11 The Fall and Atonement

CHAPTER XI THE FALL AND THE ATONEMENT.

It may seem to some readers that the Gospel of Creation as here set forth tends to make sin seem excusable ; that it appears, if we may so speak, to lay the responsibility for it no longer upon man but upon his Maker. While I can understand that this objection may be made, I do not think it will long justify itself to the reason.

I propose then first of all in this chapter to say something of the story of the Fall as we have it in the book of Genesis, and to examine how far this Gospel of Creation, which seems to me true, requires us to modify our interpretation of that story.

I may say then at once that I do not regard the story of the Fall as literally true, and indeed there are many others who do not so regard it; but its spiritual significance seems to me not one whit diminished by anything that has been said in the course of this essay. For when we come to examine the underlying spiritual truth of the story we shall find, I think, that what is eternally true in it is this, that evil is the negation of what God Himself is, and that it could only have come about by a failure in obedience to the divine will. It was important from the first, for the spiritual discipline of man, that he should be made clearly to understand that sin was hateful to God, that so long as he had sin he was alienated from God and the divine life. The story of the Fall is one not peculiar to the Israelites. [See Ryle’s Early Narratives of Genesis. Also Basting’s Dictionary of the Bible under The Fall.] What is peculiar is the particular spiritual teaching which it is made to have. This is, as I say, unalterable. But it will seem that, according to the view which I am advocating of the evolution of man, there can have been no Eden at all, and so it seems as if the whole story is given up. Let me then explain how this may be understood. The story of the creation of man is, as I take it, ideal. Man is set forth as in the eternal purpose he is meant to become. Eden is his goal and not his starting-point, save in ideal. That which excludes man from Eden is sin, and there is need of a great discipline that this may be removed and the ideal reached. This seems to me a perfectly simple and obvious interpretation of the story, and that it has not been given before is nothing against it, for, as I say, the spiritual truth underlying the story remains exactly the same, that evil is the negation of what God is, and that it results from failure to obey the divine will.

It will be noticed that the interpretation of the story of the Fall which I am proposing does not make it appear in any way as if the disobedience of man were something unexpected or unforeseen in the divine counsels. The interpretation usually given has, however, this difficulty, from which it can never get free. You cannot make evil any less a mystery by shifting back the responsibility to some other finite will, which preceded the human will in disobedience of the divine commands. The serpent creeping upon the ground may just as well stand for the lower human nature as for a personal tempter of evil.

It is remarkable indeed that nowhere in Christ’s teaching is there any mention of the Fall. There was, however, one occasion when He referred to the early chapters of Genesis in defence of the sanctity of marriage and its indissolubleness. "There came unto him Pharisees, tempting him, and saying, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said, Have ye not read, that he which made them from the beginning made them male and female and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife ; and the twain shall become one flesh. So that they are no more twain but one flesh. What there- fore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it hath not been so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery : and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery." [St. Matthew 19:3-9.]

We thus see that Jesus Christ claimed that the sanctity of married life and the indissolubleness of the marriage tie were part of the counsels of God in creation. The restraint involved in monogamy is just one of those disciplines by which man is taught to purify himself from the selfishness of his cosmic nature, and to enter into a spiritual relationship of ready self-sacrifice. We may recall St. Paul’s words : " Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his own wife loveth himself: for no man ever hated his own flesh ; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church ; because we are members of his body. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh. This mystery is great ; but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church." [Ephesians 5:28-32] But to return to the bearing of the New Testament on the story of the Fall. I do not see that anything that is essential to the spiritual truths set forth by St. Paul is impaired by the interpretation which I am advocating. It is true that St. Paul says : " As through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous." [Romans 5:19.] He says also: "As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." [1 Corinthians 15:22.] The analogy in detail may cease to hold if there be no single Adam from whom we are all descended, but the great truth of Christ’s redemption from sin wrought for mankind, and of the promise of our resurrection remains just where it was. The old Adam is as sinful as ever he was and as mortal. But here we come to the most difficult point of all, namely, the connection of death with sin. According to the narrative of Genesis it was man’s disobedience that brought death, if not into the world, at any rate upon himself. " In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." [Genesis 2:17.] And St. Paul so interprets Genesis when he says that "through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin." [Romans 5:12.] The question is, therefore, sometimes put: Would man have been immortal if he had not sinned? But the question seems to me useless. It is simply misleading to talk of ’ ifs ’ when you are trying to understand the ways of God. What is true, and true to the end of time, is this, that the sting of death is sin, and that it was man’s inability to get free from sin that made death a necessity for him. You cannot read the gospels without reading Christ’s claim to be in no way subject to death. " Therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it clown of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment received I from my Father." [St. Joh2:10:17, 18.] It has long seemed to me that the historical event of the transfiguration was, if we may so say, the outward evidence of Christ’s right to pass into the spiritual body without death. But He snatched himself away from the pre- mature glory and talked of His decease (exodoj) which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

