ing terrible things, flashed it forth for victory?" It may be objected that the voluntary surrender of life is not obedience, but suicide. It is a sufficient answer to cite the words of Jesus: "This commandment have I received of my Father, that I should lay down my life for the sheep." His dying was his own act of obedience.

Just here the fact should be emphasized, that obedience unto death is absolutely impossible for every one, save this man Jesus. Obedience is essentially voluntary; but the condemned criminal has no option in the matter; his life is wrested from him. Only the sinless man could say, "No one taketh my life from me." For the sinner, therefore, salvation by works is impossible.

It is important that we turn now to a somewhat closer examination of Christ's work as to its merit. 1st. The Father said of Jesus, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Why the Father was well pleased with him, Jesus himself explains: "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I do always those things that please him." Jesus was obedient in all things, even unto death. What was it in the death of Jesus that pleased the Father? Certainly not as suffering did his death please the Father; for he taketh no pleasure in the death of the sinner even. Jehovah does not love blood and suffering. He is not sanguinary. There is nothing in the Bible to justify the idea that the Father found pleasure in the Christ's agony on the cross. It is true Jesus said, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life for the sheep." The Father found pleasure in Jesus, not that he was glad to see him suffer, but because of the merciful purpose to accomplish which he consented to suffer. "Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? He has showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" The Father was pleased, not with the sufferings of Jesus, but that he should consent to suffer in mercy to others. What, then, was the virtue in Christ's death that was meritorious of blessings for others? Simply that obedience which satisfied all demands of law and justice. The sole merit of Christ's death was its obedi

ence. Its sacrificial value is obedience. "If Christ be not risen ye are yet in your sins." But why is he risen? Because he was obedient. The merit we share who are risen together with him is his righteousness. 2d. This obedience was owed by Jesus, for the doing of that which is not required is not obedience. Inasmuch as unto death he was obedient, it is clear that death was required of him. But how could death, the penalty of sin, be required of a sinless man? That were an injustice; and yet the Scriptures say that though he knew no sin, he was made sin for us. Our sins were imputed to him-laid upon him-in the sense that he became liable to the penalty of sin. But how in justice? To condemn the just is an abomination in the eyes of Jehovah, say the Scriptures. Birth is the explanation. Being born of a woman, made partaker of flesh and blood, he has fellowship with us not only in our humanity, but in all our relations to the law.

Says Dr. A. A. Hodge in his Atonement: "The apostle declares that the principles upon which sin and misery came upon the race through Adam are identical with those upon which righteousness and blessedness came upon the elect through Christ." This is certainly true. We have fellowship by birth with Adam in his nature and death; we have fellowship by birth with Jesus in his nature and life.

With these reflections let us come back to the question, How can the success of Jesus profit others? How can God justly treat the unrighteous with all the favor and honor he bestows upon the righteous Jesus?

Let us see what some others say in answer to this question. Say some, the merits of Christ Jesus have justified the Father in requiring less of man than perfect obedience. His blood wipes out all their sins, and the residuum of sincere obedience is accepted in lieu of perfect righteousness. This theory does not explain how the blood of Jesus wipes out sin. We have seen. that the merit of Christ's sacrifice was his obedience unto death. How the obedience of Jesus secures favor for any besides himself is the very problem to be solved. And, again, that the obedience of one man can charm God into greater tolerance of sin is a theory which is self-contradictory and violative of morals,

common sense, and Scripture. So pleased with perfect righteousness, that he will henceforth be equally pleased with imperfection! Surely this theory need not be seriously considered for a

moment.

The commonly received opinion is, that the believer is entitled to the same reward Christ earned through his obedience simply because God has promised it to them who accept it by faith. It is, of course, a righteous thing in God to perform his promises, but this solution only removes the difficulty a step further back. How could God justly require less of one than another? How could he righteously give to others, merely because of their faith, that reward which Jesus earned by perfect obedience? Question seventy-three of the Larger Catechism of the Westminster divines. wisely repudiates the idea that faith deserves salvation: "Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God, not because of those other graces which do always accompany it, or of good works that are the fruits of it; nor as if the grace of faith, or any act thereof, were imputed to him for justification; but only as it is an instrument by which he receiveth and applieth Christ and his righteousness." Faith, then, justifies because it receives Christ's obedience as the ground of eternal life. This is still more explicitly set forth. Question thirty-three of the Shorter Catechism reads: "Justification is an act of God's free grace wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone." Question seventy-two of the Larger Catechism thus defines justifying faith: "Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit of God, whereby he receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness for pardon of sin, and for the acceptance and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation." Most true it is, that faith accepts and God imputes the righteousness of Christ. Christ's obedience is the sole ground of the sinner's salvation. As in consequence of the imputation of our sins to Jesus, he died; so in consequence of the imputation of his obedience to us, we live. But why? The question persistently demands an How can God justly reckon the sinner entitled to the

answer.

