If to any one it appears that Lyman Abbott's name is unduly conspicuous on this page, let it be understood that he has himself provoked it. For several years previous to the opening of this department in the Standard, Professor Briggs was the central figure in the controversy over higher criticism in this country. After he subsided, President Harper came to the front; and now that he has retired from the leadership, Dr. Abbott, through his pulpit and his magazine, has renewed the firing from a different point of the compass. Where the hottest fire of the enemy is, thither the return fire must be directed. Some of the friends of this last champion have cried out that he is being "hounded" for his recent utterances; but this should not surprise them, for it is the business of the hounds to open after every fox that makes a fresh trail before them. What are hounds fit for if they do not chase away the foxes?

      In his last essay, published in The Outlook for February 20, Dr. Abbott says many true and excellent things about vicarious suffering. He shows that throughout animated nature, and more particularly in the human family, a large part of the suffering experienced is that which is borne by some in behalf of other. But when he comes to the sufferings of Christ for men, he expresses himself as follows:

      This, too, is what is meant by that statement, so dear to some and so shocking to others, that we are saved by the blood [186] of Christ. Let us try for a moment to disabuse our minds of traditional opinions and see what that phrase means, looked at in the light of history. Is the blood of Christ that which flowed from him at the crucifixion? His was almost a bloodless death; a few drops of blood only trickled from the pierced hands and feet; for the blood and water that came from the side when the spear pierced it came after death, when the suffering was over.

      These questions, he assumes, are to be answered in the negative, because the quantity of blood that was shed before death was so small. Here are two original ideas; first, that through the lacerated hands and feet of Jesus only a few drops of blood could have trickled; and, second, that the efficacy of his blood depended on the quantity that was shed. And we might add, as a third, that the blood which flowed from his pierced side is not to be considered because it came forth after his death, although it was the agony of death which caused it to accumulate about his heart. Let Dr. Abbott have full credit for his originality. I am sure that no man is likely to claim any part of it, or to infringe upon his copyright.

      But is it to that blood which flowed at the cross, whether much or little, that our salvation is ascribed? Men have always believed that it is; have they been mistaken? Let the Scriptures answer; for they are to be heard in preference to Dr. Lyman Abbott. Take the familiar passage, "But Christ, having come a high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption" (Heb. 9:11, 12). Does "his own blood" here, put in contrast with the blood of goats and calves, mean the blood that he shed at the crucifixion? or does [187] it mean something else? Take Peter's saying, that we are redeemed "with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ" (1 Pet. 1:19). Or, finally, take the still more specific reference by Paul to the blood shed at the crucifixion: "For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; and through him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood of the cross" (Col. 1:20).

      But if, as Dr. Abbott says, "the blood of Christ" was not the blood that flowed from him at the crucifixion, we are ready to ask, What was it? and Dr. Abbott gives the answer:

      Blood, the Bible itself declares, is life; we are saved by the blood of Christ when we are saved by the life of Christ--by Christ's own life imparted to us by Christ's life transmitted, and by Christ's life transmitted, as life alone can be transmitted, through the gateway of pain and suffering.

      If this is true, that is, if, when we are said to be saved by the blood of Christ, it is meant we are saved by his life being transmitted to us, what is meant when it is said that by the blood of goats and calves the Jews were sanctified to the purifying of the flesh? The two are put in antithesis, and therefore the sanctifying in the one case must be parallel to the saving in the other; so I suppose Dr. Abbott would have it that the Jews were sanctified by the life of the goat or the calf transmitted, as life alone can be transmitted through the gateway of pain and suffering. But when the life of the goat or the calf was transmitted to the Jew, what kind of life did he afterward live? Was he a goat or a calf, or a combination of both? Perhaps he was partly goat, partly calf, partly Jew--about as strange a mixture as Dr. Abbott makes of the doctrine of sacrifice. [188]

      Dr. Abbott has never sufficiently studied the Levitical law. He says: "I can not find anywhere in the Old Testament the word sacrifice coupled with the idea of penalty; it is always coupled with purification." If he means by the first clause of this sentence that the victim is nowhere represented as suffering a penalty, he is correct; but if he means that no penalty was removed from the offerer by the sacrifice, he is radically and thoroughly wrong; for some kind of penalty or disability was removed by every sacrifice, unless the peace offering is an exception. And while it is true that in all the sacrifices offered for uncleanness they were coupled with purification, it is not true that sacrifice was "always coupled with purification." On the contrary, no sin offering or guilt offering was ever coupled with purification, but always with the forgiveness of sin and the consequent removal of the penalty.

      Again Dr. Abbott says:

      Nowhere in the New Testament is the sacrifice of Christ coupled with a statement of the removal of punishment--but always with the transmission of life or the removal of sin.

      I believe it is true that this sacrifice is nowhere coupled with "a statement of the removal of punishment;" but what of it? It is coupled, as this very sentence affirms, with "the removal of sin;" and when sin is removed, its penalty is remitted. Literally speaking, the removal of past sins is an impossibility. They can be removed only in the sense that they are forgiven; and this means that they will not be punished; yet Dr. Abbott is in such confusion of thought on the subject that he says, farther on, "It is not the removal of the penalty, it is the removal of the sin, humanity needs." Well, to try this, let us suppose that Dr. Abbott's sins at a certain moment in life were entirely removed so that he will [189] never sin again, but that the penalty for his past sins is not removed; when he finds himself in torment, will he still think humanity does not need the removal of the penalty? I hope before it comes to that he will change his mind and repent of his unscriptural teaching.

[SEBC 186-190]