presented to us in the
Scriptures, and vindicates for itself in our minds the character of
truth, and indeed, as I have said already, the character of the
ultimate truth of God?

The simplest expression that can be given to it in words is: Christ
died for our sins. Taken by itself, this is too brief to be
intelligible; it implies many things which need to be made explicit
both about Christ's relation to us and about the relation of sin and
death. But the important thing, to begin with, is not to define these
relations, but to look through the words to the broad reality which is
interpreted in them. What they tell us, and tell us on the basis of an
incontrovertible experience, is that the forgiveness of sins is for the
Christian mediated through the death of Christ. In one respect,
therefore, there is nothing singular in the forgiveness of sins: it is
in the same position as every other blessing of which the New Testament
speaks. It is the presence of a Mediator, as Westcott says in one of
his letters, which makes the Christian religion what it is; and the
forgiveness of sins is mediated to us through Christ, just as the
knowledge of God as the Father is mediated, or the assurance of a life
beyond death. But there is something _specific_ about the mediation of
forgiveness; the gift and the certainty of it come to us, not simply
through Christ, but through the blood of His Cross. The sum of His
relation to sin is that He died for it. God forgives, but this is the
way in which His forgiveness comes. He forgives freely, but it is at
this cost to Himself and to the Son of His love.

This, it seems to me, is the simplest possible statement of what the
New Testament means by the Atonement, and probably there are few who
would dispute its correctness. But it is possible to argue that there
is a deep cleft in the New Testament itself, and that the teaching of
Jesus on the subject of forgiveness is completely at variance with that
which we find in the Epistles, and which is implied in this description
of the Atonement. Indeed there are many who do so argue. But to
follow them would be to forget the place which Jesus has in His own
teaching. Even if we grant that the main subject of that teaching is
the Kingdom of God, it is as clear as anything can be that the Kingdom
depends for its establishment on Jesus, or rather that in Him it is
already established in principle; and that all participation in its
blessings dep