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also supported in such recent works as those of Dale, A. Cave, Miley, Creighton, and others. It is
open to the following objections:
1. It clearly rests upon certain false principles. According to it the law is not an expression of the
essential nature of God, but only of His arbitrary will, and is therefore subject to change; and
the aim of the so-called penalty is not to satisfy justice, but only to deter men from future
offenses against the law.
2. While it may be said to contain a true element, namely, that the penalty inflicted on Christ is
also instrumental in securing the interests of the divine government, it makes the mistake of
substituting for the main purpose of the atonement one which can, in the light of Scripture,
only be regarded as a subordinate purpose.
3. It gives an unworthy representation of God. He originally threatens man, in order to deter
him from transgression, and does not execute the threatened sentence, but substitutes
something else for it in the punishment inflicted on Christ. And now He again threatens those
who do not accept Christ. But how is it possible to have any assurance that He will actually carry
out His threat?
4. It is also contrary to Scripture, which certainly represents the atonement of Christ as a
necessary revelation of the righteousness of God, as an execution of the penalty of the law, as a
sacrifice by which God is reconciled to the sinner, and as the meritorious cause of the salvation
of sinners.
5. Like the moral influence and the example theories, it also fails to explain how the Old
Testament saints were saved. If the punishment inflicted on Christ was merely for the purpose
of deterring men from sin, it had no retroactive significance. How then were people saved
under the old dispensation; and how was the moral government of God maintained at that
time?
6. Finally, this theory, too, fails on its own principle. A real execution of the penalty might make
a profound impression on the sinner, and might act as a real deterrent, if man’s sinning or not
sinning were, even in his natural state, merely contingent on the human will, which it is not; but
such an impression would hardly be made by a mere sham exhibition of justice, designed to
show God’s high regard for the law.
F. THE MYSTICAL THEORY.
The mystical theory has this in common with the moral influence theory, that it conceives of
the atonement exclusively as exercising influence on man and bringing about a change in him.