#8. Deity of Christ, and the meaning of the Atonement.


Before attempting to speak on these momentous themes, a word or two concerning “God” is called for. What do we know of “God” as He is in Himself? The answer must be “Nothing”. Every title He has assumed has been for our sakes. Every manifestation has been a condescension, every name a limitation. God absolutely and unconditioned is unknown and unknowable by finite beings. When we read “God is spirit” we have a statement of fact which we can believe, but what do we know of life that is pure spirit? What are its modes? How can a “Person” be everywhere at once? What can we know of that order of being that is invisible, inaudible, intangible, infinite? If God reveals Himself under the title “I AM”—just what do we understand? Is there not the tendency on our part to reply, “I am what”? The name Jehovah which is adopted by God as His name for the age, is used repeatedly of Christ in the New Testament. He, too, at times claims the title “I AM”, as for example in John viii. 58, 59, and answers to the unspoken cry of our nature when confronted with the title, by filling it out in such claims as “I AM the bread of life”, “I AM the light of the world”, etc. In other words, Christ is God stepping down from the unconditioned into the realm of manifestation.

The Universe falls into two categories: (1) The Creator; (2) The Creature. Christ must be one or the other. Scripture affirms that Christ is the Creator (John i.; Col. i.; Heb. i.). The Universe falls into two categories: (1) All that is God; (2) All that is not God. Christ must be one or the other. Scripture affirms that He is God (John i.; Heb. i.; Rom. ix.). In Chapters i. and vi. of the first epistle to Timothy, God is said to be “invisible”, and that the mystery of godliness is that “God manifest in the flesh” (I Tim. iii. 16).

It is taught in Matt. xi. 27 that the Father is knowable, for it is the office of the Son to reveal Him, but the Son is inscrutable, “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father”, and the words “and He to whomsoever the Father will reveal Him” do not follow. Even Matt. xvi. 16, 17 does not reveal the nature of the Son.

The Old Testament is intensely monotheistic, not only in affirming that God is One, but by such repeated statements as characterize such a passage as Isa. xlv.

“I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside Me” (verse 5).
“For thus saith the Lord that created heavens. God Himself . . . . . I am the Lord; and there is none else” (verse 18).
“There is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour: there is none beside Me” (verse 21).
“Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” (verse 22).

To any one that believes the Scriptures to be the inspired Word of God the above statements must be taken implicitly, without alteration or reserve—and they must be taken together with all that the context teaches. The near context says:

“I have sworn by Myself, the word is gone out of My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear” (Isa. xlv. 23).

If there is anything that is plain in this passage it is this, that to the One God, the Creator, the Saviour, to Him Who is God alone, with none beside Him, “every knee shall bow”. Paul as a Jew and as a Pharisee knew this, and held it tenaciously. As an Apostle he knew it and taught it, writing in Romans:

“For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God” (Rom. xiv. 11).

Does he throw this blessed revelation to the winds then when he wrote to the Philippians, or does he recognize in “Jesus”, God manifest in the flesh?

“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. ii. 10, 11).

The Father is God, but so also must the Son be to justify this application of such a passage as that of Isa. xlv. The confusion of the titles “Father” and “Son” with the Being of the Absolute and Unconditioned God is the fruitful source of all the objections made to the Deity of Christ. Humanly devised creeds have taken the place of Scripture statements, transcendental philosophy mistaken for Scripture truth, to the confusion of the believer and the mutilation of truth.

Just as we saw that the inspiration of Scripture is linked with the principle of right division, so we see that the Deity of Christ is linked with His sacrifice for sin. The three passages which we have already referred to in answer to the question “Does Scripture give the title ‘God’ or ‘Creator’ to Christ?” indicate the link that there is between His Person and His Sacrificial Work.


Confining ourselves for the present to one great aspect of the Sacrifice for sin we look at the Atonement. The word so translated in the O.T. is the Hebrew kopher, and its primitive meaning is “to cover”. Such words as “A cloud”, “A hand”, “A spoon”, “A cave”, anything over-arching or hollow, are translations of this word or its derivatives. It means also “a village”, obviously a covering or a “roof over one’s head”, and survives in the N.T. name Capernaum, “the village of Naum”. While atonement means to “cover”, it does not mean “to cover up”, for it is written, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper” (Prov. xxviii. 13) even though Psalm xxxii. 1 speaks of the blessedness of the man whose sins are “covered”. The fact that the law permitted the penalty to be commuted (Exod. xxi. 30, xxx. 12, Numb. xxxv. 31, 32) prepared the way for the glorious commutation of the cross.

Among the essentials for a scriptural atonement we must instance two particularly:

(1) The shedding of blood. Lev. xvii. 11; Heb. ix. 22.
(2) The Offering must be “perfect”. Lev. xxii. 19, 20.

This essential place of the shedding of blood is carried over into New Testament doctrine. It is the basis of Justification (Rom. iii. 23-26); Sanctification (Heb. ix. 13, 14); Forgiveness (Col. i. 14); Presentation (Col. i. 22); and Cleansing (I John i. 7, 9).

The passage of Scripture which was read at the meeting brings the Deity of Christ and His Sacrifice close together:

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus ii. 13, 14).

From earliest days, Preachers, Teachers and Students have exercised themselves in the endeavour to frame some definition of the Atonement that will give it its Scriptural place in the Divine purpose. With great diffidence the following was submitted to the Meeting as a beginning, with the hope that at subsequent Meetings the various features could be taken up individually and the definition clarified thereby:

The atonement is an expedient introduced into the Divine moral government, devised by infinite wisdom, to satisfy both the righteousness and the love of God in the forgiveness and salvation of the sinner who believes the gospel.

This atonement consists of the Substitionary Sacrifice of Christ, bearing our sins in His Own body on the tree, and through the shedding of His precious blood a ransom has been found, satisfaction made, reconciliation accomplished, justification, sanctification, forgiveness, life and peace for ever assured.

The atonement thus made provides a ground upon which a holy God can meet a sinner in grace and mercy, without in the slightest degree compromising the throne of His holiness, or doing dishonour to His holy law.

It is of the very essence of this atonement that its benefits should be freely bestowed and freely received, without merit or legal works on the part of the sinner thus saved. It is by grace through faith alone.

At future “Foundation Day” Meetings, every one of these terms used in the attempted definition could be examined. What is Substitution? Sacrifice? Satisfaction? What is meant by the “necessity” of the atonement? What is meant by “A ground upon which a holy God can meet a sinner in grace and mercy”? What is meant by “An expedient introduced into the Divine moral government”? and so with every feature both of this, and of the other three basic doctrines of the Trust.

In conclusion we print a comment upon the first Foundation Day Meetings received from a friend who was present:

“On Saturday, 26th May, the first Foundation Day Meetings of the Chapel of the Opened Book were held, and proved to be of an auspicious character.
In reviewing the circumstances leading up to the establishment of this witness, the individual details are prosaic enough, but their cumulative effect reveals a sure guidance of the hand of God which is very heartening in a day when ‘there is no open vision’. Their ultimate effect may even prove historical.
It is the more remarkable that it was the outcome, not of a single mind or purpose, but born of a latent desire on the part of many widely scattered people who, seeking for the truth, found it, and finding it desired to spread it to an ever widening circle of seekers, so that in a day when counsel is darkened and confusion tends to bewilder the minds of men, a beacon has been lit by which to steer in the aftermath of the storm that is past and the storms already appearing.”

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 33, page 126).

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