FROM

THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.

NEW SERIES.

VOL. V.	B E T H A N Y,   V A.   JUNE, 1841.	NO. VI.

Dear brother Campbell,

      HITHERTO our discussion has proceeded in the mild spirit of the gospel; nor do I fear that we shall depart from it, if truth be our object. If nothing more be effected by this discussion, I hope we shall convince the world of what has been deemed impracticable, if not impossible, that Christians can love one another, and dwell together in unity, and yet differ in sentiment. I hope also that we shall give an example of that moderation and forbearance which the scriptures teach, yet so uncommon among its professors in the present cavilling age. One thing is certain, that the Bible student will be more diligently engaged to understand the important things concerning which we write. But to the subject.

      Page 388, I had said, "Those sins purged with blood came under one general name--errors." You immediately ask, "And what were the sins purged without [blood?]" I have plainly shown what sins were purged by blood under the law; and I have as plainly shown what sins were not purged with blood under the law. But what sins, say you, were purged without blood! I again answer, Not one sin of any class was purged without blood according to law. But, that I may be understood--those sins, unpardonable by law, and not allowed to be purged by blood according to the law, and yet to the penitent sinner were purged and forgiven by God, according to the law of faith without the deeds of the law of Moses. Can my brother deny this? Lev. xxvi. 40, 46.

      Page 389, I had said that "the blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sins;" but it did take away errors, sins of ignorance, and pardonable offences. You reply, "And does my brother Stone teach that the blood of bulls and goats had virtue to expiate sins of ignorance, errors, but no virtue to expiate other sins?" Yes, brother Campbell, I thus teach, being instructed out of the Law and the Prophets, and by Paul the Apostle. But you May remember that I acknowledge this blood to be the means through which God expiates or purges from all such sins. [248]

      You again recur to Hebrews ix. 27, to establish your assertion, that without shedding of blood there never was remission. It becomes necessary now that we fully investigate this text, "And almost all things by the law are purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission." "Here, (you say,) are two propositions--a general one, and a universal one. The one respects things--the other respects persons. The general one is, that--Almost all things are purged with blood--the universal one is, that without shedding of blood there is no one pardoned, or there is no remission." Now, neither you nor I are fond of scrap text preaching or writing, without the connexion with the text; it may be tortured, as is frequently done, to speak what the Spirit never designed. That Paul referred to legal blood alone to the purifying and remission of sins, is plain from the whole connexion. The law of Moses was the subject of his discourse. "This is still more evident by adverting to the law itself. Lev. iv. 20, 26, 31, 35, &c. "The priest shall by blood make an atonement (kaphar) for him, (or cleanse or purge him,) and it shall be forgiven." The Septuagint constantly translate the Hebrew kaphar by exhilaskomai, which you acknowledge has the same meaning. If what I have written in my second number be not sufficient to prove that kaphar signifies to purge from sin, I will add a few more texts: Ps. li. 7; liii. 3; Isai. i. 25; vi. 7; xxii. 14; xxiv. 9; Ezek. xxvi. 1; 1 Sam. iii. 14; Prov. xvi. 6; cum multis alliis.

      In your general proposition you exclude persons from being purged with blood by law, and emphasize THINGS as only purged by blood. Now, my dear sir, this appears to me directly in contradiction to the scripture facts stated above. Is it not also contrary to your oft repeated idea, that men, guilty of all classes of sins, one sin excepted, were purged with the blood of sacrifice? Does not my brother know that the word panta, all things, includes persons as well as things? Read John i. 3; Acts xiv. 15; 1 Cor. i. 28; Eph. iii. 17; Col. i. 16, 17; Heb. i. 2, 3, &c. I understand Paul in this text to mean simply, that almost all things, persons as well as the altar, tabernacle, &c. by the law, were purged with blood; and indeed, by the law, without shedding of blood, there was no cleansing, or purging, and consequently no remission or taking away of sin.

