THE KING'S GRACE

This is our third study in the writings of Hugh Martin, that eminent Free Churchman of the nineteenth century. His work on The Atonement: in its relation to the covenant, the priesthood, the intercession of Our Lord was, in the estimation of Principal John Macleod of the Free Church College, 'a most convincing treatment of its theme, the work of a man who felt intensely the power of the doctrine that he taught'.

Martin's aim was not to produce an exhaustive treatment of the doctrine of the atonement, but to clear the ground by discussing the terms on which such a doctrine ought to be built and centered. All branches of the Christian Church acknowledge that the Christian message centres upon the work of Christ, but many different views abound as to the nature of that work. What did Jesus do on the cross?

The subject cannot be confined to the nineteenth century. As recently as last month a correspondent to The Herald posed the question of whether or not the cross was a good thing or a bad thing. Depending on your perspective, it was, of course, both; but the fact that the question is being asked shows the centrality of the issue. For Martin, however, the meaning of Calvary cannot be reduced to a question over the moral status of Christ's crucifixion.

Indeed, Hugh Martin's position on the discussion of the atonement is much needed in these days on which federalism has fallen on tough times. Contemporary Scottish theology is ill-disposed towards the idea of covenant; Tom Torrance, for example, took great pains to try to convince us that the old concept of a covenant injected a strong dose of legalism into the Gospel, which led ultimately to a morbid introspective Calvinism developing in the Highland Church.

But Martin's starting-point is precisely the opposite of this: 'the doctrine of the atonement ought to be discussed and defended as inside the doctrine of the covenant of grace'. The objections to and misrepresentations of federal theology current in Martin's day are no less stringent in our own, and his call to ground the work of the cross in a covenant relationship between the Father and the Son still needs to be heard. 'Christ', taught Martin, 'executes his kingly office by covenant'. Everything in the Gospel is from grace, by grace and through grace. To sever the work of the atonement from the idea of a covenant of grace, through which we may be brought into a real union with God through Christ, is, says Martin, suicidal.

It is precisely on the basis of this covenantal union that we can understand the Pauline notion of imputation. 'Christ bears the sins of many because, in his covenanted identification with these many, their sins are sinlessly and truly his sins. And unto the same 'many sons and daughters' the Father imputes the righteousness of the Son, because, in their covenant oneness with the Son, his righteousness is undeservedly but truly their own righteousness'. Thus Calvary's transaction is one of integrity precisely because it is a covenantal transaction.

But it is an action as well as a transaction; and Martin's second point in The Atonement is that the cross must be understood in relation to the priesthood of Christ. To use Martin's words, it was necessary 'that he should sinlessly, obediently and officially have an active hand in his death'. Christ's agency is necessary. And it is as priest that he officiates at Calvary.

This opens up a fascinating discussion on the official function of Christ as the priest of his people, a discussion rooted in the Old Testament idea of priesthood. There is surely an incidental lesson here. The Christian Gospel cannot ignore the Old Testament. It casts its own light forward onto the cross, even as the cross illuminates much of the Old Testament for us. And part of the light which the Old Testament sheds on Calvary is simply the fact that on the cross Christ is not merely a passive sufferer, but an active agent. Indeed, says Martin, "the evidence and glory of all the offices of Christ are obscured, when his death is represented as what he merely suffered instead of that which he actively achieved'.

The third proposition of The Atonement is that any biblical doctrine of the cross must be grounded in the scriptural idea of intercession. Christ is not simply before us as a priestly Saviour: he is primarily before God. He is our representative. 'The atonement is real -- real sacrifice and offering and not just passive endurance, because it is in its very nature an active and infallible intercession; while on the other hand the intercession is real intercession, judicial, representative and priestly intercession, and not a mere exercise of influence, because it is essentially an atonement'.

Again Martin takes us back to the Old Testament and, in particular, to the twin altars of the tabernacle: an altar of sacrifice and an altar of incense. There, 'the two functions of propitiation and intercession interblend and interpenetrate each other as constituting the indispensable factors of one complete priestly redeeming activity'.

What is Hugh Martin teaching us? Simply that all of our salvation is grounded in the official action of Jesus Christ, and that he holds office as one called by God to be the priest his people need. Any other view evacuates the good news of its objectivity. The Gospel, as someone once said, is altogether outside of me. The good news is not that my life can be changed, but that God sent his Son into the world.

If the Christian church is to make any advancement in the world at all, it can only be by remaining faithful to these foundational truths. My last word can only be to endorse the wish Hugh Martin expresses on the pages of The Atonement: 'May the doctrine of the covenant of grace, of the federal oneness of Christ and his people, long remain enshrined in the heart's core of Scottish piety!'