Excerpt from The Atoning Life of Christ the Lord

Therefore as by the offence. Of one, judgment came upon all men unto condemnation; even so through the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous. (born. 5: 18, According to this great passage it was the righteousness and the obedience of the Christ, the last Adam, which lifted the condemnation from the race; but this by no means exhausts the meaning of the Incarnation. Atonement is only one feature of His redemptive work, incalculably great, to be sure, but in the Incarnation He became permanently identi hed with our race; and in our re-crcation through the birth of the Spirit we become personally identified with Him, and ordained to be sharers in the ages to come in a glory which transcends human conception. I would that I could trace this atoning and redeeming work of the Christ by the constructive method only, so there would not be so many breaks in the argument, but as these views have been discussed with an adult Bible class, in which the student element predominated, I realized very clearlv that the ground must first be cleared at every point of contact with the popular view, and almost innumerable proof texts dealt with, before the average Christian would venture out from under the shadow of our written creeds. And follow without timidity the Master's own more glorious teaching respecting Ilis mission on the earth.

To see the Coming One in this wider light, to trace what has been done by Him and what is yet to be accomplished. And to comprise it all within the limits of a book designed for popular use, precludes anything like embellishment from our rich mines of literature, or the following out of any line of thought or doctrine beyond the actual requirements of this work. Or to be exhaustive in auv one feature of the connected view I have endeavored to present of the Redeemer's work in bringing the human race to its final goal. Perhaps too much may have been sacrificed to mere space, too little disclosed of the process of reasoning through which certain conclusions have been reached, too scanty recognition of the great leaders in philosophy and theology at whose feet I de light to sit, but as a more voluminous work would defeat my main purpose in giving this message to the public, these defects are unavoidable. And, finally, I am not vain enough to imagine that my work is free from defects, or that I have seen the whole of the truth in a Divine undertaking, which Angels are said to have desired to look into and were not able; but I am sure that it means very much more than the were dying, the just for the unjust. And that much more is the treasure hid in a field which the reader is encouraged in these pages to seek.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.