      On page 245, I asked, "Could not the penitent offender find mercy and forgiveness by the law of faith, as did Abraham the father of us all?" You reply, "And was Abraham saved by faith, without blood, without sacrifice--by faith and works, without a sin-offering. Surely my brother forgot himself here." If I have, I will thank my brother to bring to my remembrance where it is written that Abraham was saved by blood--by sacrifice. I can find where he believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness, or justification. But you say Abraham always worshipped through blood; hence Jesus said, "Abraham saw my day, and was glad." Does this prove that he always worshipped through blood? Does this prove that he saw that Messiah, who he believed would come in the latter days, should die? Was he by faith in this blood reconciled to God and saved? I would further ask, Were not the Apostles sanctified, or clean through the word or truth before the death of Christ? Did they become clean by faith in [249] the blood of Christ, when they did not believe he would die! But you believe that the patriarchal law of sacrifice was the same as that of Moses. If so, we agree that it extended only to temporal life and temporal blessings, and not to spiritual justification and salvation. I requested my brother in a former letter to re-examine the 11th chapter of Hebrews, and see if the faith of one of the elders had the blood of Christ as its object.

      I would remind my brother of an expression, frequently used by him, which he will in a moment acknowledge to be very improper. It is this, "But the sins were first atoned for by the slain goat" page 395. Sins atoned for will very well agree with the old system, which insists upon a full satisfaction being made for sin by a substitute suffering the full penalty due the sinner; but it will not agree with what we both admit to be the meaning of kaphar, or exhilaskomai, to cleanse, purge, cover. &c. It would he very awkward to say, sins cleansed for, purged for, covered for. The word for is no part of the word kaphar or exhilaskomai, but it is a preposition, 'ol' in Hebrew, and 'peri' in Greek, which are generally translated for or on account of, thus to make an atonement for sin, means to cleanse the person or thing defiled on account of sin. This criticism, though it be considered of small moment, is of great importance in this discussion, as you will acknowledge.

      You quoted Leviticus xvi. to prove that all the sins and iniquities of Israel were cleansed by blood and borne away by the scape-goat, on the annual day of atonement; and you again introduce it on page 395. You excepted one class of sins from being cleansed by blood on that day. The man who despised Moses' law; he must die without mercy--without the benefit of sacrifice, under two or three witnesses. Heb. x. 28. Now I have proved that the sin of despising Moses' included many classes of sins, and was not confined to that one class, which renounced his dispensation. Why you have singled out this one class as the only one excluded from the benefit of sacrifice, I cannot see any good reason. Paul said without exception, "He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Let us once more, in order to set this subject at rest, inquire more fully, who are those that died without mercy, or sacrifice. Lev. xxvi. 15-43. But if ye despise my statutes, and abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant; I also will do this unto you. Then follow the curses to verse 43, and the reason again given why these curses came upon them--"because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes." To commit murder and adultery, was to despise the word of the Lord, or the law of Moses. 1 Sam. xii. 9. To give all the proofs of this subject would only be a repetition of what I have already written. To this I refer you. From these premises I conclude that the despisers of Moses' law, all wilful presumptuous sinners, as the idolater, murderer, &c. were excluded from the benefit of sacrifice on that day of atonement.

      But you say the character to which you allude, the despiser of Moses, i. e. the Apostate, was not in the congregation on that day. How does my brother know this? Might I not with equal propriety [250] say, that none of the despisers of Moses, as the idolater, the blasphemer, &c. were there? I certainly believe with you that such characters were not there, unless clandestinely, because by law they had been previously put to death. Suppose a man under the law had been convicted of murder, or any other crime worthy of death, did the law allow any respite from the execution? If it did, does it say how long the judges may defer the execution? If no time be specified, might not Mercy say, Let it be deferred till the annual day of atonement, when his sin, and all others, shall be purged away by sacrifice and forgiven? Thus would the penalties of the law be evaded. Or, if those sins worthy of death could be purged by sacrifice, and such transgressors were allowed this privilege, would not every one make that sacrifice rather than suffer death? Thus again would the law be stript of its penalties, and license given to sin. I think we should let this subject rest.