Man then ideally is not subject to death, but death reigns because of the transgression, because man is of the cosmic and only partly spiritual. " There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body." Jesus Christ voluntarily passed through death and assumed His spiritual body out of His uncorrupted body of humiliation. We have no such power. Yet death to the Christian has lost its terrors, and we have a prophecy of a future which may be nearer than we imagine : " We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." This St. Paul set forth as a mystery, that is, as something which had been revealed to him. It seems to me to be of great importance to see quite clearly that there is a difference between this unveiling of the future and St. Paul’s use of the story of Adam, which was common property. I know it may be said that if you give up St. Paul’s teaching in one respect you must give it up all round ; you have not in him an authority to be relied upon. But this seems to me to be an entire misunderstanding of the purpose of revelation, which is to make known to us the things we need to know and could not otherwise know, and not to tell us what we can otherwise discover for ourselves. The Bible must be continually reinterpreted in the light of all truth that God gives us through whatever source it comes.

I do not then think it necessary to believe that the whole human race is descended from a single pair, nor is it necessary to regard the story of Eden as anything more than ideal. What is necessary, for it is for ever true, is to recognise and hold to the great truth that evil is the negation of divine character in moral beings, that it is due to man’s disobedience, and can only be remedied by God Himself. This brings us to the doctrine of the Atonement.

Why did God become man? The answer to this question, according to the Gospel of Creation as I understand it, would be that God came into the kosmoj to spiritualise it, to impart His own life and character to it. When Christ came the whole world was lying in the wicked one (o kosmoj oloj en tw ponhrw keitai). [1 John 5:19.] And if my thought about God be true, and the evolution of creation be, as it seems to me, a fact, those two aspects of Christ’s work for mankind which are conveniently summed up in the words Christus Salvator (or Redemptor) and Christus Consummator become one. The end of the creation is attained by the removal of all self-will and self-assertion. What man was in the counsels of God in creation, that in Christ Jesus he became.

What we call the Atonement might be equally well called the Reconciliation. It is the reconciliation of man to God, not, properly speaking, of God to man. St. Paul sets forth the message of his "ministry of reconciliation " in these words : " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses." [Romans 9:22; Romans 5:19.] And the Apostle appeals as an ambassador on behalf of Christ as though the entreaty came from God Himself : " Be ye reconciled to God."

There is of course a view of the Atonement which represents it as the appeasing of the wrath of God. Nor is it to be denied that the New Testament tells of the divine wrath as well as of the divine love. But it must be remembered that wrath and love are not contradictories, as are hatred and love. You can- not separate the thought of the wrath of God from the thought of His love, which is His essential character. It is true that we are until reconciled to God in Christ " children of wrath," because we are still in the bondage of sin. The manifestation of God’s wrath, which is very terrible and needs must be to those who love Him not, is in Scripture the evidence of the divine displeasure at sin. " The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness." [Romans 1:18.] When St. Paul speaks, as he does in of God being " willing (qelwn) to shew his wrath," we must of course understand this word qelwn as explained in the preceding chapter. It was there insisted on that there can be nothing arbitrary in the divine will, which can in no way be conceived of as changeable. God’s purpose for man must accord with His own character, and if a manifestation of evil and a punishment of evil is a part of His design for the bringing about of an ultimate good, we cannot gainsay it. We are invited to discern the divine hand in all the movements of nature and history, but in no way can we make God accountable for evil as if it were a part of His character. Evil brings always a retribution of punishment, and thus the divine character is displayed.

God’s wrath then must descend on the evil-doer unless the sin be forsaken. Then whatever chastening is endured is seen to be for the purging out of selfishness and the bringing in of the " new creation."

"Be ye angry, and sin not" is a necessary injunction to sinful man. Anger with us is too often vindictiveness and the result of wounded pride, but it is not easy for us to discern what is meant by the anger of Him who has not one selfish thought.

I do not wish for one moment to shut my own eyes or the eyes of others to the great truth which is preserved in the necessary expression, " the anger or wrath of God." This records for us the fact that sin must carry with it alienation from God and the eternal life which is in Him, and that there can be no forgiveness of sin, so long as it is excused and not called by its right name. But the essence of the forgiveness of sin must be the removal of the sin. This need not mean the immediate removal of its penal consequences. These may be still necessary for the real purging out of the old self. But the forgiveness of sins, unless it means the removal of sins, the bringing in of the true self in place of the cosmic self, is simply a mockery.

