The Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian faith

Our subject in this chapter is "God's Doctrine of the Atonement vs. the Unitarian and Christian Science Doctrines of the Atonement." One of the most fundamental, central and vital doctrines of the Christian faith is the Christian doctrine of the Atonement. Without the Bible Doctrine of the Atonement you have no Christianity, but the Devil's substitute for Christianity. Without the Bible Doctrine of the Atonement you have no real gospel, but an utterly false and soul-destroying philosophy. In speaking on the doctrine of the Deity of Christ I said: "If a man really holds to right views concerning the person of Jesus Christ he will sooner or later get right views on every other question, but if he holds a wrong view concerning the person of the Lord Jesus Christ he is pretty sure to go wrong on everything else sooner or later." The same is true regarding the doctrine of the Atonement: If a man really holds to right views concerning the Atonement made by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary, he will sooner or later get right on every other question; but if he holds a wrong view regarding the Atonement made by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, he is pretty sure to go wrong on everything else sooner or later. There is a great need in this day of teaching on this subject that is definite, clear, accurate, exact, complete; because not only in Unitarian and Christian Science circles, but also in circles that are nominally orthodox, in professedly Christian colleges, seminaries, pulpits, Sunday School classes, and religious papers, magazines, pamphlets, books, there is much teaching to-day that is vague, inaccurate, misleading, unscriptural, and oftentimes utterly false and devilish, teaching that is essentially Unitarian or Eddyistic. Men and women use the old words with a new meaning; so as to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect. Even the Christian Scientist will tell you he believes in the Atonement, and that Mrs. Eddy taught the Atonement. But when you begin to ask direct and pointed questions regarding his belief and teaching you will find that by Atonement he meant, and that Mrs. Eddy meant, something utterly different from what you mean and what the Bible teaches. Paul tells us that the Devil camouflages as an angel of light (II Cor. 11:14), but never has he done it more successfully and dangerously than in the teaching regarding the Atonement which he has inspired in Mrs. Eddy and in Unitarian teachers, and also in the teachers in many supposedly orthodox pulpits, in many Congregational pulpits, in some Methodist pulpits, in many Baptist pulpits, and even in some Presbyterian pulpits. Some years ago in teaching a Bible class in Minneapolis, attended by people from all the churches, I remarked incidentally that Christian Science denied the doctrine of the Atonement through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. A very intelligent lady, a lady perfect in her manners, came to me at the close of the class and said: "Mr. Torrey, you ought not to have said what you said to-day about Christian Science; for you do not understand its teachings. They do teach the Atonement." I replied: "I said that Christian Science denies the Doctrine of the Atonement through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Do you believe that Jesus Christ bore your sins in His own body on the cross?" She answered: "I think Christian Science is a beautiful system of teaching." I said: "That is not what I asked you. Do you believe that Jesus Christ bore your sins in His own body on the cross?" She replied: "Christian Science has done me a great deal of good." "That is not what I asked you. Do you believe that Jesus Christ bore your sins in His own body on the cross?" "I think that Jesus Christ's life was the most beautiful life ever lived here on earth." "That is not what I asked you. Do you believe Jesus Christ bore your sins in His own body on the cross?" "The Christian Scientists are lovely people." "That is not what I asked you. Do you believe that Jesus Christ bore your sins in His own body on the cross?" "I believe in following the Lord Jesus Christ." "Do you believe that Jesus Christ bore your sins in His own body on the cross?" "Oh," she said, "that is a doctrinal question." "Now," I said, "you are yourself an illustration of the truth of the very thing I said. You do not believe in the Atonement through the shed blood of Jesus Christ." The Christian Scientist uses the word "atonement," but he means something entirely different from what the Bible teaches regarding the atoning death of Jesus Christ. So does the Unitarian. So do many of the ministers supposedly of orthodox denominations. The pastor of a Congregational church in this city said recently: "I have my own kind of religion; it answers for me, but I hope I have sense enough to see that it would not answer for everybody. I imagine the Salvation Army captain preaching my kind of religious doctrine, without a devil, without a hell, without an atonement of blood and recompense, without an infallible Bible—and I see his audience melting away like snow in the rain. Is his doctrine truer than mine, or is mine truer than his? Why, neither; his is true for him and mine for me—that is all—each after his own kind." Now this may sound tolerant and lovely, but it is utter nonsense. Any doctrine which is not true for everybody is not for anybody true, and any doctrine which is true is true for everybody. If a doctrine that leaves out "an atonement of blood" is not true for the Salvation Army—and it certainly is not—it is not true for anybody else. Truth is not relative; it is absolute. What is true is true, and what is false is false. So we come face to face with the question, What does the Bible teach on this great fundamental doctrine?

