away sins by the sacrifice of himself (Heb. ix. 9, 26; x. 10, 14). The reference to Christ as an "Advocate with the Father" also reminds us of the doctrine of his eternal priesthood in Hebrews. That an actual purification, and not merely a provision for a possible forgiveness, is meant in I. i. 7 is further evident from the fact that it is a "cleansing" of believers of which the author is speaking. This cleansing is dependent upon their fulfilling certain conditions described by "walking in the light." If the Christian readers do thus "walk in the light," two results will follow: they will have fellowship with one another, and will be cleansed by the blood of Jesus from all sin.

As has been intimated, it is commonly contended that behind this passage, and, indeed, behind all the passages which we have been reviewing, there lies the assumption of a judicial satisfaction for sin which is viewed as the condition precedent of all the actual effects which are ascribed to the death or blood of Christ. As we have seen, this contention rests rather upon inference than upon any indication contained in the passages themselves, or their context. This inference is held, however, to receive strong confirmation from the two passages in this Epistle, in which Christ is expressly called a propitiation, that is, according to a Johannine idiom, a cause or means of propitiation. This term (iλaoμós), it is held, links the Johannine thought to that of Paul, by whom Christ is described as a propitiation (iλaσrýρiov) in the shedding of his blood (Rom. iii. 25). We have seen that it is by no means easy to determine with certainty the exact meaning of iλaoτýptov in Paul; still, the context, in connection with other analogous references, seems to me to make the import of it fairly definite and plain. Can the same be said of iλaopos in 1 John? And does it follow from the occasional use of these kindred words by the two writers that the later shared the thought-world of the earlier? In any case, we shall have to look first at the context of the Johannine passages.

Deissmann has shown in what a variety of meanings and applications the word inaoμos and its congeners is used in biblical and patristic Greek. The New Testament usage is, as we have seen, very limited. We have ἱλαστήριον once in Paul so correlated with ἔνδειξις τῆς δικαιοσύνης θεοῦ as to show that it bears a significance approximating the classical meaning. In Hebrews the same word means the lid of the ark and indoneσat is loosely used in the sense of expiating, having not a person for its object, either expressed or implied, but ràs åμaptías. This is the whole body of New Testament usage outside our passages. We naturally ask: Does xaoμós here bear any specific relation to the righteousness of God or the satisfaction of the divine law? Does it refer to a legal expiation of guilt, or does it relate rather to a moral cleansing, a power of purification? The arguments for the former view would be drawn from the original force of the word and from the analogy of Paul's usage. We are further reminded of the stress which the author lays upon the saving significance of the death of Christ: "His blood cleanseth"; "He laid down his life for us." Such expressions, it is urged, naturally warrant us in centring the idea of propitiation upon the death and in saying, His death is the propitiation. It is contended, per contra, that the word in question has, in any case, lost its original force. It is not even used by Paul in its strict sense of rendering favorable. In Hebrews it is even further from this meaning. It is claimed (so Deissmann) that, in actual usage, it is applied to any votive or sacrificial gift. We are further reminded that, in this Epistle, the author does not deduce the idea of "propitiation" from the righteousness or wrath of God or from the demands of the law, but from the divine love, "Herein is love that God sent his Son to be an iλaouos for our sins." Furthermore, this Epistle says nothing, in general, of a juridical cancellation of guilt, but speaks rather of a cancellation of sin itself, an actual deliverance from sin's power. In this view, Christ is held to be a "propitiation " in the sense that his 1 Zeitschr. für neutestamentl. Wissenschaft, Heft 3.

blood really "cleanses from all sin." Not acquittal on the basis of a formal satisfaction, but purification by virtue of an actual renewing power is here the keynote. Moreover, it is not said that the death of Christ, or the blood of Christ specifically, is the "propitiation," but that Christ himself is such. It is Christ in the entirety of his personality and power who "was manifested to take away sins," really to undo the work of Satan (I. iii. 8) and to establish men in a character resembling the divine love and purity.1

