Having noticed the provision to be made for sin, we come next to the great fact of the Incarnation as the foundation of the whole work of atonement. The Lord’s advent in flesh is uniformly set forth as a means for the accomplishment of a great result: not as in itself an end. Thus, in the Lord’s own teaching, He announces that He came down from heaven for the sake of a people given to Him (John 6:39); that He came to save that which was lost (Matt. 18:11); that He came to give His life for others (Mark 10:45). We may represent the relation between God and man in this way. Between the INFINITE GOD, possessed of all holiness and justice, and MAN, a rebel and infected with sin, there is the widest conceivable remove in a moral point of view. What can bring them together? Who can terminate the estrangement? The INCARNATION of the Eternal Son supplies the answer: this fills up the chasm and paves the way to the rectification of man’s relation. But it is equally necessary to meet the wants and cravings of the human spirit, which ever and anon exclaims: What would become of me if my Maker were not my Redeemer? (Is. 54:5).
I purpose to touch on this theme in the briefest way. The modern “lives of Jesus,” though they cannot be accepted as a satisfactory exhibition of the Incarnation, because they are too Humanitarian, have rendered a double service. They have proved that the Incarnation took place in a historic person, and in one only; and they have established the fact that Jesus came not to propound an idea but to do a work, and to become the Head of a company finding redemption and life in Him. For it is not too much to say that wherever thought is fixed on the Incarnation, as the deep ground of union to God and of reconciliation and life, a renovating influence will be shed both over doctrine and life.
Here I find it necessary to say at the outset that, in all my references to the Incarnation, I do not take up the doctrine in the light in which it is presented in too many of the writings of the present day. I do not share the view so largely adopted by Continental divines that the Incarnation would have taken place though no sin had entered to disturb the harmony of the universe. On the contrary, that view seems to me to go far to vitiate every department of truth, because it deduces the Incarnation from the idea of humanity and not from the exercise of free and sovereign love. The doctrine of sin supplies the rationale and ground of this great truth. But if the Incarnation is represented as the completion of man’s creation, or as the realisation of the idea of man, it seems to me that under high-sounding words we introduce a perilous deviation from the truth. If there still remained an extraordinary intervention to supplement the act of creation, this would introduce the most portentous consequences. Man at first would not have corresponded to his idea, and Christ would become the perfected creation. This may suit the Schleiermacher theology, but it reduces all to natural process, and is often meant to avoid the offence of the cross. The Son of God is no longer the Restorer of the lost, but the Perfecter of the imperfect.
On the contrary, according to the tenor of our Lord’s teaching, the Incarnation was CONDITIONED BY SIN, and not necessary except on the supposition of redemption. The expiation of sin, the meritorious obedience to be rendered to the law, the vindication of Divine justice, are the objects contemplated by the stupendous fact of the Incarnation, the Incarnation and the cross being inseparable. The words of Scripture announce an incarnation of redeeming love: not of natural process. If we were to accept the latter view, the inevitable result would be that the atonement, instead of being one principal object of the Incarnation, would be reduced to a subordinate and secondary matter in this great transaction. If the Incarnation must be brought about in the course of history, either from a necessity in God, or to give a realization to the idea of humanity, the historic fact in Jesus would be but one peculiar mode of what must have taken place in any case. And what becomes of Divine free love in the provision?
From this view-point we can easily obviate the objection that God never acts by occasion of anything. It is no disparagement to the Incarnation to regard it as brought about by occasion of sin, though it was by no means caused by sin. This greatest work of God is still but a free work or deed, not necessary to the Divine felicity, and therefore on the same footing with creation or any other Divine act toward the universe. But, in point of fact, so far is it from being true that God never acts by occasion of anything, that we have only to survey the history of the Incarnation from the Fall downwards to see that all the circumstances of it—its foreshadowing and prediction, as well as the Lord’s actual history—were shaped and moulded by occasion of sin. It remains that we view the Incarnation as ushered in to be a MEANS to an end. And this leads us to survey the great provision or problem from a twofold point of view.*
So you do not regret the cross, and you do not try to forget it or idealize it, or philosophize about it, and turn it into something beautiful and wonderful. No what, you say is this: I glory in it! Why? Because it is by this that 'the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.' It is the means of my salvation. It is the very way in which I am saved. In other words, the Apostle tells us that he preaches this because that which happened there, when out Lord died on that cross, is the very thing that saves us. If he had not died upon the cross, nobody would ever have been saved. There would be no gospel to preach. It is the saving event. It is the act whereby our salvation is accomplished. That is why the Apostle glories in it. That is why Isaac Watts says 'When I survey the wondrous cross.' It is the thing which saves us and without which we would not be saved at all.*
In days when immediacy is everything, and when instant solutions are demanded, there is great danger that in an effort to appear contemporary, Christians in the present generation will lose sight of the rich heritage of church teaching in this area (the atonement). Rediscovering this tradition helps to counter views, both from within and outside the church, that would destabilise the faith of Christians and lead unsuspecting believers down routes that could prove spiritually harmful. Viewing the issue of Christ bearing the punishment in the place of sinners , through the lens of christian history, helps us to appreciate why the church has come to understand the teaching of the Bible in a certain way, and why some approaches have been rejected in the past, and others retained. It raises fundamental questions about new developments- why has this not been adopted by the Christian church before? Many modern views of the atonement are a reworking of long rejected ideas, simply presented in contemporary packaging.
The richness of the way in which the bible refers to the work of Christ upon the cross has been reflected in Christian writings throughout the history of the church. However, at the heart of Biblical teaching about the atonement is the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, bearing the just penalty for sins. this profound truth draws together all other ways of speaking about the atonement; it is the operative principle that lies behind them.*
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. (1 Ti 1:15–17). Soli Deo Gloria!
For His Glory,
Fernando
*Smeaton, G. (2009). The doctrine of the atonement, As taught by Christ Himself (Second Edition) (39–42). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
*Lloyd Jones, Martyn. The Cross ( Illinois: Crossway, 1986) p. 27-28
*Shaw, Ian and Edwards, Brian, The Divine Substitute (Leominster: Dayone, 2006) p. 5
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