The Article concludes with a statement of the object of Christ's death: "To reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for the actual sins of men."

In both ancient and modern times there have been religious sects who have denied that any propitiatory sacrifice was either needed or made. The position taken by them may be thus stated: That Christ is not truly divine, but that he is in a subordinate sense the Son of God; that his word and life are a practical help for human salvation; that he is Saviour in that he illustrates eternal principles of right. They deny the total moral depravity of human nature. On such a theory atonement for sin is impossible and unnecessary; for if Christ be not divine no adequate atonement has been made, and if man be not a sinner, and in a condition beyond self-recovery, he needs neither atonement nor Saviour.

Doubtless the influence of Christ's teaching and example in the elevation of mankind is wide, and the stimulus his life gives to virtuous living is strong, but it is by his death alone that men are saved. "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man" (Heb. 2. 9). Under the Levitical law the sacrifice was offered "to bear away sin," and Jesus was "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." He gave himself to "redeem us from all iniquity." When we were alienated from God by inherited tendencies to sin, and were enemies by "wicked works," "we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son" (Rom. 5. 10).

There are various theories of the atonement of Christ. Those who accept it in its essence will agree on these points: Sin was rebellion against God's righteous gov

ernment, the law was broken, and man was helpless to propitiate God or to offer ransom. God could not maintain the integrity of his moral government and dispense with propitiation. The propitiatory sacrifice was therefore provided. God provided himself a lamb from his own fold, "the Lamb of God," who by expiation should take away the sin of the world. In this plan the Father and the Son were in full accord. There were not two wills, the Father demanding justice and the Son pleading for mercy for a lost race. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son" (John 3. 16). "The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep" (John 10. II). It will be wise on the part of man to accept the benefit of Christ's atonement by performing the conditions on which it is offered without questioning the exact manner in which it was procured.

ARTICLE III

OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST

Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again his body, with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth until he return to judge all men at the last day.

I. THE ORIGIN

This Article was prepared by the English Reformers and first published in 1553, as the fourth of the Fortytwo Articles. It passed into the Thirty-nine Articles without change and was adopted by Wesley in his abridgment in 1784. It is a restatement of the fundamental doctrine of the Apostles' Creed, and we can trace no change that alters the sense from its first appearance to the present day.

II. THE AIM

The Article follows in natural order that on the humanity of Christ. But the structure of the Article is such as to lay stress on the fact of the resurrection less for its own sake than with a view to asserting the reality of the manhood of our Lord, now risen and ascended. Such diverse views were held in regard to the human nature of Christ that the difference must needs influence views of his resurrection, ascension, and glorification. The Article is a reassertion of the perfection of the Saviour's manhood.

At the time the Article was being prepared and published the Anabaptists were making great disturbance in the religious world. They contended that the flesh

of Christ never had been that of a created being, and after his resurrection was so deified as to lose all semblance to humanity. This Article would therefore define the views held by the English divines on this vital question, and be a barrier to the spread of error. It is probable that it was formulated with some reference to certain points in controversy as to the nature of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. In 1550 the German and Swiss schools of theology were striving for supremacy in England. The Germans contended for consubstantiation, or "the actual reception with the mouth of the glorified body of Christ present in the bread, and of his real blood." This of necessity carried with it the ubiquity of his body.

The Swiss school prevailed. The Westminster divines adopted Calvin's views of the sacrament, and this Article insists that our Lord went into heaven and there reigns, in all respects perfect in his manhood, yet subject to the limitations of humanity. He could be no more ubiquitous than omniscient without destroying his true and perfect manhood.

III. THE EXPOSITION

In the consideration of the second Article we have seen that Jesus Christ "was crucified, dead, and buried." Death has been defined in ancient and modern times as the separation of soul and body. Tertullian says, “As death is defined to be nothing else than the separation of body and soul, life, which is the opposite of death, is susceptible of no other definition than the conjunction of body and soul."2 Cicero defines death as "the departure of the mind from the body." Modern writers more frequently say it does not consist in this separation, but

1 Hagenbach, History of Doctrine, vol. ii, p. 309. 2 Treatise on the Soul, chap. xxvii.

the separation is the consequence of death; but in either case it implies that the soul exists when the body perishes, and this is the teaching of the Word of God.

When the divine Saviour cried, "It is finished," and "bowed his head, and gave up the ghost" (John 19. 30), or dismissed his own spirit, where did he go? We have the words of Christ himself to the repentant dying thief, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23. 43).

On the third day the soul of Jesus returned again, entered the same body, and he arose from the dead and made himself known unto the disciples. The time of suffering and ignominy was now past, and the time of glory and triumph commenced. A parallel is suggested between his humiliation and his exaltation. “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Phil. 2. 8). His body was committed to the tomb, and his soul went into Hades, or the place of departed spirits. In this he followed step by step all humankind, through death, the grave, and the separate existence of the soul in the place to which God has assigned it. But, his work being now done, his humiliation ended, his exaltation commenced. "His soul was not left in hell (Hades), neither his flesh did see corruption" (Acts 2. 3). He was exalted to rise from the dead: a wonderful exaltation from the bruised, mangled dead body of the Son of man, that lay in Joseph's tomb, to the resurrected body of the Son of God. He was again exalted in that he ascended to heaven, with all the perfections of man's nature now glorified; and the climax of his exaltation and glory was reached when he "sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb. 12. 2)-from the deepest humiliation to the highest glory.