Such, in brief, are the arguments on either side. The considerations which, more and more, seem to me to be decisive for the second general view are those which are drawn from the determining conceptions of the writings under consideration, namely, the emphasis on the person as the bearer of light and salvation, the definition of salvation in terms of actual cleansing, and the correlation of the death of Christ with the undoing of sin rather than with the cancellation of guilt or the satisfaction of law. While the word ἱλασμós would naturally incline us to expect a doctrine of expiation in these writings, it must be said, I think, that the direct evidence of its presence is wanting. It is incumbent on those who insist that it is presupposed and implied to show that it is part of the warp and woof of the author's thought; it is not enough to point out that he has some words and phrases in common with Paul, and to assume without more ado that the theology of Paul is logically involved even if none of its fundamental conceptions come to expression. What the author had in the background of his mind I leave it for others to divine and elucidate; I can find in his writings no doctrine of a substitutionary satisfaction to the law or the wrath of God whereby the guilt of sin is cancelled. With even less plausibility than in the case of the Synoptics is it claimed that the Johannine tradition attributes this expiatory view of his death to Jesus himself.

1 Cf. Beyschlag, N. T. Theol. II. 445–450; Terry, The Mediation of Christ, pp. 85-87.

CHAPTER VII

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Ir now we glance backward over the investigations which we have pursued, the fact which most forcibly strikes our attention is that the biblical doctrine respecting the nature of salvation stands forth in clear, strong relief. Salvation is recovery from sin to holiness; it is the life of obedience, love, and service to God; it is sonship to God and fellowship with him; in the last analysis, it is Godlikeness. In this conception all the voices of revelation meet and blend. True, the conception comes only gradually to its full development and expression. In the prophets it is complicated with the hope of a national deliverance; in the legal system it is accompanied and limited by notions of ceremonial purification. Still, even in Old Testament times this idea of salvation as a right personal relation to God maintained and asserted itself. Yahweh demanded and would at length secure to himself a righteous people. This was the burden of the Baptist's message: Repent and forsake your sins; One is at hand. who will baptize you with the cleansing Spirit of God. But it was Jesus who set this doctrine of salvation in the clearest light and showed the way to its realization. Not alone in precept and in parable, but in his own character and action did he show men what the life of sonship to God is. The perfect filial consciousness of Jesus is the unclouded mirror in which men see themselves as they truly are alike in their actual sinfulness and in their moral possibilities. He represented himself as the way to the Father-his person and work as the pattern and power of a new life.

After his departure from earth religious thought and feeling seized upon this conception of his personal agency in

salvation and elaborated it in various ways. The problem was to see and to show how his work had availed and was still availing to bring men to God in love and trust. Above all, the question for that time was how his sufferings and death, which had been so contrary to the expectations of his contemporaries, could serve this end. The point of importance to be observed here is that, whatever differences the answers given to this question might exhibit, all the various types of teaching which are reflected in the New Testament substantially agreed as to what salvation is. There might be different modes of apprehending the relation to it of Christ's death. There might be a variety of analogies and illustrations used to set forth its significance. But beneath these differences lay one fundamental conception of God, of man, and of Christ's mediation which was common to all. Hence we find that interpreters are substantially agreed as to what was the primitive Christian conception of salvation; the chief differences arise when the effort is made to determine the views which were taken of the method of God in effecting it more specifically how the sufferings and death of Christ stood related to it.

It should be understood, then, that the differences among theological interpreters and thinkers do not concern so much the nature of salvation as the method or conditions on which it is provided and offered. Different expositors have derived different results from the New Testament in regard to this latter subject, and, not infrequently, have pushed their divergences so far as to involve themselves in widely separated views regarding the ethical nature of God. Why, it may be asked, have candid and conscientious interpreters gone so far asunder? Partly, no doubt, because of the different presuppositions which they have brought to their study, and partly because the subject is variously represented and illustrated in the New Testament, and every interpreter may find something there to encourage his own favorite mode of thought. The mind which thinks in terms of animal sacrifice will find a congenial representation in Hebrews. The thinker of the Roman, legal cast will hear his favorite keynote in Paul's