The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific
and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880, by Various

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Title: The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal,
Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880

Author: Various

Contributor: Various

Editor: Aaron Walker

Release Date: May 3, 2009 [EBook #28673]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Scientific and Religious Journal.

VOL. 1. OCTOBER, 1880. NO. 10.

LAW AND ATONEMENT.

"The soul that sinneth it shall die," and it "shall not die."

The first quotation, "The soul that sinneth it shall die," is often
produced in support of the scholastic idea that the law of God was
inexorable, that is absolute or unconditional, not to be moved or its
penalty escaped by reformation or petition.

The language of the text is very definite, and, when viewed aside from
its context as an inexorable law, it certainly follows that every
sinning soul must pay its penalty. Neither can I see how it can be
satisfied by punishing an innocent person in the room of the guilty, for
the innocent one was not the "soul that sinned." Yet this quality of law
is claimed in order to make out the theory of a vicarious punishment
endured by the Savior, that is, that He took the sinner's "law place."
This idea was necessitated by the theory that we all sinned when Adam
transgressed, and lost all ability to do anything for ourselves. So we
must be redeemed by satisfaction to justice, rather than by mercy. This
old Calvinistic system of error lays the penalty of the inexorable law
upon Christ. But Calvinists are not alone in this theory of a "vicarious
punishment," in order to a vicarious atonement. Neither are they alone
in the abuse of the phrase "the law," for our Sabbatarian friends are
constantly asserting that the law of God was, and is, simply the ten
commandments giv