Archive for January 8th, 2010
On the distinction between Atonement and Redemption:
1) The Priestly Office of Christ is that office in both natures whereby He makes an atonement. In the same priestly office and in virtue of his atoning work his Intercession is maintained. Intercession belongs to Christ as priest: it includes his constant application of his sacrifice; or, generally, all his agency in redeeming mankind, in his glorified state.1 Of the two parts of Christ s work as Priest Atonement and Intercession we speak here only of The Atonement.
I. Usage of the word, and of certain terms which cluster about it.
1. Of the terms Redemption and Atonement. Redemption implies the complete deliverance from the penalty, power, and all the consequences of sin: Atonement is used in the sense of the sacrificial work, whereby the redemption from the condemning power of the law was insured.
2. Of the terms Reconciliation and Atonement. Reconciliation sets forth what is to be done: Atonement, in its current theological sense, likewise involves the idea of the way, the mode, in which the reconciliation is effected that is, by a sacrifice for sin.2 Henry B. Smith, System of Christian Theology, 2nd ed., (New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1884), 437. [Some reformatting; italics original; footnote values changed; and underlining mine.]
Sins of the world:
1)
COMPARISON OF THE INCARNATION WITH SOME OTHER FACTS AS GIVING
THE CENTRAL IDEAS OF THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM.
I.–Comparison of Divine Sovereignty and The Incarnation as central principles.
Calvinistic theology has had unconsciously for the most part two germinant principles: Sovereignty and The Covenants; the former the older, the latter more narrow, but with some advantages. In the Confessions we often see an unconscious union of the two. Sovereignty tends to run into supralapsarianism and the assertion of the exclusive divine efficiency: Will is made to be all; the ethical is obscured. The objections to it are: (i.) It is too abstract; (b.) It is liable to perversion, to the construction that God is all Will; (c.) If it is taken concretely, i. e., if the Sovereignty is understood to stand for Plan, it comes to much the same with our principle: Incarnation in order to Redemption is God’s Plan.