he willingly submitted, upon leaving the body,
to go among the dead, that he might declare the good tidings to
them, and burst the bars of darkness, and return to life, and rise
into heaven as a pledge of the future translation of the faithful
to that celestial world, instead of their banishment into the
dismal bondage below, as hitherto. The death of Christ, then, was
the redemption of sinners, in that his death implied his ascent,
"because it was not possible that he should be holden of death;"
and his ascension visibly demonstrated the truth that God had
forgiven men their sins and would receive their souls to his own
abode on high.

Three very strong confirmations of the correctness of this
interpretation are afforded in the declarations of Peter. First,
he never even hints, in the faintest manner, that the death of
Christ was to have any effect on God, any power to change his
feeling or his government. It was not to make a purchasing
expiation for sins and thus to reconcile God to us; but it was, by
a revelation of the Father's freely pardoning love, to give us
penitence, purification, confidence, and a regenerating piety, and
so to reconcile us to God. He says in one place, in emphatic
words, that the express purpose of Christ's death was simply "that
he might lead us to God." In the same strain, in another place, he
defines the object of Christ's death to be "that we, being
delivered from sins, should live unto righteousness." It is plain
that in literal reality he refers our marvellous salvation to the
voluntary goodness of God, and not to any vicarious ransom paid in
the sacrifice of Christ, when he says, "The God of all grace hath
called us unto his eternal glory by Jesus Christ." The death of
Christ was not, then, to appease the fierce justice of God by
rectifying the claims of his inexorable law, but it was to call
out and establish in men all moral virtues by the power of faith
in the sure gift of eternal life sealed to them through the
ascension of the Savior.

For, secondly, the practical inferences drawn by Peter from the
death of Christ, and the exhortations founded upon it, are
inconsistent with the prevailing theory of the atonement. Upon
that view the apostle would have said, "Christ has paid the debt
and secured a seat in heaven for you, elected ones: therefore
believe in the sufficiency of his offerings, and exult." But not
so. He calls on us in this wise: "Forasmuch as Christ hath
suffered fo