words as meaning, that Christ expiated our sins, that we, through the influence of his Spirit (a channel for the communication of which is opened up by the atonement), "having died to sin," that is, having been delivered from the love of sin, having had our sinful propensities mortified, may live a holy life, such a life as is consistent with righteousness, such a life as the righteous law of God demands. The passage has been considered as exactly parallel with the declaration, that "Christ gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." A closer examination of the passage will persuade us, that the Apostle's meaning is somewhat different from this. There can be no reasonable doubt, that the "sins" to which Christians are represented as dead, through the expiatory sufferings of Christ, are the very same "sins" which, in these expiatory sufferings, He bare and bare away. Now, we have seen, those "sins" are liabilities to punishment. The direct reference, then, is not to the depraving power, but to the condemning power, of sin, which is the source, the foundation, of its depraving power. To be "dead to sins," is to be delivered from the condemning power of sin; or, in other words, from the condemning sentence of the law, under which, if a man lies, he cannot be holy; and from which, if a man is delivered, his holiness is absolutely secured. "To live unto righteousnes," is plainly just the positive view of that, of which "to be dead to sins" is the negative view. 'Righteousness,' when opposed to 'sin,' in the sense of guilt or liability to punishment, as it very often is in the writings of the Apostle Paul, is descriptive of a state of justification. A state of guilt is a state of condem 1 Tit. ii. 14. nation by God; a state of righteousness is a state of acceptance with God. To live unto righteousness, is in this case to live under the influence of a justified state, a state of acceptance with God; and the Apostle's statement is: Christ Jesus, by his sufferings unto death, completely answered the demands of the law on us, by bearing, and bearing away our sins, that we, believing in him, and thereby being united to him, might be as completely freed from our liabilities to punishment, as if we, in our own person, not he himself, in his own body, had undergone them; and that we might as really be brought into a state of righteousness, justification, acceptance with God, as if we, not he, in his obedience to death, had magnified the law, and made it honourable; and that thus delivered from the demoralizing influence of a state of guilt and condemnation, and subjected to the sanctifying influence of a state of justification and acceptance, we might "serve God, not in the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the Spirit;" "Serving him without fear;" "Walking at liberty, keeping his commandments." The sentiment of the Apostle is the same as that which his "beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him," states and illustrates more fully in the first part of the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans; where he shows us, that Christians are by faith united to Christ, as dying, dead, raised again; and that the moral transformation of their character, is the natural and necessary result of their being, as it were, united to Christ in his dying, and in his rising, and in his new life.1 The ultimate design of the atonement, in reference to man, is to form him to a holy character; but its direct design, with a reference to this, is to bring him out of a state of guilt and condemnation, into a state of pardon and acceptance. Had not Christ died, men could not have been pardoned; and man remaining unpardoned, must have remained unsanctified. Since Christ has died, the man who Rom. vi. 1-14. |