# The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained/Chapter3

III.—The Atonement.
Before explaining the doctrine of the New Church on this subject, it may be expedient to notice briefly the Old and commonly received doctrine. The reader can then judge which of the two is most in accordance with reason and Scripture;—which bears most conspicuously the impress of heaven, and which looks most like the offspring of man's self-derived intelligence.
If the Old doctrine of the Divine Trinity—corrupted into a trinity of persons—is erroneous, it was not possible for the other leading doctrines of Christianity to escape corruption and falsification from an error so fundamental. And the most prominent as well as the most mischievous falsity, because the most captivating and delusive, is that concerning the Atonement as commonly held and taught. This doctrine, we are aware, has been differently understood and explained at different times, and by different persons at the same time. And, notwithstanding the supreme importance which is very properly attached to a right understanding of it, probably not many among the most learned of the "evangelical" school at this time, would explain this doctrine in precisely or even substantially the same way. However this may be, the following summary ​statement of it in Buck's Theological Dictionary, said to have been drawn from distinguished Trinitarian writers on this subject, may be taken as embodying the generally received view.
his broken law. For if the great Ruler of the world had pardoned the sins of men without any satisfaction, then his laws might have seemed not worth the vindicating.
"Because God intended to make a full display of the terrors of his justice, and his divine resentment for the violation of his law, therefore He appointed his own Son to satisfy for the
And if any one desires to know what this doctrine is, as held and taught at the present day, let him turn to the "Confession of Faith" of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, published in 1838. He will there find these words:
In the same chapter of this work we are told that God justifies sinners "by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them"" (§ 1); and that "Faith thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification." (§ 2.) In other parts of the same work we find mention made of Christ having borne the iveight of God's wrath, satisfied his justice, procured his favor, purchased reconciliation, etc. (See pp. 44, 161, 168.)
In the Catechism (No. 2) of the Methodist Episcopal Church published in 1839, it is stated (p. 14) that "Christ, by means of his sufferings and death, offered a full satisfaction and atonement to Divine Justice, for the sins of the whole world." And immediately after, it is added by way of explanation, that, "because He was perfectly righteous, there was an infinite value and merit in his death, which, being undergone for our sakes and in our stead. Almighty God exercises his mercy in the forgiveness of sins, consistently with his justice and holiness."
Such is the commonly received doctrine of a vicarious atonement, as given in the words of its ​believers and advocates. And it will be found substantially the same as here stated, in the Catechisms, Creeds, Formularies and Confessions of Faith, of all the religious sects who believe in the tripersonality of God. Indeed, this doctrine, as I have already said, is a legitimate offspring of the tripersonal theory. And according to the language in which it is set forth by its advocates, it represents the Father or first person in the Trinity, as a stern, inflexible, vindictive God, who is angry with the human race on account of their transgressions, and will by no means forgive them their sins, without a full equivalent or satisfaction for his violated law. It represents the Son or second person in the Trinity, as a tender and compassionate God, who is moved with pity towards the human race; and in order to satisfy the Father's demands, and procure his favor, or purchase for man a release from his vengeance, He comes into the world of his own free will, and pays the penalty due to the sins of all mankind by suffering and dying upon the cross. The Father accepts the ransom, is reconciled towards the human race, and can then "honorably forgive his creature man;" or, as some understand it, He then imputes to mankind the merit of Christ's ​sufferings and death, or feels towards our race as if they themselves had suffered the merited punishment. It is for this reason that the Atonement is commonly called by Christian writers vicarious. Christ, they say, suffered as our vicar or substitute—suffered in our stead—and, by his own death, paid the penalty which the Father demanded for his violated law. In this way He satisfied the demands of Divine Justice, and purchased a pardon for man, or propitiated the Deity.
This doctrine needs no comment. It would seem as if every honest man and woman who are not willing to utterly renounce their understanding in matters of religion and accept a blind faith, could hardly fail to perceive that such a doctrine must be false the moment they hear it stated. Yet no other doctrine is clung to with such blind and inveterate obstinacy as this—for the reason, doubtless, that no other promises the sinner salvation on such easy terms.
The New Doctrine of Atonement.
What, now, is the New Church doctrine on this subject? It is not easy to present it in such a manner that it will be readily apprehended by the natural man. For until we have had some experience of the Atonement—until our natural has, to some extent, been brought under subjection and into agreement or oneness with our spiritual ​man, which takes place only as we become regenerated, we need not expect to understand much about the at-one-ment of the Divine with the Human in Jesus Christ.
It must be plain to every one that the Old doctrine on this subject is based upon, and grows legitimately out of, the doctrine of three Divine Persons. It is wholly incompatible with the doctrine of God's personal unity, and cannot stand for a moment when this is admitted. For when it is seen that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one and only Divine Person in whom "dwells all the fulness of the Godhead," then there is no first Person apart from Him to demand satisfaction for his violated law; no one whose wrath is to be appeased by the sufferings and death of another, or to whom the penalty due to man's transgressions is to be paid. It is plain, therefore, that the Old doctrine on this subject does by no means consist with the New doctrine of the Trinity (see p. 33), nor with the supreme and absolute divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
According to the belief and teaching of the New Church, man was originally created in the image and likeness of God. His understanding was created to be an image and so a finite receptacle of the Divine Wisdom, and his will to be a likeness and hence a finite receptacle of the Divine Love; and from the union of these two (love and ​wisdom or good and truth) in his mind, there proceeded from him a sphere of beneficent life and action, imaging in a finite degree the Divine Proceeding, or the sphere of the Divine Beneficence. Man did not then receive truth separate or disjoined from its corresponding affection of goodness; but his will was in perfect agreement with his understanding, and his works were therefore all good. Thus he was in a state of spiritual agreement or conjunction with God, uniting in himself each element, and therefore being a finite image, of the Divine Trinity. Accordingly he is represented, in the symbolic language of Scripture, as being originally placed "in the garden of Eden," for his innocent and blissful state is just what such a garden corresponds to or symbolizes. But he did not continue in that blissful state. Through an abuse of the human faculties with which he was gifted, and without which he would not have been man, he gradually came to think his wisdom and goodness his own, and to be puffed up with pride on account of them. And so from loving and worshiping God, he came at last to love and worship himself. From being a true, he came to be a false and inverted, image of the Creator. From his Eden state of supreme love God, he fell into a state of supreme self-love which is infernal—the very opposite of that in which he was originally created. His whole moral nature ​became deranged—diseased from the sole of the foot, even unto the head." Thus he became alienated—spiritually separated and far removed —from his Maker; and therefore he is said, in the symbolic language of Scripture, to have been driven out of the Garden wherein his Creator originally placed him.
