THE KING’S BUSINESS
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of Alexandria, and others belonging to that particular Greek school endeav ored to explain it as a mystic act on the part of Christ whereby men are brought into unity with God. Origin taught that man through sin became subject to Satan and God offered Christ as a price which was paid to Satan for the freedom of men. The fathers of the Latin Church, where the judicial idea was prominent, conceived of the death of Christ as a satisfaction to divine justice. Augustine was the most prominent scholar among those accepting this theory and in his inter pretation of the fact his emphasis was practically altogether laid upon this phase of it. It was in the time of Anselm, how ever, that this subject came to occupy the chief place in the discussion of Christian dogmas. In his great book, “Cur Deus Homo,” he worked out what is known as the commercial the ory of the atonement. The theory is that man through his sin robbed God of His due and therefore became in debted to Him. Christ, as man’s rep resentative, paid this debt in His death on the cross. Abelard, a very fine man and able scholar, opposed this theory and developed what is known as the “Moral Influence” theory. He found the real significance of the deatfi of Christ in the example He set and the good moral influence this example had upon men. The theologians of the Reformation went back to Augustine and took up the judicial conception of the atone ment and emphasized that the death of Christ was essential to satisfy the interests of a moral universe in which the justice of God must be recognized and satisfied. In our day three types of theory find support in various quarters of the church. _First, there is the “Penal Substitu tion” theory which is that Jesus died
in our stead in order to satisfy the justice of a righteous God. Second, there is the “moral influ ence” idea, which means that it was not essential for Christ to die in order to save the world, but He submitted to death for the sake of the moral in fluence He would have over the race. Third, there is what we might term the “Mystical” or “biological” theory, which in many respects resembles the old Greek theory. Christ was matte what we are, and because of that re lation it was necessary for Him to die in order that He might make us what He is. No one theory, nor all of the the ories that we have referred to put to gether, can be said to cover all the facts involved in the simple statement of Scripture. The fact is more than any theory concerning it. It is more than all the theories that men can have concerning it. It has to do with the relations between God and man, and therefore touches the infinite reaches of the life of God as well as the com plex life of man. God was in Christ reconciling the world to. Himself. The death of Christ is a part of that process of reconciliation. The reconciliation was made necessary because man sinned against God. In our study of sin we saw that it is rebellion against God resulting in a failure to be what God intended man to be. This failure means an alienation of life which means discord, sorrow, and death. In order to be reconciled to God all these facts have to be reckoned with. Sin with its guilt must be dealt with and new life given so that man may be what he was intended to be. As a matter of history these are the very things that Jesus did in His cross. The apostles preached the remission of sins through His death, and men accepted their statement, confessed their sins, asked forgiveness and
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