      On page 395 you quote a query by me proposed to you: "Is propitiating and pacifying the divine Father, a scriptural idea!" My brother has evidently misquoted my words: they are, "Is propitiating and pacifying the divine Father by sacrifice, a scriptural idea truly." page 390. You have left out the leading idea, by sacrifice, which I designedly emphasized. The scriptures no where say, that he was pacified or propitiated by sacrifice. But you think differently, and introduce again Ezek. xvi. 63. "When I am pacified (kaphar) towards thee for all thou hast done." I ask again, Is it said in this text, that God was pacified by blood! I have before disposed of this text, I hope to your satisfaction, that it should read, 'When I have made an atonement or purification for thee, or when I have purged thee.' To prove your position that God is pacified, you introduce those classes of texts where it is said, "To turn away his anger--his anger endureth but for a moment--many a time he turned away his anger." My dear sir, are these things said to be effected in him by blood? Again you say, in order to establish your proposition, that "Jesus is called our PEACE." I find these words in Ephesians ii. 14, 15. But this has reference only to the peace which he established between Jew and Gentile, when by his death he removed the law, which had created the enmity between them. He is our peace in another respect, because by the same means he reconciled both Jew and Gentile to God in one body. Surely this is a very different idea from that of removing the anger and enmity from the mind of God against sinners, and producing peace there towards them; and all this by blood.

      I will grant that God may be said to be pacified, to be pleased, &c. But I ask, With whom is he pacified and pleased? Is it with the impenitent sinner? Impossible: his holy nature must oppose sin. With whom then is he pacified and pleased? Surely all will say, With the penitent holy soul only; because God's holy nature is always pleased and pacified with holiness. I admit also that this pacification is effected between God and the penitent sinner by the means of Christ's blood. But this means has no direct effect on God to pacify him to the sinner; if it had, it must effect a mighty change in him--an hour before he was angry with the sinner, and not pacified to him; but as soon as the blood of Christ was shed, his anger was [251] turned away--he was pacified, though the sinner remained unchanged. Can my brother believe this? "We are reconciled to God by the death of his Son;" but not that God is reconciled to us by his death. "God was in [by] Christ reconciling the world unto himself"--not himself to the world.

      On page 396 you say, "Jesus Christ is called a Mediator, our peace and propitiation, our mercy seat, and God sent him forth in this style to justify him in showing mercy to sinners." I had always thought that Jesus Christ was God's mercy seat, and not ours. The text to which you refer reads thus, "Whom (Christ) God hath set forth to be a propitiation (mercy seat) through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." Rom. iii. 25, 26. It is agreed on all hands that hilasterion in the Greek text should be rendered propitiatory, or mercy seat. So have you rendered it in your version. Now the mercy seat under the law, was the covering of the ark containing the testimony, from which mercy seat God delivered or declared his oracles or words, and granted his favor to Israel through their High Priest The antitype of which is Jesus Christ--he is the true mercy seat, from or by whom God speaks, and shows mercy to the world. One declaration he makes from this seat is, that he can be just when he justifies him that believeth in Jesus. This idea is very different from the one you have given, "that God sent him forth to justify himself in showing mercy to sinners."

      Of these verses in your former editions of the Testament you have given Macknight's version; but in your last you have altered it according to what you deemed most proper. Thus you translate them--"Whom God hath set forth a propitiatory through faith in his blood, for a demonstration of his own justice in passing by the sins, which were before committed, through the forbearance of God, for a demonstration, also, of his justice in the present time, in order that be may be just when justifying him who is of the faith of Jesus." I think my brother took greater liberty in this translation than the Greek text fairly admitted. You have rendered the word dikaisoune, justice.--Though this word is found near one hundred times in the New Testament, it is every where translated righteousness in our version; and, I believe, in your version it is in every other place rendered righteousness. You have added the word "own" to justice, which is not in the text. You have also added the word "also" in verse 26, which gives an entirely different idea from that communicated without it, as is apparent to every reader. The righteousness of God, which he declared from his mercy seat, Jesus Christ, is his plan of justifying the sinner through faith. This is the proposition made by the Apostle in the first chapter of the Romans, and continued through all the argumentative part of the epistle. But as my brother intimates that in its proper place he will speak more fully on this text, I will patiently wait.

