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Him that 'he shall save his people from their sins' (Mt 1^'); He is the promised 'Saviour' of the house of David (Lk l^'-ss 2"); the Baptist announced Him, with probable reference to Is 53, as 'the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world ' (Jn 1", of. v.^). From the hour of His definite acceptance of His vocation of Messiahship in His baptism, and at the Temptation, combined as this was with the clear consciousness of a break with the ideals of His nation, Jesus could not but have been aware that His mission would cost Him His life. He who recalled the fate of all past prophets, and sent forth His disciples with predictions of persecu-tions and death (Mt 10), could be under no delusions as to His own fate at the hands of scribes and Pharisees (cf. Mt. 915). But it was not simply as a 'fate' that Jesus recognized the inevitableness of His death; there is abundant attestation that He saw in it a Divine ordination, the necessary fulfilment of prophecy, and an essential means to the salvation of the world. As early as the Judsean ministry, accordingly, we find Him speaking to Nicodemus of the Son of Man being lifted up, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish (Jn 3'"). He sets Himself forth in the discourse at Capernaum as the Bread of Life, in terms which imply the surrender of His body to death for the life of the world (Jn 6^^). Later, He repeatedly speaks of the voluntary surrender of His life for His sheep (Jn 10 "■"• "■ " etc.). After Peter's great confession. He makes full announcement of His approaching sufferings and death, always coupling this with His after resurrec-tion (Mt 16" 17^- 2s 20"- " II). He dwells on the necessity of His death for the fulfilment of the Divine purpose, and is straitened till it is accomplished (Mk 1032, Lk 9" 125"). It was the subject of converse at the Transfiguration (Lk 9"). Yet clearer intimations were given. There is first the well-known announce-ment to the disciples, called forth by their disputes about pre-eminence: 'The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many' (Mt 20^8 ||). Here Christ announces that His death was the purpose of His coming, and, further, that it was of the nature of a saving ransom. His life was given to redeem the lives of others. To the same effect are the solemn words at the Last Supper. Here Christ declares that His body, symboUzed by the broken bread, and His blood, symbolized by the poured-out wine, are given for His disciples for the remission of sins and the making of a New Covenant, and they -are invited to eat and drink of the spiritual food thus provided (Mt 262«''- ||, 1 Co 1123*). n ig reasonable to infer from these utter-ances that Jesus attached a supreme importance and saving efficacy to His death, and that His death was a deliberate and voluntary surrender of Himself for the end of the salvation of the world.

If we inquire, next, as to the nature of this connexion of Christ's death with human salvation, we can scarcely err if we assume Jesus to have understood it in the light of the great prophecy which we know to have been often in His thoughts (Is 63). Already at the commence-ment of His Galilaean ministry He publicly identified Himself with the Servant of Jehovah (Lk 4'6«); the words of Is 5312 were present to His mind as the last hour drew near (Lk 22^'). What prophecy of all He studied could be more instructive to Him as to the meaning of His sufferings and death? This yields the key to His utterances quoted above, and confirms the view we have taken of their meaning. Then came the crisis-hour itself. All the EvangeUsts dwell minutely on the scenes of the betrayal, Gethsemane, the trial, the mocking and scourging, the crucifixion. But how mysterious are many of the elements in these sufferings (e.g. Mk 1433«- IB", Jn 12"); how strange to see them submitted to by the Prince of Life; how awful the horror of great darkness in which the Christ passed away I Can we explain it on the hypothesis of a simple

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martyrdom? Do we not need the solution which the other passages suggest of a sin-bearing Redeemer? Finally, there is the crowning attestation to His Messiah-ship, and seal upon His work, in the Resurrection, and the commission given to the disciples to preach remission of sins in His name to all nations — a clear proof that through His death and resurrection a funda-mental change had been wrought in the relations of God to humanity (Mt 28'8-2», Lk 24", Jn 2021-2S).

2. The Apostolic teaching. — The OT had spoken; the Son of Man had come and yielded up His life a ransom for many. He was now exalted, and had shed forth the Holy Spirit (Ac 2^- ^). There remained the task of putting these things together, and of definitely interpretingthe work Christ had accomplished, inthelight of the prophecies and symbols of the Old Covenant. This was the task of the Apostles, guided by the same Spirit that had inspired the prophets; and from it arose the Apostolic doctrine of the atonement. Varied in stand-points and in modes of representation, the Apostolic writings are singularly consentient in their testimony to the central fact of the propitiatory and redeeming efficacy of Christ's death. St. Paul states it as the common doctrine of the Church 'how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures' (1 Co IS^- <). St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Book of Revelation, are at one here. The class of expressions in which this idea is set forth is familiar: Christ 'bore our sins,' 'died for our sins,' 'suffered for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous,' 'was made sin for us,' was 'the propitiation for our sins,' was 'a sin-offering,' 'reconciled us to God in the body of his flesh through death,' was our 'ransom,' procured for us 'forgiveness of sins through his blood,' etc. (cf.

1 p 12. IS. 19 221- M 31s, Ro 3«. 26 58-11 g", 2 CO 5=1,

Gal 1' 318 41, 6, Eph 1' 218-"- »» 52, Col 1"- 2«-22, 1 Ti 2'- 8, Tit 2", He 18 2" T^- '" 92^-28 10i°-", 1 Jn V 22 38 4'", Rev 18 58 etc.). It is customary to speak of the sacrificial terms employed as 'figures' borrowed from the older dispensation. The NT point of view rather is that the sacrifices of the Old Covenant are the figures, and Christ's perfect offering of Himself to God, once for all, for man's redemption, is the reality of which the earlier sacrifices were the shadows and types (He 10i«).

Several things stand out clearly in the Apostolic doctrine of the atonement; each of them in harmony with what we have learned from our study of the subject in the OT. The presuppositions are the same— ^^he holiness, righteousness, and grace of God, and the sin and guilt of man, entailing on the individual and the race a Divine condemnation and exposure to wrath which man is unable of himself to remove (wrought out most fully by St. Paul, Ro 1" 3»- "-28, Gal 21' etc.). The atonement itself is represented (1) as the fruit, and not the cause of God's love (Ro 58, 1 Jn 41° etc.); (2) as a necessity for human salvation (Ro 3i»*-, He 922); (3) as realizing perfectly what the ancient sacrifices did imperfectly and typically (He 9. 10); as an expia-tion, purging from guilt and cancelling condemnation (Ro 8'- 82. 3j_ He 18 911-", 1 Jn 1', Rev 1' etc.), and at the same time a 'propitiation,' averting wrath, and opening the way for a display of mercy (Ro 328, He 2", 1 Jn 22 41°) ; (4) as containing in itself the most powerful ethical motive — to repentance, a new life, active godli-ness. Christian service, etc. (Ro en-, 1 Co 62», 2 Co 5"- 18, Gal 220 6», Eph S'- 2, 1 p 121. 22, 1 Jn 4" etc.; with this is connected the work of the Holy Spirit, which operates these sanctifying changes in the soul); (5) as, therefore, effecting a true 'redemption,' both in respect of the magnitude of the price at which our salva-tion is bought (Ro 8'2, 1 Ti 28, He IO28, 1 P I's- " etc.), and the completeness of the deliverance accomplished —from wrath (Ro 5=, 1 Th l"), from the power of