Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/251

ATONEMENT. of the holy sorrow in which He bore the burden of our sins; and which, like His sufferings in confessing His Father before men, had a severity and intensity of its own. But apart from the sufferings present in that confession, this Amen from the depths of the humanity of Christ to the divine condemnation of sin is necessarily conditioned by the reception of the full apprehension and realization of the wrath of God, as well as of the sin against which it comes forth into His soul and spirit, into the bosom of the divine humanity; and, so receiving it, He responds to it with a perfect response, and in that perfect response He absorbs it. For that response has all the elements of a perfect repentance in humanity for all the sin of man — a perfect sorrow — a perfect contrition — all the elements of such a repentance, and that in absolute perfection; all — excepting the personal consciousness of sin; and by that perfect response or Amen to the mind of God in relation to sin is the wrath of God rightly met, and that is awarded to divine justice which is its due, and could alone satisfy it.

This confession of the world's sin by the head and representative of humanity was followed up by His intercession as a part of the full response of the mind of the Son to the mind of the Father — a part of that utterance in humanity which propitiated the divine mercy by the righteous way in which it laid hold of the hope for man which was in God. "He bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."

But the most influential effort to put the doctrine upon a purely ethical basis was that made by Horace Bushnell. His final theory was presented in two works. Vicarious Sacrifice (New York, 1865) and Forgiveness and Law (New York, 1874). The theory is founded upon the almost complete identification of man's moral nature with God's. Christ was under obligation to Himself to do all that He did, and neither in this respect nor in regard to the definite things which He did was He in a situation essentially different from that which we should have occupied. His great work in coming into the world is to bring men back to God by producing a moral revolution in their souls. He effects this by exercising upon them His moral power, gained by what He showed Himself to be. But He cannot thus save them without entering sympathetically into their lot, and having 'His heart burdened with a sense' of it. This was His vicarious (sympathetic) sacrifice. It involved death, because He could not engage in this work without incurring the rancorous and murderous enmity of sinful men. The death of Christ was also necessary upon God's account. As we cannot forgive unless we have so suffered for the sinner as to lose our 'disgusts' at his sin by the energy of our loving effort to make him better and convert him into a friend, so with God. The suffering of the death of Christ enables God to put away all His disgusts, and thus really propitiates Him. It is His self-propitiation. This theory seems to be gaining greatly in influence. One of the best recent statements of it is by W. N. Clarke, Outline of Christian Theology (New York, 1897).

In Germany, the most important recent work upon the atonement has been that of Ritschl (Justification and Atonement, 1874, Eng. trans., Edinburgh, 1900), in which it is maintained that the fundamental clement of the Gospel is that God is already propitious to men. Hence, the death of Christ does not perform any work of propitiation. It is rather a 'covenant offering,' a declaration upon Christ's part that He would at any price — even that of death — maintain the covenant and obey God perfectly, and a pledge given by Him in behalf of His followers that they would do the same. The course of subsequent work in this department has been to lay renewed emphasis upon the ethical element in Christ's work, and to revert to the old theories ethically interpreted. Kaftan renews the emphasis upon the idea of punishment (Dogmatik, 1897), and maintains that, for reasons lying in our whole educational development, God must, in connection with the act of forgiveness, so manifest his moral earnestness in reference to sin as to make upon us the right moral impression. Christ does not bear 'the penalty for sin which was due to man,' but He bore 'what entered the world as consequence and punishment for our sin,' and this, 'because it was the means of the revelation of the divine love, freed us from punishment and conferred upon us salvation.'

. The reader is referred, for further and fuller information on this subject, to the following additional works: Baur, Christliche Lehre von der Versöhnung (Tübingen, 1838); Hase, Hutterus Redivivus (Leipzig, 1827, 12th ed., 1883); Neander, Christliche Dogmengeschichte (Berlin, 1857); Hagenhach, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (Leipzig, 1840); J. J. Taylor, Christian Aspects of Faith and Duty (New York, 1851); Maurice, Theological Essays (London, 1853); Jewett, Saint Paul's Epistles (London, 1855); Trench, Five Sermons (Cambridge, Eng., 1843); Shedd, History of Christian Doctrine, 5th ed. (New York, 1867); A. A. Hodge, The Atonement (London, 1886); Park, collection of Discourses and Treatises (Andover, 1889); R. W. Dale, The Atonement (London, 1885); H. N. Oxenham, The Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement (London, 1881).

ATONEMENT, or A Jewish fast day, occurring on the tenth day of the seventh month (Tishri), and observed as a day of humiliation and supplication. The laws in connection with it are found in Lev. xvi., and in some scattered passages (Ex. xxx. 10; Num. xxix. 7-11), all connected with the Priestly Code. (See .) It was a day devoted to worship, on which all manner of work was forbidden; abstention from food, from drink, and pleasure commanded; and so long as the Temple stood, during the post-exilic period, a long sacrificial service was gone through. The centre of the service was the high-priest, who had, according to the Talmudical tradition, to spend the seven preceding days in separation from all persons and in careful study of the duty imposed upon him. On the Day of Atonement, dressed in white linen garments (not in the gorgeous dress of his office), he entered the holy of holies and confessed his sins. He then chose two goats, and by lot determined which one was to be sacrificed. This one was killed, and its blood sprinkled in front of the veil in the holy of holies. The second one, after the high-priest