      Grace, mercy, and peace be with you!

B. W. STONE. [252]      

      Brother Stone--WE are discussing the greatest question in the world--For what did the Messiah die? He died for no sins, or for his own sins, or for our sins. Of this trilemma we both choose the last. We affirm that "he died for our sins according to the scriptures."--But it is said that many affirm in words, but deny in fact, that Christ died for our sins; and you and I both admit that it is possible to affirm the words, while denying the fact, in any proposition. It is essential, then, that while affirming the words, we do not deny the fact, that Christ died for our sins.

      Hence it is that I fear some of our readers will conclude that you teach that Christ died for our faith rather than for our sins, inasmuch as you avow the reason of Christ's death to have been, "Because none without that blood could be led to believe in him," and consequently to repentance and remission. Will they not conclude that you make the death of Jesus no more a sin-offering than the death of Stephen or of Paul. They were martyrs to the love of God to man, and gave such evidence of their sincerity as to superinduce faith in all who gave them a candid hearing, that they were true and honest-hearted men. In what sense, then, I beseech you to tell, did Christ die for our sins, in which Stephen did not die for them? They were both witnesses of what they saw, heard, and believed. But was there atonement, reconciliation, or redemption in the blood of Stephen or of Paul? And is there not all these in the blood of Christ!

      He died for our sins according to the scriptures. And in what sense did the scriptures teach a death for sins? To produce faith and repentance? No! They offered in faith, not to produce faith: they offered as penitents, not to be led to repentance. When the iniquity of Israel was by the hand of the Priest laid upon the victim, was it to produce faith in the sufferer, or in the God that doomed this innocent creature to suffer, or was it for the typical putting away of sin? Doubtless it was for taking away sin in a figurative sense, that we might by the type understand how Christ took away our sin in the literal and true sense.

      But you, even in your last letter, above quoted, intimate that while no sin of any class was purged without blood; and that while the blood of bulls and of goats had virtue to take away errors, sins of ignorance and pardonable offences, and no virtue to expiate other sins; yet "those sins unpardonable by the law, and not allowed to be purged by blood according to the law, were to the penitent sinner forgiven by God according to the law of faith, without the deeds of the law;" thereby [253] making the blood of bulls and of goats virtually adequate to purify from some sins; and faith, without blood, as all-sufficient to purify from those sins which animal sacrifice could not reach; as blood, without faith, was to the removal of pardonable offences. I wish some one, more ingenious than I, may be able to put a better construction on the 2d and 3d paragraphs of the preceding letter. Now had you added that such sins above described were pardoned by God according to the law of faith, without the deeds of the law, through the great sacrifice of Christ; then, indeed, I could have reconciled you and Paul without any difficulty; but as it is, it will require one much mightier than I to effect a reconciliation between you and Paul.

      If I understand you correctly, the death of Christ, as a sin-offering, had no virtue, any more than the blood of bulls and of goats, to take away sin from any one who died before him. Faith and repentance, without the blood of Christ, availed to the remission of Abraham, and to the remission of all who died from Adam to Moses, and from Moses to Christ, who have obtained pardon. As for infants, they were saved, if saved at all--without faith, repentance, circumcision, sacrifice, or any thing else, but naked justice. They died because of Adam's sin; had none of their own; and, therefore, needed not faith, repentance, circumcision, sacrifice, or mercy from God. As persons of discrimination might, perhaps, draw this conclusion from what you have written in this discussion, I give it form and utterance, that, if possible, you, may scatter the mist from our eyes.

