men in the future life. The
importance of the subject, its difficulty, and the profound
prejudices connected with it, are so great as not only to excuse,
but even to require, much explanatory repetition to make the truth
clear and to recommend it, in many lights, with various methods,
and by accumulated authorities. Those who wish to see the whole
subject of the atonement treated with consummate fulness and
ability, leaving nothing to be desired from the historical point
of view, have only to read the masterly work of Baur.13

In leaving this part of our subject here, we would submit the
following considerations to the candid judgment of the reader.
Admitting the truth of the common doctrine of the atonement, why
did Christ die? It does not appear how there could be any
particular efficacy in mere death. The expiation of sin which he
had undertaken required only a certain amount of suffering. It did
not as far as we can see on the theory of satisfaction by an
equivalent substituted suffering require death. It seems as if
local and physical ideas must have been associated with the
thought of his death. And we find the author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews thus replying to the question, Why did Christ die? "That
through death he might destroy him that hath the power of death,
that is, the devil, and deliver those who through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage." Now, plainly, this
end was accomplished by his resurrection bursting asunder the
bonds of Hades and showing that it was no longer the hopeless
prison of the dead. The justice of this explanation appears from
the logical necessity of the series of ideas, the internal
coherence and harmony of thought. It has been ably shown that
substantially this view is the accurate interpretation of the New
Testament doctrine by

12 Comm. de Morte Christi Expiatoria, cap. iii.: Qua Judaorum
Recentiorum Christologia de Passione ac Morte Messia docet.

13 Die Christliche Lehre von der Versohnung in ihrer
Geschichtlichen Entwicklung von der Alteaten Zeit bis auf die
Neueste.

Steinbart,14 Schott,15 Bretschneider,16 Klaiber,17 and others. The
gradual deviations from this early view can be historically
traced, step by step, through the refining speculations of
theologians. First, in ecclesiastical history, after the New
Testament times, it is thought the devil has a right over all
souls in consequence of sin. Christ is a ransom offered to the
devil to offse