It would then be a quite misleading view to take of the Atonement to say that because of Christ’s perfect obedience to the divine will God had forgiven men their sins, unless such forgiveness carried with it the removal of sin. Say the forgiveness of sins means the removal of the consequences of sins, yet surely among the consequences of sin is sin itself. It is not the removal of consequences, but the removal of sin itself, the entire renewal of the self, the bringing in of the new man in place of the old. Nothing is of any avail but a new creation (kainh ktsij). An atonement which was wholly external to ourselves would not be a reconciliation for us. It would not bridge over the gulf between ourselves and God, for Whom we were made. On the other hand it is quite clear that we could never reconcile ourselves to God, for we cannot recreate ourselves. Some life must be imparted to us from without, and we must know the law by which it is imparted, in order that we may have it.

I take it then that the requisites for an atonement, for a reconciliation of man to God, are two: (1) Knowledge, including the knowledge of forgiveness, and (2) Life. First we think of knowledge as a sine qua non of an atonement. You cannot read the New Testament, nor indeed the Bible generally, without observing how much importance is attached to knowledge, the knowledge of God. There can be no possible agreement between two parties who have no knowledge each of the other. Now we cannot, of course, impart to God any knowledge of ourselves seeing that we are entirely relative to Him ; but He must, if we are to know Him, give us the knowledge of Himself and of our relation to Him. And clearly the knowledge men have of God must depend on the state in which they are. You cannot impart to a child the knowledge of a full-grown man. And we have to recognise that there is such a thing as a period of childhood of the human race. The education in the knowledge of God then has been, and, by the divine law, must have been, gradual. In the Old Testament we see men coming to a knowledge of God, and God, step by step, revealing Himself, not in word only, but by the events of home life, of tribal life, of national life. Inspired prophets interpreted some of these things according as the Spirit of God gave them the insight into their interpretation. The notion of holiness, by which term we have at length been taught to understand the absolute perfection of divine character, was at first vague and undefined. Men had to feel their way to its meaning. But God gave men the word and gradually made known to them its meaning. This is true of many words and notions, true of ’ sacrifice ’ as it is of ’ holiness.’

While from an early stage men seem to have under- stood that anything offered in sacrifice must be perfect of its kind, they could not see, until Christ made it clear, that the only sufficient sacrifice must perfectly correspond with the divine character. It must be the sacrifice of man himself perfectly identified with the divine will, which, as we have seen, is inseparable in thought from the divine character. Our word ’ sacrifice ’ comes at last to have its proper meaning, the making of something holy, holiness being interpreted as what God is, and the something made holy being something which has potentially, if not actually, the divine nature. The sacrifice must be the sacrifice, the making holy, of man himself. There is a fund of meaning in those words of Jesus Christ: "For their sakes I sanctify myself." Christ made of Himself an offering of perfect obedience and self- sacrifice to give men knowledge of the true meaning and end of sacrifice, to make men know God, and also to impart to them the life of God. But just now we are thinking more of the knowledge than of the life. Knowledge is a necessity to life. " This is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." " No one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth (boulhtai) to reveal him." 1 Our knowledge of God then must come from the knowledge of Christ Him- self what He taught and what He was. It is 1 St. Matthew 11:27. through Him we have "received the reconciliation" (Romans 5:11). He has perfectly revealed the Father and is Himself the Way to Him. In Jesus Christ then we have an entire absence of the cosmic spirit of self-assertion, against which spirit He was a living protest. Conceived in the womb independently of all self-assertion and self-seeking of man, not after the will of man (ek qelhmatoj androj) but of God, He came into the kosmoj which He had prepared for Himself to change its spirit, to renew it, to make men sons of God actually and not only potentially. The spirit of the world was of course opposed to Him. Where there was humility of mind there the gracious teaching found a response, but the cosmic self-asserting governments of Israel and of Rome agreed in condemning Him. Self-seeking in one of His own chosen band of twelve led to His betrayal. Confession of His claims to be both Son of God and King of men was not withheld by Him before High Priest and Roman Governor, confessions both of them which brought to Him no manner of gain to Himself, for His life might have been spared by the denial of both. It was the cosmic spirit that brought about His death. Verily He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. There was more in that death than we can ever understand. It is better to bow the head when we hear that cry : " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me." But that death, real to Him, and, as I believe, precious beyond words to us, did not mean corruption. He rose again, bringing the spiritual body forth from the grave where His natural uncorrupted body lay. In Jesus Christ the cosmic process attained its true goal. He changed the natural into the spiritual in spite of all the opposition of the spirit of the world. The Resurrection was a great evidence of the divine forgiveness of sin. The sins of the world wrought that death, but death could not hold Him. " He was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead." [Romans 1:4] But did Christ rise? First we say that moral reason demands the resurrection. That is to say, whatever doubt there may be of it on the ground of the antecedent improbability of a miracle, such as Hume speaks of, is removed, and there becomes an antecedent probability in its favour. The moral reason demands the Resurrection, and faith, which is a product of the moral reason, or, at any rate, an accompaniment of it, welcomes it as true, when properly evidenced. Nor is the evidence we have of the resurrection of Christ confined to the testimony of those who had seen Him after He was risen as recorded in the gospels. Such evidence would be insufficient at this long distance of time to establish so momentous an event. The evidence of the eye-witnesses of the risen Christ is supplemented for us by the history of the Christian centuries which, with all their miserable failures to enter into the mind of Christ, have yet given proof that there is a new life in the sons of men. We are so accustomed to much of it, that we perhaps hardly notice it, nor realise what we owe to it ; but if we could only trust it more, and acknowledge the truth of what God is, what power would be manifested in the world to-day ! Yes, and it will come if we can only see more than we have done the real meaning of sin, and understand God’s Holiness as perfect Love. To the Christian the resurrection of Jesus Christ can never be dissociated from the Ascension into heaven, nor this again from the Session at the right hand of God to make intercession for us. Figures of speech all these, but all expressive of grand realities. Work finished is intended by the Session, work ever continued is intended by the intercession. The death and resurrection of Christ were not for Himself; their fruits are for the world. The great intercession cannot be dissociated from the coming of the Holy Ghost. If Christ is the paraklhtoj in heaven, the Holy Spirit is the paraklytoj in the hearts of men. (1 John 2:1, John 14:26.) And what Christ foretold has come to pass, that the Holy Spirit would lead men into the truth ; that He would take of Christ’s and shew it unto men. And is there not some message that the same Spirit has to make known to our day to interpret to us as God’s truth the things which through patient working men have discovered in science? These things too are to be spiritualised and purged of all cosmic dross, if we will only hear what God has to tell us of them in the Gospel of His Son. But of course if men hold that the Christian Gospel has done its work, and is a thing of the past ; if they will not see that still, in spite of all progress, the sublime figure of Jesus of Nazareth stands supreme in history, they are not likely to turn to Him for the inspiration which the work of the world sorely needs.