      Indeed, if you make Christ's death for sin to mean no more than death for faith, or as a means to faith, follows it not inevitably that the death of Christ effected nothing essential to the salvation of all mankind before he was born; and nothing to the salvation of mankind now, only so far as the adult and educated portions of the race are made acquainted with his death as a means to faith, which is a means to penitence, which is a means to reconciliation, which is a means to forgiveness, which is a means to salvation. Just as miracles are necessary to faith in things supernatural, so is the blood of Christ to a full persuasion that God loved the world! If this be all that is meant by Christ's dying for our sins, I confess I should not feel an infinite obligation to the Messiah, though perhaps a greater obligation than to Paul or Peter. He has loved me and driven himself for me only in a higher degree than the Apostles and Prophets who sealed their testimony with their blood.

      Brother Stone, you make blood a means of pardon in some cases only, and the death of Christ no essential means of pardon, except in some cases that have since that event occurred. Abraham was saved [254] without it; and you ask, "Were not the Apostles sanctified and clean through the word he had spoken to them, before he died?" You give to the death of Christ no retrospective character, no indispensable efficacy in its bearing either on God or man. It is merely a fuller proof and clearer demonstration of the love of God; but not a demonstration of his justice in passing by sins committed under a former economy. So I yet understand you. And here I may as well, as at any other time, notice your critique on Rom. iii. 25, 26.

      You seem to object to the new version of this passage. First, to the substitution of justice for the term righteousness; and in reprobation of that fact add, that "in the New Testament it is every where translated righteousness in our version." But how is it in the Old? This you probably did not examine, else in your usual candor you would have told your readers (and justified me by assuring them) that generally where we have the English word justice in the common version we have the word dikaiosune in the Septuagint: such as when David says, "Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne;" and "I have done judgment and justice;" and where Solomon says, "When thou seest the perverting of justice," it is the same word so often used by Paul in the epistle to the Romans, and which is found almost a hundred times in the New Testament. But there is another fact you would have told them had you only thought of it--viz. that the word justice is not in the common version of the New Testament at all; and if the idea of justice be at all in the New Testament--(and if it be not, is it not a singular fact!!)--l say, if the idea of justice be in the Christian scriptures at all, it is found in the word dikaiosune, in this place most appositely, in my opinion, rendered justice. And is not the old English term righteousness equivalent in all cases to the term justice, though sometimes rather awkwardly expressive of it!--When Daniel foretells "an everlasting righteousness" as being introduced by the Messiah, the seventy Hebrews use Paul's favorite dikaiosune found 36 times in the Epistle to the Romans. It must then depend always upon the good sense and judgment of the translators whether in the version it shall be read righteousness, justification, or justice. I was then authorized by every law of interpretation, and by the indisputable meaning of the word, to render it justice, Rom. iii. 25, 26, and which I doubt not, when all party prejudices shall have slept in the tomb of oblivion, will be universally admitted as the most correct and happy version of that most important passage ever given. But while I say this, I would not be understood as intimating that it materially differs from the common version. Indeed, I regard the common version as sufficiently just and faithful to the original in this particular, though neither so clear nor striking as the New. [255]

      You also demur to the insertion of own before righteousness, and yet agree with me that it is his own righteousness or justice that is spoken of! Now so long as we agree that it is God's righteousness that is spoken of, why demur at making this as plain as possible to our readers? But you complain of also, as giving an entirely different idea from that in the text, or from a version without it. Your words are, "You have also added the word also, in verse 26." This is not the fact. It is Macknight's version, not mine. This I am aware is an oversight of yours; for, brother Stone, I know you would be the last man in the world to assume or assert a false fact. I agree with Macknight that this supplement is fairly implied, and that clearness demands it. The sins of two dispensations are clearly spoken of, both here and in Heb. ix.; which two passages have, as far as human language is capable of definitely expressing any ideas, in the clearest and most forcible manner expressed the true necessity of Christ's death as a sin-offering--To justify. God before the universe, to sustain the dignity of his throne and government in the sight of all pure and holy beings, in passing by the sins committed under two testaments--of law and of favor; of which I have much to say, should we ever meet at Romans iii. 25, 26, and Hebrews ix. 13, 14, 15.--of which, at present, there is some doubt.

