II. If the redemptive work of Christ satisfies these conditions it is evident that it is not a simple, but a very complex fact. The fault of many of the theories of the Atonement has been that, though none of them failed to be partially true, they were limited to one or other of the various aspects which that mysterious fact presents. It is certain, again, that of this complex fact no adequate explanation can be given. At every stage in the process which is generally summed up in the one word Atonement we are in presence of forces which issue from infinity and pass out of our sight even while we are contemplating their effects. And even if the Atonement could be altogether reduced, so to speak, to terms of human experience, it will be shewn that man's forgiveness, the nearest analogy of which we have any knowledge, is an experience of which no logical explanation can be given, which seems to share, indeed, something of the mystery of its Divine antitype. But though it is almost blasphemous to pretend to fathom the depth of the Atonement, to lay out the whole truth so as to satisfy the formulae of human reason, it is necessary so to understand it as to discern its response to the imperative demands of the sense of sin and the desire for forgiveness. Whatever the ultimate mysteries of the death of Christ may be, it is certain that it has had power to convince men of forgiveness and to give them a new life. It must therefore in some way satisfy the conditions which, as we have seen, are laid down by human consciousness and experience. It is under the threefold aspect required by those conditions that the doctrine of the Atonement will be here presented. 1. The death of Christ is, in the first place, to be regarded as propitiatory. On the one hand there is man's desire, natural and almost instinctive, to make expiation for his guilt: on the other there is the tremendous fact of the wrath of God against sin. The death of Christ is the expiation for those past sins which have laid the burden of guilt upon the human soul, and it is also the propitiation of the wrath of God. As we have seen, over against the sense of sin and of liability to the Divine wrath there has always existed the idea of sacrifice by which that wrath might be averted. Man could not offer an acceptable sacrifice: it has been offered for him by Christ. That is the simplest, and it would seem the most scriptural way of stating the central truth, which is also the deepest mystery, of the Atonement, and it seems to sum up and include the various other metaphors and descriptions of the redemptive work of Christ. But its mere statement at once suggests questions, the consideration of which will lead to a fuller understanding of the doctrine. Thus we have to ask. What is it which is propitiated by Christ's death? In other words, What is meant by the wrath of God against sin?