It is the unification of all knowledge that is so much wanted now; the reconciliation of all oppositions, a great atonement of all things in heaven and earth. Cannot the great truth of what God Himself is help to bring us this? For my own part I am convinced it can and will. But we need not only a harmony of knowledge ; we must find also a harmony of life. Life as we know it in the cosmic sphere is discord. But it just makes all the difference to our view of it and the use we make of it, whether we regard the discord as a final necessity of life, a law of life itself, or as the tuning into perfect harmony of the various instruments of God’s will. I believe this last to be the right view.

" He that hath the Son hath the life ; he that hath not the Son hath not the life." [1 John 5:12.] If we will but reflect we shall find that all that is truest and best in us (and it is but little) has come to us through Jesus Christ, the inspiration of His life and death, and it has come to us, far more than we know perhaps, from His indwelling in us by His Spirit.

We may have cut ourselves off from outward communion with the Christian Church : we may have found its doctrine unsatisfying and sometimes revolting to our moral reason. But still the Christ stands forth, and we still have to own that never man spake, or lived or died as did He. If He has any answer to give to the questions raised by the scientific discoveries of these later days, at least it will be sympathetic and not afraid of the truth. The Christian Church has made some bad mistakes, as from her imperfect nature was inevitable, but the danger for our own day is lest she should stereotype the living oracles of God instead of bringing them to the interpretation of the ever- unfolding truth of God.

There has been much done of late years to put the New Testament on a sure footing. Criticism has fearlessly tested the books, and has given them back to us, almost all of them, and said that they were what we thought them to be, genuine productions of the Apostolic age. This is an immense gain. Next, criticism has taken in hand the books of the Old Testament, and the result of her enquiry is that these are not all that we took them to be, and we are called upon to modify the traditional views. But what criticism is teaching us about the Old Testament is just what science, free and independent and fearless of results, has taught us already of the world the great truth of evolution, slow development and patient progress. Shall we be taught these things or shall we know better than the truth itself? This is really, as it seems to me, the question that the Church has to face.

She may say, and it, is right for her to say, that she cannot give up the eternal truths which have been the salvation of the world. There is no fear that the great doctrine of the Atonement will ever lose its authority, but false and unworthy views of it will. The knowledge of what God Himself is is after all the first want of men. When we get lost in the mazes of the divine economy, with no clear light whence things have come or whither they go, we lack the key to the mysteries of the universe. But if we can get hold of a living formula of God Himself we can perhaps interpret imperfectly but yet not fruitlessly, the ways of His working. And so with this great Christian doctrine of the Atonement. We want not only a reconciliation of ourselves with God, an interpretation of our own nature which shall explain and partially remove its discords; we want further such an interpretation of the eternal Gospel as shall give us what we may call the divine view of the universe.