ARTICLE VI-ROTHE ON THE ATONEMENT.

[DOGMATIK, BD. II., §§ 51–55.]*

Translated by Rev. GEO. B. STEVENS.

§ 51. The solution of the antinomy in the doctrine of atonement.

THE removal of sin, as required by the idea of redemption, is twofold, (1) the removal of its consequences for the sinner in his relation to God which, according to the nature of the case, involves his standing under the divine wrath,-more exactly, the removal of guilt and penalty which can only be accomplished by the forgiveness of his sins by God, and (2) the actual putting away (dvérŋois) of sin itself in the sinner, the real removal of his sinfulness and the restoration of a normal religious condition in him. Both these elements of the work mutually condition each other. On account of his holiness and righteousness, God cannot forgive the sinner unless he is actually made free and separated from his sin; for so long as he is sinful, God's working upon him must react against him; the divine self-consciousness as holiness must determine his as a feeling of guilt; the divine activity as righteousness must determine his as an impulse to repentance, that is, as an evil conscience. But equally is a real freedom from sin, an actual separation of the sinner from it impossible without his first obtaining forgiveness from God, for so long as God repels him, he can not really turn from sin toward him. Here lies an antinomy whose solution the holiness and righteousness of God absolutely demand. For this solution cannot continue to stand in the mere punishment of sin. This idea demands that God hold himself in an attitude of refusal and rejection toward every sinful creature but that in really rejecting him, he at the same time take away his sin while the sinful creature himself he repels. The holiness and right

*It is believed that these sections, though comprising but a small part of Rothe's discussion of the redemptive work of Christ, will give the most important ideas and conclusions of his unique and suggestive views. -Tr.

eousness of God are satisfied with nothing less than the actual removal of sin in and for the creature. If this result is conditioned by a previous forgiveness of sin, then the holiness and righteousness of God demand such a forgiveness; only they strictly demand, at the same time, that this forgiveness be accomplished in such a way that in it the action of God in repudiating sin be established, i. e., that the holiness and righteousness of God be perfectly maintained. What is here demanded as the solution of this antinomy is atonement, i. e., the making of sin forgivable. Accordingly there must be a modification of the sinner's attitude toward God such that notwithstanding God's holiness and righteousness, the sin which still really clings to him may be forgiven and that he, in spite of it, may enter into communion with God. From the nature of the case it is plain in what this atonement for sin must in the concrete consist. There is only one conceivable case in which God, without detriment to his holiness and righteousness, can forgive the sinner bis sins before their actual removal, viz: the case in which God has the certain guaranty, lying in the transaction. itself, that sin shall be in the sinner actually removed, if forgiveness is granted him beforehand so that this prevenient receiving of forgiveness,-this anticipated forgiveness,―is in the sinner the actual beginning of a continuous and certainly effective process of the removal of sin and the real entrance upon his separation from it. In this case, and only so, would the relation of God to the sinner be so modified that without prejudice to his holiness and righteousness, he would no longer have occasion to regard it as a relation of wrath; or rather, we should say, just on account of his holiness and righteousness, he could no longer regard the relation as one of wrath, and he can enter into communion with the sinner, conferring his grace upon him; or rather, he must now do so, that is, the sin of the sinner would be atoned for.

But this case must not only exist in relation to the sin of the individual sinner, but also to that of the sinful race of creatures in its totality. This follows from the necessary and indissoluble connection of the individual with the whole, but especially from the fact that the sin of the individual can only be completely put away when sin is also abolished in its workings outside of

the man himself, that is, when the destructive operations of sin upon others and in general upon human society, are checked. The case which is here supposed in relation to the sin of humanity-both in general and in individuals-has actually been realized in the complete preparation of the second Adam to be the Redeemer. In the completed Redeemer, according to the very idea of him, dwells the absolutely adequate power for the putting away of sin in humanity, both as a whole and as individuals. He has set in movement a historical process of the actual removal of sin in humanity,-a process which must without fail progressively attain its end, on the presupposition that on the side of God an anticipated forgiveness of sins takes place. Therefore in the case of every person who, by coming through faith into personal communion of life with the Redeemer, enters upon this process begun and led on by him, God is furnished with an adequate guaranty for the perfect, actual removal of his sin. And the guaranty of this is that in him the process of actually removing sin and the realization of his separation from it are begun, in case God forgives him and confers upon him his grace.