reward which Jesus earned? As we have seen, the merit of Christ's obedienee entitled him to reward. This obedience was due from him as the legal condition of his personal exaltation. And yet the symbols of the Presbyterian Church only echo the Scriptures which declare, that by the obedience of one many are made righteous. Our quest is for the righteous ground of the imputation. Certainly it is not to be found in any change of our dispositions towards God whereby we are enabled to accept Christ and his righteousness by faith. If "faith does not justify because of the graces which always accompany it, or of the good works which are the fruit of it. .," much less does it justify because of the dispositions of which itself is the fruit. This change of the disposition, therefore, which, as we have seen by citation from Dabney and Hodge, is commonly called regeneration, is not the righteous ground of Christ's imputation and the sinner's salvation. Regeneration, as defined by Dabney (Syllabus and Notes— Student's Edition, Part I., p. 224) to be "a radical moral change, being not merely a change of purpose of life by volition, but a revolution of the propensities which prompt our purposes,' is certainly not the righteous ground of imputation.

Reference has already been made to the lawful entrance of a son into possession of his father's estate. We have seen, too, that the Scriptures commonly speak of Christians as sons of God and heirs because joint-heirs with Christ. Most unquestionably, if Jesus be only a man, we can find no title to his estate of glory by virtue of the filial relation. We are not the children of Jesus according to the flesh. "He was cut off from the land of the living, and who shall declare his generation?"

Nevertheless, continued the prophet Isaiah, "he shall see his seed." Jesus was not man merely; he was also God. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ. By making us "partakers of the divine nature," by communicating to us his Spirit, we have, in the fellowship of the Spirit, fellowship with the Father and with his Son Christ Jesus. The imputation of Christ's obedience is just, because the believer is one with Christ by being partaker of his Spirit, just as we have seen that the imputation of our sins to Jesus was just, because he became partaker of our flesh and blood.

Dr. Dabney has scriptural warrant for his statement that "it is through his union to Christ that the whole application of redemption is effectuated on the sinner's soul." Fellowship (communion, partnership, zovwva) is the grand doctrine of the Bible.

Now, how did the Son of God take fellowship with us in our human nature? By birth of a woman. Our very word "nature" is derived from the Latin word signifying "born." Fellowship in nature comes of birth. To partake of the nature of anything is the necessary consequence of being born of that thing. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." How may we be one with Christ in his nature? Obviously, by birth. If one be born of the Spirit, and made a partaker of the divine nature, evidently, such a one is born from above. If they who are born of the flesh are born again of the Spirit, evidently, this birth is a new birth, a regeneration. Real regeneration is the righteous ground of the imputation of Christ's obedience, and of a share in his reward. Birth is the solution of the problem. The only righteous ground for treating Christ as a sinner was that he was born of a woman, and had fellowship with us in our human nature and in sin's penalty. The only righteous ground for treating us as saints is that we are born of the Spirit, and so made partakers of the divine nature and of piety's reward. We are justified in consequence of this real regeneration. Union with Christ by the impartation, not of the Spirit's influence, but of the Spirit himself, making our bodies his temples, this is what the Scriptures call regeneration. The word is misapplied when used as a synonym for "effectual calling." Such a use is only figurative. When assigning the processes of the application of redemption their logical order, Calvinistic theologians generally state them thus: (1), Effectual calling (regeneration, figurative); (2), Faith; (3), Justification. The scriptural order is, (1), Effectual calling; (2), Faith; (3), Regeneration (real); and (4), Justification.

It is passing strange that the grand fact which unites the soul to Christ, the fact which justifies God in saving sinners by the imputation of Christ's righteousness, cannot be so much as named among us, because the only word which literally and scripturally and aptly designates it has been misappropriated.