I. THE NECESSITY AND IMPORTANCE OF HIS DEATH

The first thing that the Bible plainly teaches on this question is the absolute necessity and fundamental importance of the death of Jesus Christ, the absolute necessity and fundamental importance of the shedding of His blood. The tendency of our day in Unitarian circles, and in orthodox circles that have been leavened by the corrupting leaven of Unitarianism, is to minimise the importance of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. The tendency is to make His life and character, His teaching and leadership, the main thing. Christian Science even goes so far as to deny the fact of His death. To them His supposed death is "an illusion," it is "only mortal thought," but the Bible puts the emphasis upon His atoning death.

1. The death of Jesus Christ is mentioned directly more than 175 times in the New Testament. Besides this there are very many prophetic and typical references to the death of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. When Mr. Alexander and I were holding our meetings in the Royal Albert Hall in London, some one took away one of our hymn books and went through it and cut out every reference to the blood, and then sent it back to me through the mail, saying, "I have gone through your hymn book and cut out every reference to the blood. These references to the blood are foolish. Now sing your hymns with the blood left out and there will be some sense in them." If any of you should take your Bible and go through it in that way and cut out of the New Testament and the Old Testament every passage that referred to the death of Christ, or to His atoning blood, you would have only a sadly torn and tattered Bible left, a Bible without a heart and a Gospel without saving power. If I were a member of a church where the pastor said that he preached a system of "religious doctrine, without a devil, without a hell, without an atonement of blood and recompense, without an infallible Bible," to use his own language, he would see his audience "melting away like snow in the rain" as far as I was concerned. I would either take my hat and get out of that church, or else the pastor would take his hat and get out of the pulpit; for I should know that he was not preaching God's pure, saving gospel, but the Devil's poisonous substitute for the gospel.

2. Not only are the references to the death of Christ so numerous in Old Testament and New Testament, but we are taught distinctly in Hebrews 2:14 that Jesus Christ became a man for the specific purpose of dying, that He became a partaker of flesh and blood in order that He might die. In this passage we read, "For as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the Devil" (Heb. 2:14). The meaning of these words is as plain as day. They tell us that the incarnation was for the purpose of the death. They tell us that Jesus Christ's death was not a mere accident or incident of His human life (as many would have us believe), but that it was the supreme purpose of it. He became man in order that He might die as man and for man. This is the doctrine of the Bible, and it is true for anybody and for everybody.

3. Furthermore, He died for a specific purpose, as a ransom for us. He Himself said so. In Matt. 20:28 He says, "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many."

4. One of the most remarkable scenes recorded in the New Testament is that of the transfiguration, when Moses and Elijah came back from the other world to commune with Jesus. And what did they talk about in that great moment of human history? Luke tells us in the 9th chapter of his Gospel, the 30th and 31st verses, "And behold, there talked with Him (i.e., with Jesus) two men, which were Moses and Elijah: who appeared in glory, and spake of His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem." His atoning death was the one subject that engrossed the attention of these two who came back from the glory world. We are also told in I Peter 1:10-12 that the death of Jesus Christ is a subject of intensest interest and earnest inquiry on the part of the angels.