      That the Messiah's death had aught to do with the remission of sins committed before that event, is, I know, an idea repudiated by all the elder speculators of the Arian, Socinian, and Unitarian schools.--Therefore all their critics object to the most natural and obvious versions of these passages. I therefore regret that my brother Stone, who does not fraternize with them in their theories, should, to his own disadvantage, appear to prefer their construction; of which, however, I have not full evidence that he does. I hope, then, he will throw of all ambiguity on this subject.

      I know, indeed, that the unfortunate representations of the Messiah's death as for faith, and not for sins--as a means of repentance, rather than a means of purification, propitiation, or expiation, savors, in appearance, of those ideas. Still I will not gravely assail them as your ideas until you more fully and explicitly avow them.

      I will not, brother Stone, enter into a war of words with you or any brother, while we have so many things of great value in discussion.--True, words must occasionally be subjects of discussion; but as seldom as possible is my intention. Your renewal, then, of the question about "all things" purged by blood, as including both persons and things, is not disputed by me. I stand to all I have written on the difference between the two propositions--concerning persons and [256] things; for, indeed, that ta panta may include both persons and things, militates nothing against it. "All things" often means both persons and things; but "all persons" does not mean all things and all persons: and this is enough for me. "To atone for," and "to make atonement for," are with me identical expressions. Now anxious though I be to please brother Stone by using words as he does, I cannot go so far as to repudiate the phrase "to atone for" till he explains to me the difference between the contraction and the scriptural phrase "to make atonement for," of which it is but the mere contraction. In the name of reason, why so morbidly sensitive on this, and not on a thousand other phrases found in your essays, never found in any version of the New Testament? Show, then, that to make atonement for a person or for a sin, differs from to atone for sin, or for a person; and, if possible, I will gratify this peculiar taste in my venerable correspondent.

      You sometimes seek to confound me with a question which is fatal to your scheme, or which places you in a light before the public in which I never before contemplated you. You ask me once and again, "Did the pious Jews and Patriarchs become clean by faith in the blood of Christ when they did not believe that he would die?" Well, then, in return I ask, Did the Jews and Patriarchs believe in God to their salvation without the knowledge of the death of Christ, which you say is essential to faith; for, with you, the death of Christ is essential to forgiveness only as it is essential to faith!!! Your question is suicidal to your scheme, but confirmatory of mine; because the death of the Messiah justified God in forgiving Jews, patriarchs, infants, &c. in all past ages, whether they believed in the sacrifice of the Messiah or not: for, says Paul, "God has set him forth a propitiatory, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past"--"for the redemption of the transgressions under the first testament." Thus your question, when properly answered, demonstrates the scriptural propriety of my interpretation, and the scriptural impropriety of that which is opposed to it.

      In like manner your appeal to Hebrews xi. vacates and annuls all your reasonings about the death of Christ as a means of faith: for as you very justly demand, "Had the faith of one of the elders (Heb. xi.) the blood of Christ as its object?" Consequently their faith, and the model faith of Abraham, needed not the death of Christ as a means, or cause, or object; and with this you have fully settled the controversy about the design of Christ's death; conclusively showing that it was to affect God's government, rather than merely to enable persons to possess purifying faith. There are various other questions and points in your epistles, which, were I severally to notice, would operate in [257] the same direction with these. I have neither room nor need for them just now, and will reserve them for other exigencies. Meanwhile I pray you to reflect on one point--that the forgiveness of sins on repentance in the Old Testament always presupposes sacrifice, as certainly as baptism in the New Testament always presupposes faith, whether named or not.

      In all benevolence, I remain, &c.

A. CAMPBELL.      

[The Millennial Harbinger (June 1841): 248-258.]