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25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

*Or, foreordained.

natural goodness and mercy, without regard "to any other consideration whatever;" and yet in this very verse another and leading consideration is brought in,"through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ." But beside this, it is plain from the context, that the freeness of our justification denotes the manner in which the blessing is BESTOWED, not the means by which it was PROCURED. Nor do the means by which our justification was effected, in any respect, alter its nature as a gift, or in the least diminish its freedom. We are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ; but this redemption was not procured by us. It was the result of the pure love of God, who, compassionating our misery, himself provided the means of our deliverance, by sending his only begotten Son into the world, who voluntarily submitted to die upon the cross, that he might reconcile us to God. Thus was the whole an entire act of mercy on the part of God and our Saviour, begun and completed for our benefit, but without our intervention; and therefore, in respect to us, the pardon of sin must be accounted a gift, though it comes to us through redemption.

Through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.-Redemption has sometimes been restrained to the liberation of captives, by paying a ransom, AUTрov, or redemption-price; but Grotius has fully shown, that it is used both by sacred and profane writers to signify, not merely the liberation of captives, but deliverance from exile, death, or any other evil; and that the ransom, AUT pov, signifies everything which satisfies another, so as to effect this deliverance. In the gospel, that from which we are redeemed is sin, and all the evils and miseries consequent upon it: this redemption is effected by Christ,-through the redemption that is in or BY Jesus

28.

+ Or, passing over.

Christ: the redemption-price was his LIFE. "The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom, AUT pov, for many," Matt. xx. "In whom we have redemption, тην aжоλνтρwσw, through his BLOOD," Eph. i. 7. That deliverance of man from sin, misery, and all other penal evils following his transgression, which constitutes our redemption by Christ, is not therefore a gratuitous deliverance, granted without a consideration, as an act of God's supposed prerogative to dispense with his own laws; but the ransom, the redemptionprice, was exacted and paid, one thing was given for another, "the precious blood of Christ," for condemned captive

men.

Mr. Locke greatly trifles on this passage. He urges that redemption is sometimes used in scripture where no price is paid as a ransom. Figuratively and loosely it may, but never where our redemption by Christ is spoken of; and however many instances could be brought from the Old Testament of the use of the word, without reference to a ransom, they are all irrevelant to the argument; for in our redemption the Avlpov, the ransom, is repeatedly, expressly, and emphatically mentioned, and that price is said to be "the blood of Christ." He urges too, and in this foolish objection he has been followed by many, that if redemption necessarily supposes a price paid, it must be paid to those who hold us captive, sin or Satan; forgetting that to be subject to sin and Satan, is, by God's righteous decision, made a part of man's punishment. The satisfaction is therefore to be made to God, under whose law we are doomed to these and other miseries, and not to the instruments by whom the penalties of that law are carried into effect.

Verse 25. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation.-The word rendered propitiation in other passages of the New

Testament is ouos here the adjective λaonpiov is employed, probably with Suua or Legelov, understood; and so it means an expiatory sacrifice. In the LXX. and the Epistle to the Hebrews it is used for the mercy-seat or covering of the ark; and if the allusion were to that, it would follow, that as this mercy-seat was sprinkled with the blood of the appointed victims, and became the medium of gracious intercourse between God and the Israelites represented by their high priest, so our Lord may be called the propitiatory, as being the person in and through whom, upon the offering of his blood, God holds gracious intercourse with penitent men. The former sense is, however, to be preferred,-whom God hath set forth to be a propitiatory sacrifice. To propitiate is to appease, to turn away the wrath of an offended person. In this case the wrath to be turned away is the wrath of God. Not that he is implacable, the unfounded objection which many bring against the doctrine of the atonement. There is not only no implacability in God, but a most tender affection towards the sinning race, which is proved by the gift of his Son. This is the most eminent proof of his love, that for our sakes 'he spared not his own Son." Thus he is the fountain and first moving cause of that scheme of recovery and salvation which the death of Christ wrought into efficiency. The question is not whether God is love, but whether he is nothing but love; whether he is not holy and just; whether we, his creatures, are or are not under law; whether this law has any penalty; and whether God, in his rectoral character, is bound to execute and uphold that law. These points are settled by what the apostle has already said, or his argument amounts to nothing: we are under law, and under guilt,—these are his decisions: the justice of God he also declares to be punitive, and we are therefore under that "wrath of God which is revealed from heaven against ALL ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." Thus God is angry with us, and so a propitiation becomes necessary to turn away that anger from us. This propitiation is the BLOOD,

