ly, "Thanks be to God, who through Christ giveth us the
victory over the sting of death and the strength of sin," Jerome
says, "We cannot and dare not interpret this victory otherwise
than by the resurrection of the Lord."11 Commenting on the text
"To this end Christ both died and lived again, that he might reign
both over the dead and the living," Theodoret says that Christ,
going through all these events, "promised a resurrection to us
all." Paul makes no appeal to us to believe in the death of
Christ, to believe in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, but he
unequivocally affirms, "If thou shalt believe in thine heart that
God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Paul
conceived that Christ died in order to rise again and convince men
that the Father would freely deliver them from the bondage of
death in the under world. All this took place on account of sin,
was only made requisite by sin, one of whose consequences was the
subterranean confinement of the soul, which otherwise, upon
deserting its clayey tent, would immediately have been clothed
with a spiritual body and have ascended to heaven. That is to say,
Christ "was delivered because of our offences and was raised again
because of our justification." In Romans viii. 10 the preposition
occurs twice in exactly the same construction as in the text
just quoted. In the latter case the authors of the common version
have rendered it "because of." They should have done so in the
other instance, in accordance with the natural force and
established usage of the word in this connection. The meaning is,
Our offences had been committed, therefore Christ was delivered
into Hades; our pardon had been decreed, therefore Christ was
raised into heaven. Such as we have now stated is the real
material which has been distorted and exaggerated into the
prevalent doctrine of the vicarious atonement, with all its dread
concomitants.12 The believers of that doctrine suppose themselves
obliged to accept it by the language of the epistles. But the view
above maintained as that of Paul solves every difficulty and gives
an intelligent and consistent meaning to all the phrases usually
thought to legitimate the Calvinistic scheme of redemption. While
we deny the correctness of the Calvinistic interpretation of those
passages in which occur such expressions as "Christ gave himself
for us," "died for our sins," we also affirm the inadequacy

11 Comm. in Osee, lib. iii. cap. 13.