THE CHKISTJAN DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT. 



59 



. . . . remains a mystery and must always be an insuperable 

 difficulty to those who depend on reason." The Bishop of Oxford 

 (Dr. Gore) takes a similar position. The late Professor James Orr 

 puts the question very clearly : " The difficulty does not lie in the 

 innocent suffering for the guilty ; this is common. And the world 

 is full of substitutionary, of vicarious, of voluntary suffering endured 

 for the sake of others." But, he continues, " suffering for another's 

 sins has of itself no expiatory character. It is an aggravation of the 

 sin, not an atonement for it ... If going further we press the 

 question of how Christ in this way bore our sins,— what made His 

 endurance of suffering and death an atonement for sin — we have to 

 confess ourselves in the presence of a mystery on which only partial 

 light is available." Now to darken with mystery a central truth 

 for man's salvation is for our race a terrible calamity. 



Turn now to the full light of modern science, in which we are 

 instructed that man was created by a great ministry of Natural 

 Law in which animal sacrifice was the predominant factor. 

 " Sacrifice " is the word used by Herbert Spencer in this connection. 

 And in a brief sentence he unconsciously overturns all opposition 

 to the Atonement when he says : " The benefit accruing to the race 

 from these sacrifices is the sanction for the sacrifice." 



Now in the light of modern science the fall of man takes on 

 dimensions far beyond anything hitherto thought of ; because he 

 fell from the awful eminence it took millions of years to reach. 

 But, inasmuch, as he climbed to this high eminence through a 

 stupendous ministry of animal sacrifice it is manifestly most rational 

 that he should be restored again by a great ministry of sacrifice ; 

 first in type in the ceremonial Law, and then in reality in the Cross 

 of Christ. 



Lt.-Col. M. A. Alves, R.E. : If we stick to Scripture, and 

 jettison tradition, we shall see that man by nature has a spirit of 

 life the same in substance, if we may use this word, as that of lower 

 animate creation. We shall see also that destruction, not ever- 

 lasting conscious existence, is the lot of this " soul," as it is 

 sometimes called. 



The Christian Doctrine of the Atonement appears to be fuU}^ 

 revealed for the first time in St. John's Gospel, where a glorious and 

 endless future life is promised to true believers as an assured present 

 certainty — the doctrine of the Resurrection, in fact. The burnt- 