The

the LIFE, of Christ, sacrificially offered. Socinus interpreted propitiation to mean no more than the destruction of sin; which is unsupported by a single Greek authority. The modern Socinians depart from their master, and allow that it means the pacifying of an offended party; but contend that God is pacified by repentance. So that at last they allow rectoral wrath in God, but still overlook, not merely the meaning, but the very words of the text, where, not our repentance, but Christ, in his character of Redeemer, or RANSOM-PAYER, is said to be the propitiation set forth. The SETTING FORTH of this propitiation is also an important circumstance introduced. most satisfactory sense of goedelo, which has been rendered both foreordained, and substituted, is that of our own translation; which, in fact, includes the others for as God himself is said to have set forth, publicly exhibited and proposed, this propitiation, he himself before ap pointed or ordained it; the paternal mercy gave the Son, and he was the Lamb which from the beginning "God provided for a burnt offering," and provided as a substitute for guilty men. Through all the promises and types of the law there was a setting forth, in some degree, of this propitiation, yet not a clear revelation, nor could be until the true sacrifice was offered. Then it was fully exhibited and proposed both by the publication of the gospel and the divine insti tution of the Lord's supper; in which all his disciples "show forth his death" in its sacrificial nature, and as the propitiation for the sins of the world, and will continue to do so "until he come as righteous Judge of all. Every thing relative to the sacrifice of Christ bears the most public character, and is in accordance with its peculiar and universal exhibited. He was offered up before the world; the doctrine of his cross forms the great subject of the evangelical ministry; it is that which is commanded to be preached, published, and proclaimed to every creature; whilst the institution of the church, which is not a secret society, but "a city set on a hill," holds up to the faith and trust of

the

men, from age to age, that grand atonement by which alone the guilty are reconciled to God.

Through faith in his blood.-This important clause expresses the means by which the propitiation becomes available to each individual. By its virtue all mankind are placed under a gracious and merciful administration, and provision is made for their salvation independent of any efforts of their own; but, in order that actual personal reconciliation with an offended God may take place, there must be personal faith in his blood. Faith is presented to us under two leading views: the first is that of assent or persuasion, the second that of confidence or reliance. The former may exist without the latter; and, though the basis, is certainly not that faith which is made the condition and instrument of our salvation. One is mere intellectual assent; the other is a work of the heart, a motion of the soul towards God, to lay hold upon his covenant engagements, and to rest in them. The faith by which the elders "obtained

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phrase used, faith in his blood, indicates the nature of the faith itself; for it surely cannot mean that every man who believes historically that the blood of Christ was actually shed, nor that every man who believes that his blood was the general atonement for sin, will be saved; for then, indeed, heaven would be peopled with the unsanctified and unholy, since many admit these truths with the fulness of conviction, who still live in the practice of sin but the meaning is, TRUST in his blood, the reliance of a sinner consciously sinful and penitent, one, as the apostle had said, "whose mouth is stopped," who denies nothing, palliates nothing, but sinks in silent shame, as guilty before God; that is, he feels, confesses, that he is guilty, and relies upon the propitiation which God hath set forth. Both Jews and Gentiles TRUSTED in something, however delusive, to avert from them the divine displeasure, or to secure the favour of superior powers. These things were to be wholly renounced, and the full and exclusive trust of a contrite heart be reposed in that true and only propitiation which was manifestly set forth by God, and which demanded, by the strength of its demonstrations, reliance of the most absolute kind.

END OF THE EXPOSITION.

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