5. The death of Christ is the central theme of heaven's song. Rev. 5:8-12 gives us a picture of heaven with its wonderful choir of ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, and this is the description of the song they sing: "And when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sing a new song, saying, Worthy art thou to take the book and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests; and they reign upon the earth. And I saw, and I heard a voice of many angels round about the throne and the living creatures and elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; saying with a great voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every created thing which is in the heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and on the sea, and all things that are in them, heard I saying, Unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, be the blessing, and the honour, and the glory, and the dominion, for ever and ever" (Rev. 5:8-12). So it is evident that the great central theme of heaven's song is the atoning death of Jesus Christ, and the shed "blood" by which He redeemed "men of every tribe, and tongue, and nation." If the Unitarian or the Christian Scientist or the New Theologian should get to heaven they would have no song to sing. The glorious song of that wondrous choir would sound to him like a song "of the shambles." He would be very lonesome and feel that he had got into the wrong pew.

II. THE PURPOSE OF THE DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST

So much for the fundamental and central importance of His death, or of the shedding of His blood. But what was the purpose of the shedding of His blood?

1. First of all, the Bible distinctly and repeatedly tells us by direct statement, and by countless typical reference in the Old Testament, that He died as a vicarious offering for sin; that is, that He, an absolutely perfect, righteous one, who deserved to live, died in the place of unjust men who deserved to die. For example, we read in Isa. 53:5, "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed." And in the eighth verse we read, "By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who among them considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due?" And in the 11th and 12th verses we read, "He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by the knowledge of Himself shall my righteous servant justify many; and He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He poured out His soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors: yet He bare the sin of many. And made intercession for the transgressors." In I Peter, 3:18 we read, "Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit." And in 1 Peter 2:24 we read, "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed." Now the meaning of these verses and many other verses, is inescapable. They teach in language the meaning of which no one can misunderstand (unless he is determined not to see) that the death of Jesus Christ was a vicarious atonement, that is, a just one, who deserved to live, dying in the place of unjust ones who deserved to die. It was, to use the language of the Los Angeles minister who denied his belief in it, "an atonement of blood and recompense." This is God's doctrine of the Atonement versus the Unitarian and Christian Science doctrine of the Atonement.

2. But this is not all. We are further taught that He died as a ransom, that is, His death was the price paid to redeem others from death. He Himself says so. His own words are, "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." If His life was not a ransom, that is to say, if He did not redeem others from death by dying in their place, then He was the greatest fool in the whole history of this universe. Was He a fool or was He a ransom? No one who in any real sense can be said to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ can hesitate as to his answer.

3. But even this is not all. The Bible distinctly tells us that He died as a sin offering, i.e., it was on the ground of His death, and on this ground alone, that forgiveness of sin is made possible for and offered to sinners. This we are told in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, to which reference has already been made. In the 10th verse it is written, "Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; He (i.e., Jehovah) hath put him to grief (literally, made him sick): when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand." Now the meaning of "offering for sin" is unquestionable to any one who has studied the Old Testament offerings. An "offering for sin" or a "guilt offering," which is the exact force of the Hebrew word translated "an offering for sin," was a death of a sacrificial victim on the ground of which pardon was offered to sinners (Lev. 6:6-10, R. V.). The Holy Spirit says expressly in Heb. 9:22, in words the meaning of which is unmistakable, and the force of which is inescapable, "Apart from shedding of blood there is no remission," and the whole context in which the passage is found shows that the blood, to which all the blood of the Old Testament types as sacrifices pointed forward, was the blood of Jesus Christ. So then the Word of God declares that apart from the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ there is absolutely no pardon for sin. There is absolutely no forgiveness outside the atoning blood of Christ. Without Christ's atoning blood every member of the human race must have perished forever.

