1

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 connection 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 forever. 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.

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."2 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 righteousness," 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 condemnation 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 person, not he himself, in his own body, had undergone them; and that we might as 1 Heb. ix. 11, 12, 14.

2 Tit. ii. 14.

really be brought into a state of righteousness, justification, acceptance with God, as if we, not he, in his obedience to death, had mag. nified the law, and made it honorable; 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 by faith is interested in the expiatory efficacy of his sufferings and death, is restored to the Divine favor; and if restored to the Divine favor, must, in the enjoyment of the influence of the Holy Spirit, the communication of which is the great proof of the Divine favor, be conformed to the Divine image. The tendency of the expiatory sufferings of Christ to gain their design, must be obvious to every one, who reflects, that they removed otherwise insurmountable obstacles in the way of man's holiness; that they opened up a way for the communication of that influence, which is at once necessary and sufficient to make men holy; and that, as a display of the Divine character, and the subject of a plain, well-accredited revelation, they furnish the fit instrumentality for the Holy Spirit to employ, in making men holy. These are but hints on a subject, which would require a volume to do justice to; but if followed out, they will be found to give important lights in the investigation of the principles of christian doctrine, and in the guidance of the exercises of christian experience.

Let us now attend to the account here given of the EFFECTS of the expiatory sufferings of our Lord. By his stripes ye are healed ;" and though "ye were as sheep going astray, ye are returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." The effects of the atonement on those who, by faith, are interested in its saving efficacy, are described by two instructive figures: the healing of diseased persons, and the reclaiming of lost sheep; both of them borrowed from the liii. chapter of the Prophecy of Isaiah, to which also the apostle refers, when speaking of our Lord bearing our sins.

"By his stripes ye are healed." Sin is often represented in Scripture as a disease. It makes men miserable in themselves, useless, sometimes loathsome, often dangerous to others; and its natural and

1 Rom. vi. 1-14.

certain termination, if allowed to run its course, is death, the second death, eternal death. Various, endlessly-various methods have been invented for curing this disease. The best of them are mere palliatives. The only effectual cure is that here mentioned: "the stripes" of the righteous servant of God. This is a cure which it never could have entered into the mind of man to conceive; and even when made known, it seems foolishness to the wisdom of this world: the disease of one man healed by the stripes of another! the death of Jesus on a cross, the means of making men holy and happy! Yet so it is: "The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God stronger than men."1

Man's disease is a deep-rooted one. It arises out of the circumstances in which he is placed. It has affected the inmost springs of life, and it discovers itself by an endless variety of external symptoms. The "stripes" of the Great Physician are a remedy which answers all these peculiarities. The expiatory sufferings of Christ, when the sinner believes, change his state. They take him out of the pestilential region of the Divine curse, and translate him into the health-breathing region of Divine favor. In the Divine influences, for which they open the way, is giving a powerful principle of health, which penetrates into the very first springs of thought, and feeling, and action; and in the views which these sufferings give us of the holy benignant character of God, the malignity of sin, the vanity of the world, the importance of eternity, there are furnished, as it were, remedies fitted to meet and remove all the various external symptoms of this worst of diseases.

This was not a matter of speculation, but of experience, with those to whom Peter was writing. "By his stripes ye are healed." You were once depraved and miserable; you are now comparatively holy and happy and you know how the change was effected. It was by the expiatory sufferings of Jesus Christ: His stripes have healed you. The same truth is brought before the mind under another figure, in the words that follow: "Ye were as sheep going astray but ye are now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." The natural state of mankind is like that of strayed sheep. It is a state of error, of want, of perplexity, of dissatisfaction, of danger. It is a state that gives no promise of improvement. The strayed sheep, if left to itself, will wander farther and farther from the fold, till it perish of nunger, fall over the precipice, or be devoured by the wild beast. Such is the state of all men by nature; but all true Christians have, like those to whom the apostle was writing, "returned to the Shepherd and Bishop," that is, overseer "of their souls.' of their souls." They have been reclaimed from their wanderings, and have found peace and security, the green pasture of heavenly truth, the still waters of heavenly consolation, under the care of Him who is the good Shepherd, the kind, faithful Overseer of souls.

And how were they brought back? It was by the expiatory suffer

1 1 Cor. i. 25.

2 The use of the word Bishop, appropriated, as it now is in the English language, to a particular ecclesiastical officer, of whom the New Testament knows nothing-the Diocesan Hierarch of the Papal and Anglican churches—is here obviously improper; and were not our ears familiar to it, would be even ludicrous.

