This was the doctrine of the atonement that was preached
during the early centuries of the Christian Church, at least in certain
parts of Europe.
But later there came another doctrine, the belief that the sufferings
of the Christ were a substitute offered to God for what would have been
the sufferings of the lost. He was made sin for us, he who had known no
sin, as the New Testament phraseology has it. So that he, being
infinite, in a brief space of time during his little earthly career,
during his suspension on the cross and his descent into hell, was able
to suffer as much pain as all the lost would have suffered throughout
eternity. And this suffering of the Christ was supposed to be accepted
on the part of God as the substitute for that which he would have
exacted on the part of the souls of those that for his sake were to be
saved.
There is still another theory that I must mention briefly, that which
is called the governmental theory, that which I was taught during my
course of theological instruction. The idea was that God had a moral
government to maintain, not only on this earth, but throughout the
range of the universe among all his intelligent creatures, and, if he
permitted his laws to be broken without exacting an adequate penalty,
then all governmental authority would be overthrown. In other words,
men took their poor human legal devices, their political ideals, and
lifted them into the heavens, made them the models after which it was
supposed God was to govern his great, intelligent universe.
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