But God was not angry with man for this, neither did He forsake him. On the contrary, He pursued him with infinite love and compassion. He came into the ultimates of nature; became Himself a man; assumed our frail and fallen nature with all its evil tendencies and corrupt inclinations; and this, in order that He might overcome these inclinations, restore the order that man himself had disturbed, and bring him back into his original state of blissful conjunction with Himself; for in this state only could man find peace and rest. And this great work He accomplished by means of successive combats with and victories over the evil spirits that infested humanity. These combats and victories took place in the humanity that He assumed, and could not have taken place out of it, nor without its assumption. Hence the necessity of the Divine Incarnation. And by the same acts which were his temptations, the last of which was the passion of the cross, He united, in his assumed humanity, Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, and so made that humanity itself Divine. ​That is, He glorified the humanity; or, in other words, exalted it to a perfect union with the Divinity that was in Him from conception.
While in the flesh, our Lord had both a human and a divine nature, just as every man has an external and an internal, or what is sometimes called a lower and a higher nature. As to the external human which He derived from the mother. He was frail, finite, prone to evil, and therefore liable to temptation like any other man; but as to his internal, He was Jehovah God—infinite, perfect, divine, incapable of being tempted. By his own divine power, He gradually overcame the evil appertaining to his assumed humanity; completely eradicated all its selfish and evil proclivities; conquered all the hells; put off all that was frail and finite, and brought down into every region of that humanity his own Divine Love and Wisdom, and so brought it at-one with the essential and indwelling Divinity.
This is what is understood in the New Church by the Atonement, or At-one-ment (as the word was originally syllabled and pronounced)—a bringing at-one of the human and the Divine, or as the Apostle says, "making in Himself, of twain, one new man." And the purpose of this At-one-ment was, that the Lord might ever after be able to bring our external or natural at-one with our internal or spiritual man—goodness at-one with ​truth in our minds—and so bring us into complete spiritual union or at-one-ment with Himself. When this is effected we are reconciled to God; no longer alienated, but at-one with Him. Hence we read "that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself."
We know that the Saviour when on earth endured temptations; for these are often referred to in the New Testament. But how could He have been tempted, unless there had been in Him some propensity to evil? Absolute Divinity cannot be tempted. And that there was some such evil proclivity in Him, is plain from his own declaration: "And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth"—language which shows that there was something in Him that needed to be sanctified.
But although the Lord as to his maternal humanity, was full of hereditary tendencies to evil like other men, yet He never ultimated any of those tendencies; He never made the evil his own by actual life. Herein He was different from all other men. Therefore He knew no sin for sin consists, not in having inclinations to evil, but in acting from them, and so making them our own. This agrees with the teaching of the Apostle, who says: "He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."
Its Importance Practically Viewed.
From this brief explanation of the New Church doctrine of At-one-ment, the reader cannot fail to see that, while it accords with the teachings of both reason and Scripture, it is at the same time a doctrine of the highest practical moment. For as man was originally created in the image of God, so he must now be re-created after the image of Christ's glorification. Hence we are required to "follow Him in the regeneration." He is "the way;" and before we can follow Him, we need to know the way. There must be a descent or birth of truth in our minds corresponding to the Lord's birth into the natural world: For He came as the Divine Truth. "The Word was made flesh." And we must then endure temptations as He did; for He says to his followers: "Ye are they who have continued with me in my temptations; and I appoint unto you a kingdom," etc. (Luke xxii. 28.) By means of truth from the Word, which is "the sword of the Spirit," we must fight against and overcome the evils of our natural man, as He fought against and overcame the evils of his maternal humanity; for He says: "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne." (Rev. iii. 21) Thus we ​are sanctified "through the truth" as He was. And this is what is meant by being washed, cleansed, redeemed, and saved by the blood of Christ; for by His blood, in the spiritual sense, is meant the divine truth of the Word. This is that "blood of the new covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins"—"the blood of Christ that cleanseth from all sin."
When thus we take up our cross and follow the Lord—when we do the truth which we understand by shunning as a sin whatever evil the truth forbids, then truth is brought at-one with goodness in our minds, as the Divine Wisdom was brought at-one with Divine Love in the Lord's assumed humanity. Then our external is brought at-one with our internal, our natural at-one with our spiritual man, our lower at-one with our higher nature, as the Lord's assumed human was brought at-one with the Divine. And so, as the Apostle says, we "receive the at-one-ment through our Lord Jesus Christ." That is, we receive that pure and unselfish love which is forever at-one—forever in marriage union—with the divine truth; and thus our hearts are brought at-one with the only Lord and Saviour.
We thus see that the doctrine of the At-one-ment, as held and taught in the New Church, is one of high practical moment. It involves the entire doctrine of man's regeneration.