ARTICLE VI.

"THE GOSPEL OF PAUL."

BY PROFESSOR FRANK HUGH FOSTER, D.D.

UNDER the title given above, the Rev. C. C. Everett, D. D., Professor of Theology in Harvard University, has recently published a book upon the atonement of Christ. The plan of the work is best given in his own words. "It has seemed to me that one great obstacle which will stand in the way of the acceptance of the view of Paul's teaching here presented will arise from the association of Paul's form of speech with ideas which have long prevailed in the church, especially with the notion that Christ in his death bore vicariously the penalty of the world's sin. I have, accordingly, judged it best, before presenting my own view, to attempt to remove these associations. The substitutionary view has rested partly upon a theory of ancient sacrifice which I believe to be erroneous, and which indeed is fast tending to become obsolete. For this reason I have presented in the first chapter some consideration of the nature of sacrifice. The substitutionary view has rested also, to a large degree, upon the assumed authority of the ancient church. It therefore seemed best to show in the next chapter that the history of the doctrine does not furnish a presumption of its Pauline origin, but tends to make this improbable. After this, in the third chapter, it is attempted to show, by a few illustrations, that this doctrine, in fact, cannot be reconciled with Paul's language. After this preparation, what I conceive to be the true interpretation of Paul's teaching is stated and defended. This is followed by a brief glance at the relation of this view of Paul's theory of

the atonement to the rest of his teaching. It will be found to throw much light upon this, especially upon his doctrine of election."

The point of view from which the writer comes to his task will be seen best by the closing paragraphs of the book, in which it appears that he regards the teaching of our Lord to be summarized by such passages as the parable of the Prodigal Son, in which "the prodigal was received by a waiting love which demanded no vicarious suffering." The depravity of human nature and the deity of Jesus Christ are also doctrines which Dr. Everett does not accept, and which he thinks Paul did not receive. His standpoint is therefore that of Unitarianism, which sees no necessity of atonement or of incarnation. He must therefore derive the explanation of the fact that Paul does hold some sort of an atonement from Paul's personality and situation, rather than from his possession by revelation of the eternal truth of God.

The general result of the examination of the sacrifices of the heathen nations, with which the first chapter begins, is that they all partook of the nature of gifts and never of that of substitutionary victims. The argument is of very little value. Its only force can be derived from the underlying idea that the sacrifices of the Hebrews arose in the same way as those of the heathen, that is, were purely natural, in distinction from supernatural, in their origin. But the Hebrew religion claims to be a revealed religion. Even if it were not, what great force has the conception of sacrifice held by polytheistic and pantheistic peoples in determining the conception entertained by a monotheistic people? Dr. Everett acknowledges this point, and frankly says, "If, however, we find that this [substitution] was not the general meaning of the rite, it does not follow that it may not have been its significance among the Hebrews." Coming therefore to consider specially the Hebrew sacrifices, he finds Psalm 1. teaching that the sacrifices were gifts. Other passages are considered, and other

sacrifices found to be gifts. There is nothing new here, for everybody has known that there were thank-offerings in the Hebrew system.

The "Day of Atonement" seems to stand in the way of this argument, which already begins to identify the Hebrew and heathen sacrifices in nature, and our author seeks therefore to remove the obstacle. The scapegoat is the one upon which the sins are laid, and they are carried away by him, not expiated by a substituted death. Dr. Everett seems to forget that as the other goat was a "sin offering," the hands of the priest must also be laid upon his head according to Lev. iv. 4; cf. Lev. v. 1, 5, 6. The two goats do, after all, seem to subserve the same end in different ways. The view thus sought to be sustained from the Old Testament is further sustained by quotations from the early fathers, particularly the writer to Diognetus. But, as Dr. Everett does not seem properly to consider, these writers, particularly Pseudo-Barnabas, were so hostile to the Jews as to be unable to give any true interpretation to the Old Testament, almost denying its authority and inspiration. The early references to the "blood" of Christ and to his "death," so general, though so vague, point in another direction.

