eath. There has been much discussion
of their meaning into which it is impossible here to enter. But whatever
questions modern scholarship may raise, there can be little doubt as to
the sense in which Christ's words were understood by the first
disciples. "His own self," said Peter, "bare our sins in His body upon
the tree." "Herein is love," said John, "not that we loved God, but that
He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." He
"loved me," said Paul, "and gave Himself for me." It is open, doubtless,
to question the legitimacy of these apostolic deductions, and to fall
back upon Matthew Arnold's _Aberglaube;_ but who, it has been well said,
"are most likely to have correctly apprehended the significance which
Jesus attached to His death, men like John and Peter and Paul, or an
equal number of scholars in our time, however discerning and candid, who
undertake to reconstruct the thoughts of Jesus, and to disentangle them
from the supposed subjective reflections of His disciples? Where is the
subjectivity likely to be the greatest--in the interpretations of the
eye and ear witness, or in the reconstructions of the moderns?"[22]

Christ gave His life "a ransom for many." The truth cannot be put too
simply: "God forgives our sins because Christ died for them;" "in that
death of Christ our condemnation came upon Him, that for us there might
be condemnation no more;" "the forfeiting of His free life has freed our
forfeited lives."[23]

"Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood;
Sealed my pardon with His blood;
Alleluia! what a Saviour!"

If this is true, the New Testament has a meaning, and, what is more, we
sinful men have a gospel. If it is not true, it is difficult to know why
the New Testament was written, and still more difficult to know what we
must do to be saved. It does not help to point us to the parable of the
Prodigal Son, and tell us that there is a story of salvation without an
atonement. The whole gospel cannot be put into a parable, not even into
such a parable as this. Besides, if the argument proves anything, it
proves too much. The parable is not only a story of salvation without an
atonement, it is a story of salvation without Christ; and if no more is
needed than what is given here, Christ Himself is no part of His own
gospel, forgiveness can be had with no reference to Him. But it is not
so the redeemed have learned Christ; it is n