devil in order that his claim might be
satisfied and we might be justly set free. But this extension of the
scope of the metaphor is wholly alien to the New Testament. On the
other hand, the idea of propitiation has suggested at many periods the
horrible notion that the Son wrung from the angry Father the pardon
which He was unwilling to give. Such a notion is again wholly alien to
the New Testament. But in fact the two metaphors are mutually
corrective; and each tends to exclude the misuse of the other. The
idea that Christ offered anything to the devil is corrected by the
notion inherent in the phrase 'propitiation (of the Father).' What the
Son offered was a sacrifice {153} directed to the Father only. On the
other hand, the idea that the mind of the Father needed to be changed
towards us, is corrected by the suggestion inherent in the other
metaphor of redemption; for it is He who, because He loved us, gave up
His own Son to buy us out of the slavery of sin. Each metaphor
suggests a single idea--each complementary of the other, and corrective
of its misuse--and both combine to tell us of the one inseparable love
of the Father and the Son, uniting in a sacrificial act which is
ascribed to both, to redeem us from the tyranny of sin and to set the
pardoning love free to work upon us, without obscuring the true
hatefulness of sin or the true character of God.

If, especially recently, the doctrine of the atonement[23] has involved
intellectual difficulty, on the other hand it has proved itself, as the
popular Christian literature of all ages sufficiently shows, widely and
deeply welcome to the human heart. This wide welcome which it has
received shows that it contains a deep truth. And from this point of
view, from the point of view of our practical spiritual needs, we do
well to meditate {154} much and deeply upon this doctrine. We can
depend upon it, that if we are to go on patiently doing good in a world
like this, so full of disappointments and anxieties and moral failures
and torturing scruples, we must have peace at the heart. And this is
what the really evangelical doctrine is capable of giving us. It bids
us continually look out of ourselves up to God, and assures us that His
love, manifested in the sacrifice of His Son, is there continually,
unchangeably. It is there, waiting till first we turn to Him, to give
us the assurance of entire absolution and admission into the divine
fellowship, wholl