Required reading
Christ's doctrine of the atonement by George Smeaton (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapter 7.
My summary
Today Smeaton explores the testimonies of Christ which refer to the mode in which the atonement is appropriated and applied.
In particular Smeaton teaches us about the atonement as applied in:
(i) preaching;
(ii) the church (including the sacraments);
(iii) faith.
What grabbed me
I liked Smeaton's correlation between sin and forgiveness: 'And here I may premise, that a right notion of SIN determines the import of forgiveness. Wherever sin is regarded merely as imperfection or disease, not as guilt or the violation of the divine law, a different notion of forgiveness of necessity prevails. Sin in that case is not considered judicially, or in the light of the divine tribunal ; nor is forgiveness. But, according to the biblical idea, sin always stands related to a lawgiver on the one hand, and to a judge on the other; and as God not only threatens positive punishments beyond the mere consequences of actions, considered in their ordinary issues, or according to the natural course of events, but inflicts positive punishment out of love to His perfections, and because He must do so from what He owes to Himself, a wholly different notion of forgiveness must be adopted. When we compare the biblical notion of it as used either in the Old or New Testament, it will be found to involve in every case the idea of deliverance from punishment ; and the notion of deserved punishment for sin is so universally accepted, that it belongs, as the apostle shows, to the beliefs of natural religion, ineradicable from our nature (Rom. i. 32).'
Study your sin and you'll soon see a need for forgiveness.
Next week's reading
Read Chapter 8.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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