4. Fourth and further yet, the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ died as a propitiation for our sins. God the Father gave Christ the Son to be a propitiation by His blood. That is to say that Jesus Christ, through the shedding of His blood, is that by which God's holy wrath at sin is appeased. We read in 1 John 4:10, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." And we read in Rom. 3:25, 26, "Whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in His blood, to show His righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; (26) for the showing, I say, of His righteousness at this present season: that He might Himself be just, and the justifier of Him that hath faith in Jesus." The meaning of these words also is as plain as day. The two Greek words in these two passages are not exactly the same words (hilasmos and hilasterion) but are from the same root. The word used in 1 John 4:10 is hilasmos and the word used in Rom. 3:25 is hilasterion. The definition given of the first in Thayer's Dictionary of New Testament Greek, the standard work, is "a means of appeasing." The definition given in the same lexicon of the second word is "an expiatory sacrifice." So the thought that is in both passages is that the death of Jesus Christ was a "propitiation," "an expiatory sacrifice," the "means of appeasing" God's holy wrath at sin, or in other words, that Jesus, through the shedding of His blood, is that by which the wrath of God against us as sinners is appeased. God's holiness and consequent hatred of sin, like every other attribute of His character, is real and must manifest itself. His wrath at sin must strike somewhere, either on the sinner himself or upon a lawful substitute. It struck upon Jesus Christ, a lawful substitute. As we read in Isa. 53:6, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." The word translated "hath laid," according to the margin of the Revised Version, means literally, "hath made to light." More literally still it means, "hath made to strike." Reading it this way, what God says is, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath made to strike on him (i.e., on the Lord Jesus) the iniquity of us all." And in the eighth verse of the same chapter we are taught that "the stroke due" to others fell upon Him, and He was consequently "cut off out of the land of the living." The death of Jesus Christ has its first cause in the demands of God's holiness. This is the Bible doctrine versus the Unitarian and Christian Science doctrine of atonement. The doctrine is often misrepresented and caricatured as being that "God, a holy first person, took the sins of man, the guilty second person, and put them on Jesus Christ, an innocent third person," and it is objected that this would not be just. No; this would not be just, and it is not for a moment the doctrine of the Bible, for the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus Christ was not "a third person," but was Himself God, and that He was Himself man, so He is not a third person at all, but both the first person and the second person, and the doctrine is that God Himself, the offended first person, substitutes His atoning action whereby He expresses His hatred against sin, for His punitive action whereby He would express the same thing; that God, instead of visiting the sins of the sinner upon the sinner, takes the punishment upon Himself. This certainly is something more than just, it is wondrous love.

5. Further yet, the Bible teaches us that Jesus Christ died to redeem us from the curse of the law by bearing that curse Himself. We read in Gal. 3:10, "As many as are of the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written: Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law, to do them." So then, every one of us is under the curse of the broken law, for not one of us has continued "in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them." But we read in the 13th verse, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (literally, in our behalf): for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." By His death by crucifixion He redeemed us from the curse which we deserved by taking that curse upon Himself. This certainly is "an atonement of blood and recompense."

6. The Bible puts essentially the same truth in still another form, viz., that Jesus Christ died as our Passover sacrifice—that is, that His shed blood might serve as a ground upon which God would pass over and spare us. We read in 1 Cor. 5:7, "For our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ." Now what a passover sacrifice was and signified we learn from Ex. 12:12, 13, where our Lord told the children of Israel at the inauguration of the passover, "For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the Gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am Jehovah, and the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and there shall be no plague upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt." And again we read in the 23rd verse of the same chapter, "For Jehovah will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side-posts, Jehovah will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you." Paul wrote his words with all this in mind, and in saying that Christ is our Passover sacrifice beyond a question he meant that the shed blood of Jesus Christ serves as a ground, and the only ground, upon which God passes over and spares us.

III. THE RESULTS OF THE ATONING DEATH

We have seen then the gracious and glorious purposes of the Atoning Death of Jesus Christ. What are the results of that death? They are even more glorious. I can speak of them this morning only in part.

