Archive for June 13th, 2014
Now, to pluck up all these desperate consequences by the root, there needs no more than a right understanding of the true and proper notion and manner of Christ’s redeeming us. It is not by way of solution, but of satisfaction. Clearly thus:–our case to God is not properly that of debtors, but that of criminal subjects. God’s aspect to us-ward [is] not properly that of a creditor, but that of a Rector and Judge. The person [which] Christ sustained, and the part [that] he acted, [was] not, in a strict sense, that of a Surety, paying the wry debt in kind, and so discharging a bond; but that of a Mediator, expiating our guilt and making reparations to Divine Justice [in] another way than by the execution of the law; And, indeed, the very nature of a law is such, as [that] it is quite impossible that the obligation either of its threatening or command should in a proper sense be fulfilled by any other than the very person threatened and commanded: alius here makes aliud. If another suffer the penalty, the threatening is not fulfilled; nor, if another performs the duty, [is] the command [fulfilled]: for, “the obligation as to punishment lies on the person threatened;” (noxa caput sequitur); and that to duty, on the person commanded. It cannot be fulfilled in kind by “another,” but it ceases to be the same thing, and becomes “another thing” from that in the obligation: yet it may be such another thing (and Christ’s righteousness, both active and passive, really is such) as the rector or judge may accept of with honour and be satisfied with, as if the very same thing had been suffered and done just in the same manner as the law threatened and commanded it.
That Christ has paid, not the idem, but tantundem,–that is, not fulfilled the law (as for us) in kind, but satisfied it for us,–is most evident. For,
(1.) The law obliged the sinner’s person to suffer: Christ was no sinner.
(2.) All men to suffer; forasmuch as “all had sinned”: Christ was but one man.
(3.) The punishment due by law was eternal: Christ suffered but for a season, and is “entered into his glory.” (Luke xxiv. 26.) Thus Christ paid not the same thing that was in the obligation, but something equivalent thereunto.