Much is written on the cross and on the doctrine of the atonement today, and there are some fine books around (amongst the dull and the downright heretical). I’m never short of book recommendations on these great themes. But if I had to recommend just one to anyone who was seriously interested in understanding and living close to the cross, I wouldn’t hesitate. It would be Hugh Martin’s The Atonement (1880).
The brilliance of Martin’s book is its clear and compelling logic, as well as the freshness of his approach in dealing with the Atonement. The main premise of the book is that, in order to have a biblical understanding of the atoning work of Christ, we need to understand that the primary office of Christ is His Priesthood. Jesus was never a great Prophet or King, who also was able to deal with sin and bring reconciliation between God and humanity; instead, He is foremost our Priest, and, in fact, it is only by virtue of His finished work as Priest that Christ is our Prophet, authorised to speak the Word of God to us, and enthroned in Heaven to be our King.
Having made this case, Martin is then able to assert how we should then seek to understand the cross. By working within the categories of biblical thought regarding priestly sacrifice, Martin then reasons that Christ’s death on the Cross is a substitutionary and propitiatory sacrifice offered for the sins of His people. In our day of conflicting and confused ‘versions’ of understanding the Cross, Martin shows how seeing the death of Christ in any way other than as an atoning sacrifice is bad, and unbiblical, theology.
The following gives something of the flavour and force of Martin’s work. It really is theology on fire, biblical, deductive, soul-searching and worshipful:
‘The Cross itself is glorious; not from the subsequent resurrection and enthronement, but glorious from itself. It is itself a chariot of triumph. There is more agency and power in Christ’s cross, than in all His work as Creator of the Universe. There is as much spiritual gory in the Cross of Calvary, as in the throne of the Lamb in heaven. Christ crucified is – not after, but in being crucified – the Power of God. And He is the power of God, because He is the Priest of God. It is His priestly duty to die – a duty unparalleled and unapproachable. He falters not in the discharge of it. Official agency is in His sacrificial priestly death. “He offered Himself.” “He loved the Church, and gave Himself for it.”’
Hugh Martin, The Atonement, p.75
Interesting. I tend to think that all three of Christ's offices as equal, since they are all necessary for something. That being said, I think that in Scripture the most dominant portrait we have of Jesus is that of a King (I think guys like Bavinck and Ridderbos do a good job at demonstrating this).
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