1

ings of their Saviour. "The good Shepherd laid down his life for the sheep." Without this, they could not have been reclaimed. It is the voice of his blood; the blood "that speaketh better things than that of Abel;" 2 that penetrates their hearts and leads them to return. It is his love and his Father's, manifested in these sufferings, when apprehended and believed, that bring them near him, and keep them near him. Every Christian knows this.

It is an excellent use which one of the greatest of the Fathers3 would have us to make of this statement: "We were as sheep going astray but are returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of souls." "Let

us not despair of those who yet wander, but rather earnestly pray for them. We once wandered as well as they; the grace which brought us back can bring them back. The number of the saints is to be increased from among the unholy. Those who to-day are goats may be sheep to-morrow; and the tares of to-day may to-morrow be good grain. With God, through Christ, nothing is impossible."

Having thus very cursorily considered the apostle's statement respecting the nature, design, and effects of our Lord's sufferings, viewed as expiatory, let us now still more cursorily show the force of this statement considered as a motive to those duties which in this paragraph he is enjoining. Did Jesus Christ, God's Son, bear our sins? Was he treated, both by God and man, as if he had sinned? Did he bear our sins in his body to the cross, patiently enduring all that was necessary to their expiation? Is it not, then, reasonable and right that we should devote ourselves to him who devoted himself for us? Should we not patiently do and suffer whatever he calls us to do and suffer? If he, to expiate our sins, voluntarily took upon himself " the form of a servant," and in that form submitted to such toil and suffering, should not his people who, in the course of providence, are placed in the situation of servants, from a regard to Him, cheerfully do the duties, and submit to the hardships, to which they may be exposed? Did he expiate our sins, "that we, being dead to sin, might live unto righteousness?" that we might be freed from the irritating, demoralizing influence of a state of condemnation, and be subject to the tranquillizing, sanctifying influences of a state of pardon and acceptance with God? Should not we, then, who profess to believe in him, and through that faith to be interested in these saving effects of his atoning sacrifice, show by our cheerfully doing and suffering all the will of God, that in our case the expiatory sufferings of Christ have, indeed, served their purpose, that we are dead to sin, that we are alive to righteousness?" Have the great ends of the atonement been in some degree answered in our experience? Have we obtained some measure of spiritual health and welfare by virtue of the stripes which he received from God and men for our sakes? Surely, then, we should not take in ill part the shame and suffering we may be exposed to, especially that which we meet with on his account, for bearing his name, sustaining his cause.

It is well said by an old Scotch divine: "None can with patience and cheerfulness suffer wrongs for Christ, but they who do by faith apply the virtue of his sufferings for them to their own souls, for the

1 John x. 11.

2 Heb. xii. 24.

› Augustine.

pardoning and subduing of sin, quickening of their hearts in holiness, and healing of their spiritual distempers: which effects of his death are so sweet to them that partake of them, that they cannot but cheer'ully endure the worst that men can do against them, rather than do .he least thing that may be offensive to him." 1

Have we, in consequence of the good Shepherd laying down his .ife for us, been reclaimed from our wanderings, joined to his flock, and blessed with his pastoral care? Should we not, then, entirely resign ourselves to his guidance, and follow him fearlessly and readily through paths, however rugged and thorny, while he is conducting us to his heavenly fold? Should we not have perfect confidence in his love and power, manifested in dying for us, and in reclaiming us from our wanderings, and therefore readily do whatever he commands, because he commands it; cheerfully submit to whatever he appoints, because he appoints it?

Thus have I endeavored to bring out the meaning and force of the apostle's statement respecting the nature, design, and effects of the sufferings of Christ, viewed as expiatory, as a motive to christian duty generally, and especially to the patient endurance of such undeserved suffering as Christians may be exposed to. The practical effect of those powerful motives on our minds and conduct will be proportioned to the degree in which we understand and believe the great fundamental principles of the doctrine of christian faith on which they are founded; and neglect of, or carelessness in duty, and impatience under affliction, are to be traced to want or weakness of faith in these principles.

Let us, then, not cease to pray, each for himself, and all of us for each other, and "desire, that we may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that we may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and abounding in the knowledge of God: strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness, giving thanks to the Father, who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son; in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins." 2

1 Nisbet.

2 Col. i. 11-14.