1. The first result of the atoning death of Jesus Christ is that a propitiation is provided for the whole world. We read in 1 John 2:2, "He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world." This plainly means that by the death of Jesus Christ a basis is provided upon which God can deal in mercy and does deal in mercy with the whole world. All of God's dealings in mercy with any man are on the ground of Christ's death. Only on the ground of Christ's death could God deal in mercy with any man. God's dealings in mercy with the rankest blasphemer or the most blatant atheist is on the ground of the atoning death of Jesus Christ.

2. In the second place through the atoning death of Jesus Christ all men obtain resurrection from the dead. We read in Rom. 5:18, "So then as through one trespass (i.e., the trespass of Adam) the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness (i.e., through Christ's righteous act in dying on the cross in obedience to the will of God) the free gift came unto all men to justification of life." And we are told in 1 Cor. 15:22, "As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." The Apostle Paul in the whole chapter is speaking about the resurrection of the body, not about eternal life, and he here distinctly teaches that as every child of Adam loses life (physical life—see Gen. 3:19) in the first Adam, so also in Jesus Christ, the second Adam, he obtains resurrection from the dead, through the atoning death of Jesus Christ. Every man, the rankest infidel as well as the most devout believer, will some day be raised from the dead because Christ died in his place. Whether the resurrection which he obtains through the death of Jesus Christ shall be a "resurrection of life" or a "resurrection of condemnation," "shame and everlasting contempt" (John 5:28, 29; Dan. 12:2) depends entirely upon what attitude the individual takes toward the Christ in whom he gets the resurrection.

3. By the atoning death of Jesus Christ all believers in Jesus Christ have forgiveness of all their sins. We read in Eph. 1:7, "In whom (i.e., in Jesus Christ) we have our redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace." Because Jesus Christ died as a full satisfaction for our sins, forgiveness of sin is not something which believers are to do something to secure, it is something which the blood of Jesus Christ has already secured and which our faith has already appropriated to ourselves; "we have forgiveness," we are forgiven. Every believer in Jesus Christ is forgiven every sin he ever committed or ever shall commit, because Jesus Christ shed His blood in his place. Through Christ's atoning death all believers in Him, although they once "were enemies," are now "reconciled to God by the death of His Son." As we read in Rom. 5:10, "While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son." That is to say, the enmity between God and the sinner is done away with, or, as Paul puts it in Col. 1:20, Christ has "made peace through the blood of His cross," or, as he puts it in the next verse but one, Col. 1:22, Christ "hath reconciled" believers "in the body of His flesh through death." The story is told of a faithful vicar in England who was told that one of his parishioners was dying. She was a good woman, but he hurried to her side to talk with her. As he sat down by the side of the dying woman he said to her very gently but solemnly, "They tell me you have not long to live." "No," she replied, "I know I have not." "They tell me you will probably not live through the night." "No," she replied, "I do not expect to live through the night." Then he said very earnestly, "Have you made your peace with God?" She replied, "No, I have not." "And are you not afraid to meet God without having made your peace with Him?" "No, not at all," she calmly replied. Again he said to her, "Do you understand what I am saying? Do you realise that you are at the point of death?" "Yes." "Do you realise you will probably not live through the night?" "Yes." "And you have not made your peace with God?" "No." "And you are not afraid to meet God?" "No, not at all." There was something about the woman's manner that made him feel there was something back of her words, and he said to her, "What do you mean?" She replied, "I know I am dying. I know I am very near death. I know I shall not live through the night. I know I must soon meet God, and I am not at all disturbed, for I know that I did not need to make my peace with God, because Jesus Christ made peace with God for me more than eighteen hundred years ago by His death on the cross of Calvary, and I am resting in the peace that Jesus Christ has already made." The woman was right: no man needs to make his peace with God, Jesus Christ has already made peace by His atoning death, and all we have to do is to enter into the peace which Jesus Christ has made for us, and we enter into that peace by simply believing in the One who made peace by His death upon the cross. Jesus Christ's work was a complete and perfect work. There is nothing to be added to it. We cannot add anything to it, and we do not need to add anything to it. Jesus Christ has "made peace through the blood of His cross."