Thus can the holy and righteous God forgive the sin so atoned for, or rather we may say, he must graciously forgive it just on account of his holiness and righteousness. As now the efficacy of the atoning power of the Redeemer is conditioned for the individual upon his entering by faith into real community of life with him, just so is it conditioned for humanity in general upon the reality of this connection of life in which the Redeemer stands to it and its development.

So then the relation of communion with God is restored for sinful humanity through the Redeemer, and accordingly the basis is established for a new religious development leading humanity ever more and more out of its abnormal condition into a normal one.

§ 52. The atoning significance of the death of Jesus.

If we now ask further by what means the Redeemer has atoned for the sin of humanity, the general answer is simply: by qualifying himself to be the Redeemer. For the atonement for human sin consists just in this, that a human individual is

absolutely fitted to completely accomplish the actual removal of sin in humanity. More exactly, however, his qualification for this work rests upon his perfect union, on the one side, with God and, on the other, with the human race. The Redeemer has accordingly atoned for our sin by developing himself, personally or morally to absolute perfectness in a perfectly normal way that is, by developing himself in an absolutely complete manner into a perfectly good and holy Being. By this means he directly qualified himself for absolute union with God, on the one side, and with the totality of our race on the other. This is the complete sanctification of the Redeemer by which he is specifically prepared to be to the sinful world, in a perfectly adequate way, the cause and principle of its sanctification. What therefore Jesus proposes to himself as his task in order to prepare himself to be the Redeemer, is, that he accomplish in himself (through a perfectly normal moral self-development) the absolute giving up of self, or, in other words, the absolute giving up of what belongs of right to him, on the one hand to God, and on the other to humanity. Now the giving of himself to God is that offering which, according to the very idea of it, is a self-offering. The giving of himself to humanity is the offering up of himself for their good out of pure love to them. But both the offering and the offering up of himself become absolute only by the giving up of even the last and most peculiar possession which he could give, viz: his physical life. Only through the perfectly free giving up of his physical life to God and to humanity for its good, can Jesus prepare himself to be the Redeemer and thereby accomplish the atonement for sin. His sanctification therefore consists in concreto in his perfecting his individual being into a completely holy Being in an absolutely perfect manner; more exactly, it consists in his forming for his individual personality a completely spiritual or animated body and in producing the spirit called by preëminence the Holy Spirit.

Accordingly it is his individual discipline upon which all depends. Indeed so far as his relation to God is chiefly concerned, it is in a religious point of view his individual religious discipline. Everything depends finally upon the fact of his whole individual development of life being a process of per

fectly normal and complete religious training. Now this individual training is dedication and, religiously considered, prayer. It is necessarily involved in this idea that the material nature be formed for the personality, as individual, into a spiritual organ-a process of producing a possession or right of one's own. On the other hand there is involved the giving up to God of this organ formed for the individual personality or of this right of possession (eigenthum) to be the instrument of his activity in the individual and through him, that is, to be an offering, yes, a self-offering. Only through a life which in its complete totality is a perfectly true offering-hence a selfoffering-can Jesus, the second Adam, raise himself to complete union with God. He must fully give up his rightful possession to God although it was completely attained by himself. Thereby every peculiar possession of his is declined. Only thus, through his complete self-privation culminating only in his unconditioned and perfectly free giving of his own physical life, the absolutely voluntary assumption of death on account of the will of God, the absolute martyrdom,-is his union with God completed. Only by this means can he accordingly qualify himself to be the Redeemer and at the same time the means of atonement for the sin of humanity. Just so on the human side of his work: if the normalness and completeness of the moral development of the individual is necessarily conditioned upon his entering into perfectly normal and complete communion with all other individuals through pure and complete love, so is the moral completeness of Jesus, the second Adam, and his qualification to be the Redeemer, and hence the means of atonement for the sin of humanity, conditioned on this side upon his self-offering and especially upon his giving up of his rightful possession, though completely won, to the human race. They are conditioned upon his perfect giving up of self in complete love which can culminate only in the unconditioned and unconditionally free gift of even his own physical life to humanity out of love for it,-only in the perfectly voluntary assumption of death for collective humanity, for their good, viz: their redemption,-only in the unconditioned offering of himself for them out of unconditioned love for them. This self-offering through which alone Jesus, the second Adam, can