Modern doc

The result of the second chapter is similar. trines of the atonement begin at a late date, with the person of Anselm, and have never sought to ascertain the true meaning of Paul, but have been based upon merely theoretical considerations. And in our own day, this doctrine which has flourished less than half of the life of the church, is losing its power and passing away. We miss here any true conception of the doctrinal progress of the church through the ages, or of the problem sought to be solved by doctrinal thinking. All the Christian doctrines have been developed by slow processes, and in a series which has left some of them unelaborated even at this distant date. The doctrine of justification by faith. was not formulated till Luther, centuries after Anselm worked

upon the doctrine of the atonement; and Unitarians, and Liberals generally, pay little regard to it to-day. But the evangelical church holds it as the very truth of God. It was a legitimate process for Anselm to take the general idea of Paul, that Christ was the propitiation for our sins, an idea not fully explained by Paul, and seek, as he did, its eternal foundation in the nature of God and of things. That is the perennial problem of theology. If he succeeded only partially, he met with the same fate here as many others have met; for it is only by the successive study of generations that great vital truths have been fully given to the world. Even religious liberty is a principle which met only with gradual development. Nor is Dr. Everett always successful in interpreting his authors. He does not state the once prevailing theory of ransom from the devil correctly. The devil found that he could not keep Christ in his power because of the divine nature of Christ, which he had not understood. He eviscerates even Anselm's thought, for he does not mention the main fact, that sin created, according to Anselm, an infinite debt of honor which must be repaid. Neither does he understand Grotius, who did not teach that God might accept anything he chose in place of the full penalty, but that he accepted something, in itself sufficient, and hence a satisfaction, which he might have refused, since it was not exactly the payment demanded. The antithesis which he ascribes to Grotius: "a part of the debt paid, the rest forgiven," is also completely false. The death of Christ, according to Grotius, effected the same ends, in the nature of things, that the punishment of the sinner would have effected, so far as the government of God was concerned. He manifests complete ignorance also of the thought of the New England writers, to whom the attraction of the Grotian theory was not that it maintained "the dignity and authority of the law instead of guarding the honor of a personal ruler," but that it met a certain definite theological issue in New England, viz., that

upon the basis of the old theory, the undoubtedly scriptural doctrine of a universal atonement led directly to Universalism. It is very doubtful to the writer if Dr. Everett even understands the Socinians. Socinus, at least, has not a scintilla of the theory which he ascribes to them, that "the death of Christ was designed to manifest the love of God, and thus to move the hearts of men to an answering love"; but puts the work of Christ in his "announcing to us the way of eternal salvation," "confirming" the same, "exhibiting" it unto us by his life which we are to imitate, "exhibiting" it also by his resurrection, and finally bestowing upon us the promised salvation. Thus his "De Jesu Christo Servatore." The Racovian Catechism, as I now remember it, does not go farther. And, finally, he makes the curious mistake of ascribing to Dr. Stevens as "peculiar" to him, an idea which is the root of the whole New England theory, that by the sufferings of Christ" an adequate revelation" is made of God's righteousness against sin. Surely it requires more sympathy, and the studious labor of a more loving spirit than Dr. Everett possesses to gain even a simple intellectual understanding of the great orthodox writers of the church. And so he comes out with the result that the history of the church lends no support to the satisfaction theory of the atonement, for a different view has been held most of the time, Anselm was a "queer" thinker, and his "conceit" was speculative and not exegetical in its origin, and so a clear field is left for new efforts.

The third chapter is intended to demolish the scriptural character of the traditional theory. The majority of modern exegetical scholars have found this view supported in the Scriptures. But "all that can be said is that these students have accepted the results which had been reached by an uncritical age. No other explanation of the Pauline phraseology suggested itself; they therefore undertook to interpret the New Testament as nearly as possible in accordance with the received doctrine of the church. This they have done in good