4. The fourth result of the atoning death of Jesus Christ is that because of the atoning death of Jesus Christ all believers in Him are justified. We read in Rom. 5:9, "Being now justified by His blood." Justification is more than forgiveness. Forgiveness is negative, the putting away of our sins, manifested in God's treating us as if we never had sinned. Justification is positive, the reckoning of us positively righteous, the imputing to us the perfect righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, not merely the treating us as if we had never sinned, but the reckoning us clothed upon with perfect righteousness. By reason of Jesus Christ's atoning death there is an absolute interchange of position between Jesus Christ and His people. In His death upon the cross Jesus Christ took our place of condemnation before God, and the moment we accept Him we step into His place of perfect acceptance before God. As Paul puts it in 2 Cor. 5:21, "Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." Jesus Christ stepped into our place in the curse and rejection, and the moment we accept Him we step into His place of perfect acceptance, or as it has been expressed by another:

5. Furthermore, because of the full atonement that Jesus Christ has made by the shedding of His blood, by His atoning death on the cross, every believer in Him can enter boldly into the holy place, into the very presence of God. As it is put in Heb. 10:19, 20, "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place (i.e., into the very presence of God) by the blood of Jesus, by the way which He dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and having a great priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith." Oh, how some of us hesitate to come into the presence of God when we think of the greatness and the number of our sins, and when we think how holy God is, how the very seraphim (the "burning ones," burning in their own intense holiness) veil their faces and feet in His presence and unceasingly cry "Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of Hosts" (Isa. 6:2, 3). "God is Holy," we think. "Yes." "And I am a sinner." "Yes." But by the wondrous offering of Christ "once for all" I am "perfected forever," and on the ground of that blood so precious and so sufficient unto God, I can march boldly into the very presence of God, look up with unveiled face into His face and call Him "Father," and pour out before Him every desire of my heart. Oh, wondrous blood!

6. But this is not all. Because of the atoning death of Jesus Christ those who believe in Him shall ever live with Him. How plainly Paul puts it in 1 Thess. 5:10, "Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, (i.e., at His coming), we should live together with Him."

7. Further yet, because of the atoning death of Jesus Christ, all those who believe on Him receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. This is what we are told in Heb. 9:15, "And for this cause He is the mediator of a new covenant, that a death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they that have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance." I wish I had time to dwell upon that.

8. There are other results of the atoning death of Jesus Christ as regards the Devil and his angels, into which we have no time to go. Just one more thing as regards the results of the atoning death of Jesus Christ as it relates to the material universe. God teaches us that through the death of Jesus Christ the material universe—"all things, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven"—is reconciled unto God. These are His words, "For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him (i.e., in Jesus Christ) should all the fullness dwell and, having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in Heaven" (Col. 1:19, 20). These are wonderful words. They tell us that the death of Jesus Christ has a relation to the material universe, to things on earth and to things in heaven, as well as to us and our sins. The material universe has fallen away from God in connection with sin (Rom. 8:20, R. V.; Gen. 3:18). Not only earth but heaven has been invaded and polluted by sin (Eph. 6:12, R. V.; Heb. 9:23, 24). Through the death of Jesus Christ this pollution is put away. Just as the blood of the Old Testament sacrifice was taken into the most holy place, the type of heaven, so Christ has taken the blood of the better sacrifice into heaven itself and cleansed it. "All things . . . whether they be things in earth or things in heaven" are now reconciled to God. "The creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God" (Rom. 8:21). "We look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Peter 3:13). The atonement of Jesus Christ has an immense sweep—far beyond the reach of our human philosophies. We have just begun to understand what the blood that was spilled on Calvary means. Sin is a far more awful, ruinous, and far-reaching evil than we have been wont to think, but the blood of Christ has a power and efficiency, the fullness of which only eternity will disclose.